areyouevenreal

No you didn't. 28% percent of 1 gigawatt is 280 megawatts. I was incorrect to say 1%, but you didn't exactly get it right either. 106 megawatts (or 105,566,992 watts as you put it, which is weirdly specific) is closer to 10%. I beg you check both your sources and your maths in future before you reply to someone.

I was trying to be reasonable with you. It seems you're not actually capable of that if this is how you want to respond.

uranium shortage

Fyi I had a quick look and all I can see is sources saying we need to build more uranium mines by 2030 to meet demand. Nothing about the earth running out.

This is a distraction. This whole conversation started talking about you not identifying as human, and me pointing out that human is just a biological category. To believe otherwise is to buy into propaganda written by humans directed and directed at other humans who's behavior they want to influence in some way. You still haven't actually countered this argument.

Though I will say you seem to be confusing natural selection, individual or group desires, and morality with each other. You need to get you're head straight on what the differences are before you start making arguments about morality. I would argue that objective morality doesn't exist. You're kind of right about how subjective morality came to be, but you might want to work on the details. Plenty of animals even on earth sacrifice themselves for their children, as the aim in natural selection isn't survival or the individual but survival of the genes. People have used this lens to explain things like racism and genocide as preserving people with similar genes to yourself, but I would have no idea if that is actually the case as I am not an evolutionary biologist.

I mean, you could Google "uranium shortage" and find what you need very quickly. Again, I'm not spending my evening teaching you and providing you with sources that you're unable to refute in any way, despite your best efforts. I'm sure you've convinced yourself that anyone who doesn't do that for you must be wrong but thats just not how the world works.

Yeah there will eventually be a shortage of U-235. I fully admit that. There isn't and won't be a shortage of either Th-232 or U-238 for over 100 years at least. By then we will probably have found something else. That's just thinking about nuclear fission as well. To me nuclear fission is about filling in the gaps that renewables can't cover until we work out energy storage, nuclear fusion, neutrinovoltaics, or something entirely new. Nuclear fission is one of the best power sources we have today, but I don't expect that to always be the case.

Nuclear fusion uses completely different fuels (no uranium, plutonium, or thorium) that have their own sourcing considerations. Getting fuel sources for fusion might legitimately be a problem, but we don't know that yet as we haven't picked which kinds of fusion fuel we are going to use yet. Current experiments involve things like tritium which have to be made artificially from other isotopes like deuterium using particle accelerators or nuclear reactors. This is used at the moment because it's the easiest to do fusion with. There are other options though, and eventually we might work out how to do fusion with ordinary hydrogen (protium/H1). Since hydrogen (specifically protium/H1) is the most abundant material or isotope in the Universe and is found in everyday water that's obviously the best option if we can build a reactor to use it.

I've already told you how there isn't enough of the materials we need to make sufficient numbers of solar panels or wind turbines, let alone figure out a way to store the energy for when we need it later.

Why use solar panels? You can use concentrated solar power that doesn't rely on photovoltaics. You instead use mirrors to heat up water or salt, that then drives a turbine or a thermochemical reaction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power

Also what materials are we running out of for solar panels? From what I have seen there are multiple ways to make solar panels using different materials, some more efficient than others. Most of them seem to be made from a mixture of silicon, glass, and metal. All of which are fairly abundant material, and at least some of which can be recycled.

Wind turbines are essentially glorified windmills with an electric generator hooked up. They can be made from any number of materials. Thus includes wood for the part that catches the wind. Likewise the generator portion can be made from any number of metals so long as they can be turned into wires. Steel and aluminum aren't as good as copper for sure, but they still work in a pinch. There are already multiple designs in use throughout the world and at different scales. They are built the way they are now because it gives the best return on investment. That's just how capitalism works, for better or for worse. It's not hard to imagine a world where we use something else because we ran out of the cheapest available material and it's cheaper to use something different than to recycle it.

You also conveniently forget that recycling is a thing. In physics matter and energy is conserved. You can convert matter into energy and back again too. Even when you burn something like a fossil fuel it doesn't just disappear, it becomes things like carbon dioxide or water as I am sure you know. With enough time and energy you can turn that carbon dioxide back into coal or diesel or whatever is you started with, or into something else entirely. The only things you can truly run out of is lack of entropy. Entropy can only increase, so matter in a low entropy state is always at a premium.

I've already told you how there isn't enough of the materials we need to make sufficient numbers of solar panels or wind turbines, let alone figure out a way to store the energy for when we need it later.

