this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
35 points (66.1% liked)

Memes

45399 readers
944 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml
sexy_peach@feddit.de
cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
cypherpunks@lemmy.ml
35
reactors are scary.jpg (imgflip.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Clarke311@lemmy.world to c/memes@lemmy.ml
45 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nrc-certifies-first-us-small-modular-reactor-design#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Nuclear%20Regulatory%20Commission,use%20in%20the%20United%20States.

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

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] psud@lemmy.world -4 points 1 year ago (7 children)

The biggest, best argument against nuclear energy is the limited fuel supply.

If the world replaced base load power with nuclear (as a nuclear plus solar plus wind energy mix) we would only have enough uranium for something like 50 years

The waste storage problem isn't worth it for so little time, but OTOH we need to solve the storage problem anyway, and 50 years of CO2 clean power would be useful for aiding decarbonising the energy supply

[–] Cleverdawny@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

  1. spent fuel can be recycled and it isn't a terrible complex process to do so

  2. even if we didn't recycle spent fuel there's far more than 50 years worth left on land

  3. even if we ran out of land sources spent fuel there's 4.5 billion tons of uranium dissolved in the ocean

[–] psud@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  1. Doesn't that require breeder reactors? They're a nuclear proliferation risk, so can't really be allowed in untrusted countries
  2. I think the 50 year number excludes resources that are unavailable, for example an enormous uranium deposit in Australia, which cannot be extracted because the indigenous owners of the land have traditions about the area which make it untouchable
  3. Extracting elements from sea water is stupidly expensive
[–] nukeworker10@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
  1. No, not breeders, but reprocessing. There is still a lot of usable fuel left in an "expended" fuel cell, just not in enough concentration.
[–] Clarke311@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

If I remember correctly non-viable fuel ratio is anything under 95% pure.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)