tf wrote that title… nuclear is defacto renewable
It’s a little bit complicated and I don’t want to write a wall of text but: Waste fuel can be recycled, if your reactor has a breeding ratio higher than 1 then it has net positive production of fissile materials. Potentially all uranium and thorium of the planet could be used.
The argument being, if you consider the word “renewable” in the strictest sense, no energy source is renewable, entropy can only increases: solar depends by the sun burning a finire amount of hydrogen, geothermy depends by earth inner heat which is a finire amount ecc.ecc. The common usage of renewable is along the line of “immensely big proportional to human consumption” and in this sense there’s a strong argument to consider nuclear renewable.
Unfortunately most reactors are not breeders and we are trying our best to lock the waste away forever which ruins any chance of recovery when we finally do migrate to breeder cycles. I like to compare our current reactors to burning just the bark off of logs and then tossing the rest in a smoldering heap, with 95-99% of the energy still retained in the waste.
Breeder reactors would indeed extend the long term viability of nuclear fission immensely, we should be using them exclusively.
Calling an LWR renewable because somebody somewhere might run a closed fuel cycle eventually is like calling oil renewable because you can make hydrocarbons by electrolyzing CO2 and water.
It’s and absurd and ridiculous lie.
No, it’s zero emission but not renewable.
Nuclear fission is actually by definition the least renewable energy source. Even coal and oil are renewable on long enough time scales. But there will never be more uranium than there is right now.
We actually don’t have that much of it if we consider the long term future, only a thousand years or so. So nuclear is intended to be a bridge to eventual full renewable power generation and storage, an essential component in the present day but it’s still a bridge.
Another thing to consider is that nuclear is the only power source that works in deep space away from the Sun. So if we’re serious about exploring the solar system or further, we’d be best not to burn up all of our fissionable material right away.
Nuclear fission is actually by definition the least renewable energy source
But if you go according the strict physical principle every energy source is non-renewable
The sun fuses a finire amount of hydrogen, earth has a finire amount of latent heat, the moon a finire amount of gravitational inertia etc.
And there’s a little paradox if you think about it, how can fusion be non-renewable but solar, that use radiation from the sun fusion, be renewable?
A bit of a stretch maybe, but I’m considering us to be discussing whether an energy source is renewable on Earth. The Sun is not renewable, but by the time that it’s no longer viable the Earth will be long gone as well! So as long as the Earth exists, I would say that solar PV and other solar driven processes like wind and hydro are renewable.
By these standards yes, deep geothermal and tidal are “not renewable” either.
Coal exist in the earth because back then the bacteria who could break down lignin and cellulose hadn’t evolved, so dead trees had the time they needed to compress. There are such bacteria around now, though, and that means there will never be any new natural coal.
I wouldn’t necessarily say never, it could potentially happen that a dead tree ends up in an environment that isn’t conducive to lignin-eating bacteria getting to it, and I would not be at all surprised if it has happened and may continue to happen somewhere in the world since those bacteria evolved, though they would certainly be exceptional cases and almost definitely not happening at any significant scale.
It’s also possible for those bacteria to go extinct one way or another. Again, not very likely. And if it did happen it would probably be due to some absolutely catastrophic disaster absolutely wrecking the Earth’s ecosystem completely in which case we’re probably not going to make it either, but hey, new coal!
The process to produce coal is known for 100 years now. Its just not feasible, because no one needs coal. But its reversible. No one knows how to fuse uranium.
A thousand years is a massive over-estimate. Providing the 6TW or so of final energy with the stuff assumed to exist that’s vaguely accessible for costs that don’t exceed renewables’ total cost is well under a decade.
No breeding program has ever done a full closed cycle and even if it were to happen, the currently proposed technologies only yield about 50 years.
You are probably refering to thorium-based nuclear power plants. Until this day, there isn’t such a power-plant in a production-ready state. Because it’s far from simple, not only because of technical challanges, but also potentially catastrofic environmental impact. I encourge you to read more if you are intrested.
Just because you can use the same fuel twice (or even 3, 10, 100, 1000 times) doesn’t mean it’s renewable. You can’t do that ad infinitum, at a certain point there will simply not be fissile material left in the spent fuel to use, and no more will ever be formed on earth (at least not in any meaningful quantities, I’m sure eventually fusion experiments or something may start spitting out uranium, but by the point we can do that at any meaningful scale we’d clearly have fusion pretty well figured out so fission would be a moot point.) What is here is what we have to work with until we start mining asteroids or what have you.