Storage is indeed a problem I will give you that. Part of the solution to this is new technologies like sodium ion batteries that are gaining traction at the moment. Some of it will come from closing down factories when power is low, and starting them back up when there is a surplus.

Degrowth isn't even a complete solution either. While I strongly disagree that the economy can grow to infinity like some economists believe, I also don't think it can shrink forever too. There needs to be give and take. I believe the economy should grow and shrink in accordance with people's needs and the available resources. To me the extreme pro growth and degrowth movements are both extremists.

Yeah, I stopped reading at the lazy recycled rhetoric.

You mean like the rhetoric you have been using this entire time?

As you love sources to much, provide a source showing that our energy consumption can increase perpetually

Or is that not how things work?

That's not what I am saying. Go and read up on what fertile and fissile are. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertile_material

You can convert a fertile material to a fissile material, then fission that to produce energy. The energy though was already in the fertile material to begin with plus a little bit from the neutrons you added. Eventually you will run out of fertile material, but that's a long way away. For example's sake you would might start with Th-232 which is fertile, add a neutron to get U-233, then fission U-233 to get energy plus some smaller elements called fission products. All of this is nuclear engineering 101. I am not a nuclear physicist and even I understand this.

You can't call everything you don't understand or don't know about made up. It would actually be funny if it wasn't so depressing. The lack of scientific literacy some people have, and the unwillingness to learn you and others demonstrate is truly sad. It wouldn't even be so bad if you were willing to admit you don't know and just walk away. I can understand and respect not caring about nuclear enough to actually research it so long as you are willing to admit that. Instead you are sat there arguing about basic principles of nuclear physics and engineering, the kind of things I learned in sixth form, and calling me a liar just because I know more than you do.

Sources aren't necessarily for widely accepted facts. You just don't like what you're hearing and want to sealion it away.

It's not a widely accepted fact at all. Ask three different scientists and you will get three different anwsers.

It isn't sealioning when I provide sources and you don't.

Don't worry, its clear that you've been making things up the whole time. I'm happy to provide sources for serious people, having serious conversations. Not you and your jokes.

Where have I done that? I am the one coming at you with actual sources and reading material. You have no proof. They say every accusation is a confession, and that's exactly what this is.

You provided one source that fast breeder reactors were built in the former soviet union. Had you been refuting me saying "no other fuel can ever be used" it might have been a useful link. However, I didn't. So, it wasn't useful.

Actually I did. Twice no less. I gave you the Thorium fuel cycle, where you make your own Uranium from Thorium. I also gave the fuel cycle using U-238, which is a different isotope to the U-235 used by current reactors.

I am out right now but I can point you to more sources and better explanations of fuel cycles than mine feel free to ask. Honestly though I think you would just ignore them anyway. If you want to find them yourself look at the molten salt reactor experiments, progress made on LFTR reactors, or the third shipping port reactor in the USA. Those are all experimental I will admit, which is why I pointed to the Soviet and Russian reactors first that produce and use Plutonium, as those are less experimental.

Note I am not talking about fusion reactor technology, as while that's very promising it isn't even close to being implemented. If that does become viable at some point then all of this becomes irrelevant anyway, as fusion is likely to be the best available power source at that point.

Reactors don't produce or create energy. They release it. Are you trying to tell me that you literally can't understand a scenario where the energy cost of refining and or gathering something could be more than what is eventually released?

Okay so maybe my wording is a little off I will give you that. You are correct that energy is neither created nor destroyed.

Youre saying they don't use uranium or are you trying to move the goal posts again?

Nope not at all. Do you understand what an isotope is? The vast majority of Uranium on earth is U-238. Ordinary reactors mainly use U-235 with less usage of U-238. If you look at the composition of "spent" fuel you would see most of it is unreacted Uranium. Likewise the depleted uranium produced in manufacturing new reactor fuel can also be used by turning it into Plutonium.

Normally when people talk about running out of Uranium they are talking about U-235. Since you have provided no source I can only presume this is what you mean. If you could link your source we could actually talk about it.

You might want to actually read up on closing the fuel cycle, this is where you reuse previously used fuel. One of the reactors I am talking about uses plutonium as part of it's fuel source. Plutonium can only have come from other reactors, meaning it's reusing either material from nuclear weapons that was originally produced in military reactors, or from waste produced by other civilian power reactors. It's called a breeder reactor because it produces more fissile material than it actually burns. This fissile material comes from converting fertile U-238 into fissile Plutonium. All of this stuff is a google search away.

