AdamB wrote:Doly wrote:So the leaders shouting the most about climate change are the ones keeping us from doing anything practical about it.
It's true that nuclear needs to be part of the mix, but don't forget that nuclear fuel isn't renewable, either. It's a stopgap measure.
Hubbert's estimate of stopgap, for those unfamiliar with his important quantification on this topic.
evilgenius wrote:AdamB wrote:Hubbert's estimate of stopgap, for those unfamiliar with his important quantification on this topic.
Yeah, because there is enough uranium in the oceans, which can be extracted, to keep us going for a long time.
evilgenius wrote:Fission produces too much waste, which we then have to deal with in a certain amount of time. That waste, further, means that every nuke plant built has to maintain some sort of political certainty about its environment that people don't seem to demonstrate they are all that capable of.
evilgenius wrote:AdamB wrote:Doly wrote:So the leaders shouting the most about climate change are the ones keeping us from doing anything practical about it.
It's true that nuclear needs to be part of the mix, but don't forget that nuclear fuel isn't renewable, either. It's a stopgap measure.
Hubbert's estimate of stopgap, for those unfamiliar with his important quantification on this topic.
Yeah, because there is enough uranium in the oceans, which can be extracted, to keep us going for a long time.
My worry, though, is over how people will take that stopgap, and make it permanent. If it was fusion, I would be happier.
Fission produces too much waste, which we then have to deal with in a certain amount of time. That waste, further, means that every nuke plant built has to maintain some sort of political certainty about its environment that people don't seem to demonstrate they are all that capable of.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Tanada wrote:Nuclear fission produces waste, absolutely and without a doubt. However the average person has no concept at all how small that volume is in real world terms compared to alternative choices.
Plantagenet wrote:Now Joe is all gung ho on fossil fuels now....... Thanks to Joe Biden's latest flip-flop, drilling on federal lands has now re-started.
Cheers!
jedrider wrote:About Yucca mountain, that it would be a good repository for US nuclear waste, but why no action?
jedrider wrote: Still, what do other countries plan to do with their nuclear waste?
jedrider wrote:About Yucca mountain, that it would be a good repository for US nuclear waste, but why no action? Because of our deadlocked politics, of course. Full speed ahead, I guess. A rational decision does not seem possible unless someone gives up something in return. Still, what do other countries plan to do with their nuclear waste? Maybe the same, that no one wants to pay in advance for any future benefit, no?
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
jedrider wrote:About Yucca mountain, that it would be a good repository for US nuclear waste, but why no action? Because of our deadlocked politics, of course.
theluckycountry wrote:jedrider wrote:About Yucca mountain, that it would be a good repository for US nuclear waste, but why no action? Because of our deadlocked politics, of course.
Anywhere is a good place, but if you are worried about leaks, why not at Chernobyl or a facility at Fukushima. You couldn't make those sites any more dangerous could you. The only reason they ignore those obvious sites is because they don't want to draw attention to them, leave them swept under the carpet so to speak.
Australia's CSIRO estimates SMR power costs at A$258-338 MWh, a consumer here pays around $230 MWh at their door, except in South Australia, the state that went "Green", there they pay around $400/MWh
As far as nuclear is concerned the real issue is cost, they simply cost too much.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/small-nucle ... uge-costs/
In the dawn of the nuclear era, cost was expected to be one of the technology's advantages, not one of its drawbacks. The first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss, predicted in a 1954 speech that nuclear power would someday make electricity “too cheap to meter.”
A half century later, we have learned that nuclear power is, instead, too expensive to finance.
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/nuclear-power-cost
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Tanada wrote:Not to side track this thread any further but the "high cost of nuclear" is at least half an illusion cast by cherry picking short time cycles... However when you amortize that cost figuring in the very inexpensive fuel compared to fossil energy over a 60 year lifespan for the plant and equipment the cost differential is clearly favorable to the Fission energy option. Even over a 30 year timespan...
theluckycountry wrote:Personally I think most of the big grids will be gone in 60 years, it seems obvious to me that locally generated power will be the model, people with money having power and people without, going without. Back in the days of slavery in the South all the big plantation owners' homes would have been brightly lit by candles and oil lamps but I doubt the slave quarters had but one candle.
I wouldn't count on the Grid being functional in 30 years, I'm not.
theluckycountry wrote:Oil exploration is all but unprofitable....
theluckycountry wrote:.... no one is building new refineries and here in Oz they are closing them all down, why?
theluckycountry wrote:Because the companies see no future in oil obviously, at least no 40~60 year future as they did when they built it all back in the 20th century.
The newest refinery in the United States is the Targa Resources Corporation's 35,000 barrels per calendar day (b/cd) condensate splitter in Channelview, Texas, which began operating in 2019. Condensate splitters are distillation units that process condensate, which is lighter than crude oil.
www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=29&t=6
vtsnowedin wrote:Exxon made a profit of $5.12 per share last year. With 4,225,673,726 shares outstanding that is a tidy little profit.
yellowcanoe wrote: @Tanada
We are definitely going backwards here in Ontario, Canada. Electric power in the early days was provided by a number of private sector companies which meant that only people living near an electrical provider could get power. It was a Conservative politician, Adam Beck, that proposed buying out the private companies and creating a single public owned company to provide power to all at cost.
vtsnowedin wrote:Exxon made a profit of $5.12 per share last year. With 4,225,673,726 shares outstanding that is a tidy little profit.
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