Here are some places you can start learning about this stuff:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactor-grade_plutonium

This is again without getting into the Thorium fuel cycle which involves converting Thorium-232 into Uranium-233. This has been done before in the USA but only on a small scale. If this could be scaled up you could make your own Uranium without mining it. It would require some U-235 to start with but would become self-sustaining in a couple of years. You can read about it here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle

Oh, I see, mining the moon is a solution for when we've already fixed the problem. No wonder it was so confusing

I am talking about plans for expansion once the global warming situation is resolved. I probably should have stated this more clearly which is my fault. I apologize for causing confusion.

Also pretending Nuclear is the only option is even more funny. Solar and wind are the cheaper energy sources. There are plenty of other options too like geothermal, tidal, hydro, and so on.

Honestly man just take the loss and actually read up on stuff next time. It's great for your education to actually learn how science and technology works, instead of grasping at straws. You've painted yourself into a corner where regardless of whether you are correct or not you don't actually understand enough to defend your arguments. You aren't informed enough to determine if things like degrowth are actually necessary or not. Heck I am not informed enough to make those decisions either, and I understand this stuff better than you do, especially the basics of nuclear fuel cycles. Ultimately this comes down to engineering and scientific considerations, and frankly you don't strike me as an engineer. While I am a scientist this isn't my area either, and I shouldn't be called on to make policy decisions in this area.

I had no idea you were Buddhist. Yeah I don't respect epistemological claims of any religion without evidence and neither should you. I am not going to treat Buddhism any better than Christianity just because they got a few things right regarding mediation. There are two things you should always remember: What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Edit: the fact you thought you had me cornered there is hilarious. The "you don't respect my beliefs" card doesn't work when making unscientific claims, or just in general when talking to a rational person.

You can declare it to be thus and such all you like. I keel telling you, we will run out of what we know exists now within 80 or 90 years, at current usage.

What do keels have to do with nuclear power? Unless we are talking about submarines?

You just don’t like it and that’s not the same as it not being true.

No it isn't true. For a start you are focusing only on concentrated diposits. There is enough uranium to last humanity in sea water for 100 years, it's just hard to get at. You're also completely ignoring U-238, and Thorium. You haven't even provided a source once. Since apparently sources aren't necessary I might as well tell you that there is enough uranium in you're house to power the entire world for a billion years and that you need to stop hoarding it. See I can make up things too.

I keep telling you, the energy cost of doing it makes it non viable, as any kind of meaningful solution but you keep repeating it all the same.

What energy cost? Reactors produce energy on average, not remove it. That's as true for the fast breeder reactors I sourced as it is for conventional nuclear reactors. Do you actually have any evidence for any of this bullshit?

Humanity currently uses 17.5 terrawatts of power daily.

This makes zero sense. Do you mean terrawatt hour daily, or do you mean terrawatts averaged over a day? Terrawatts are a measure or power, not energy. Watts are joules per second. You can say you average a certain power in watts over a day.

Anyway since you can't be trusted with basic physics apparently I am going to work it out myself.

We generate around 180,000 TWh per year according to our world in data. That's about 493 TWh per day if we assume 365 days a year. That's the same as 1774800 terrajoules per day. Since we are looking for joules per second (watts), we can then divide by the number of seconds in a day, which is 86400 seconds. This gives us 1774800/86400 = 20 TW. So you somehow got close to the right anwser without actually understanding the units involved.

The part where you are actually way off the mark is the 1 billion watt figure. According to MIT the sun actually gives us 173,000 TW continuously, or 173 PW (pettawatts). So 20 TW is tiny in comparison. Obviously I don't expect us to capture all of that, but we are talking about things that aren't even in the same units, nevermind order of magnitude. How you managed to get this so utterly wrong I have no idea. Just looking at it I can tell that number isn't right, as China are planning to have 1200GW of solar capacity (that's 1200 billion watts) by the end of 2024 according to The Guardian.

Solar power towers are reported between 12% and 25% efficient at demonstration scales according to wikipedia. Yet you are claiming just above 1% efficiency. This dosen't sound like a great deal, but if you look into it photovoltaics aren't doing that much better. It turns out that current commerical products only offer around 21.5% according to this wikipedia article. This varies a lot depending on how old the panel is (they degrade), how it was built, what proportion is shaded, if it moves to track the sun and so on. Both of these technologies have room for improvement. Panel efficiency can vary anywhere from up to 40.6% down to as low as 8.2% wikipedia.

Edit: You have made youself an example of why we need more scientific and numerical literacy. How you got numbers so hilariously wrong is truly beyond me.

You don't need photovoltaics to use solar power. Never heard of the solar power tower? Or the ones using molten salt for heat storage?