And on a much bigger timescale (and I’m talking the absolute mind-breaking cosmic sort of timescale that’s really kind of not worth mentioning because it’s so far out from our human frame of reference so I’m only mentioning it because it’s really cool to think about,) eventually all of the fissile material that exists in the universe today will cease to be all on its own whether or not we do anything with it as it decays into more stable elements. A bit more will be created along the way thanks to neutron stars and supernovae and such, but even that slows down and stops as we inch closer to the heat death of the universe.
On the other hand, given enough time and the right conditions, every ounce of carbon on this planet- plants, animals, plankton, plastic happy meal toys, could potentially become fossil fuels, coal, oil, natural gas, etc. and can keep going around the carbon cycle. Unfortunately that’s a process that can take thousands or millions of years and we use fossil fuels much faster than they can be replenished. Even if earth becomes uninhabitable and we have to all up and leave, the carbon in our bodies and whatever we take with us will end up in a new carbon cycle on whatever new rock we end up on, and can potentially keep going as long as we do.
Nuclear is cleaner than fossil fuels but is in no way renewable, no matter what tricks we use to get the most use out of it, there is a finite supply.
Fossil fuels are dirty and not really renewable on a useable timescale for us.
Renewables like solar, wind, and hydro will be a viable option as long as the sun is shining, the earth has an atmosphere, and there is liquid water. Technically there will come a day when those also run out on us but those are also kind of prerequisites for us to live here, so kind of a moot point.
And geothermal will potentially be an option as long as the Earth’s core stays hot, so hundreds of millions if not billions or tens of billions of years, which puts us in the sort of timescale where we have to worry about things like the sun turning into a red giant and engulfing the inner planets, so we’ll have bigger things to worry about than keeping the lights on.
No it’s not. That’s just delusional. All the ideas of a sustainable uranium fuel cycle are based on non-existent technology. Uranium is a finite resource and we have nowhere near enough of it to power the world, even if you ignore all the other problems.
there is enough U238 to last until we get there. except if you think fusion is more than 500 years away (yes, that number is out of my ass)
Fucking idiots.
Yeah, let’s see how that one goes. Let me venture a guess: huge time and budget overruns with the taxpayer picking up the tab.
The difference being that when you’re 10 billion into a renewables project, you usually have SOME generation already, whereas your nuclear reactor isn’t doing shit until it’s fully completed.
I don’t mind nuclear, but the fact is that the reactors take decades to build, whereas renewables can be deployed far quicker. Going all-in on nuclear, and then twiddling your thumbs for 10-15 years while the reactors are built doesn’t sound like a great idea.
Erm, how many renewables projects are many years late? How many of them have taxpayers picking up the tab?
Renewables are cheap and quick to build, and turn a huge profit. Granted, that profit isn’t passed down to the energy consumer, but that’s an issue with the way electricity is sold to consumers. Most countries have a complete disconnect between the market for generators and the market for consumers, so the price of electricity on the consumer market will only go up even if the costs in the generation market go down.
On the generation market, nuclear electricity is more expensive than renewable electricity. Nuclear electricity is also heavily subsidised, while large scale renewables typically are not these days (because they’re profitable on their own).
Honestly I don’t care if it’s solar, wind, geothermal, biofuel, or nuclear, as long as it displaces fossil fuels. And it’s feasible on a very near time scale.
If Sweden did an honest investigation and found that renewables would be more costly and take longer, let em get nuclear.
We need an “all of the above” approach. This fight between nuclear and renewables is just stirred up by fossil fuel interests. Either is good. Both is good.
This isn’t an “all of the above approach” though, it’s a “cancel the short term plans and pretend we’re going to do something later” approach.
Yeah, if you decide to ramp up nuclear now, you’re only going to see the results in 10 years. Nothing is stopping you from continuing to add wind, solar and stuff like home/grid batteries in the meantime. Pretty sure Sweden has plenty of hydro storage options as well, which can be easily used to regulate the fluctuations wind and solar give you.
Mines take a lot longer than 10 years, as do power-plants (the whole thing starting at permit submission and ending at last reactor coming online). 2045 is optimistic.
Why are people in this thread acting like the intent here is to cut renewables? The target was deemed unrealisitic to hit andr raised concerns about reliability.
They are simply removing potential future renewables that have not been paid for or even ordered yet from the agenda and replacing the planned supply with nuclear, which is carbon neutral and requires less workers maintaining larger fields of solar and wind, two types of power that are not reliable during a Scandinavian blizzard… Something Sweden has to consider among many other things
Two things that are relevant is that Sweden is very, very dark during the winter which reduces the profitability of solar and also that it’s extremely difficult to get approval for wind turbines right now.
Municipalities have the power to veto building projects and almost all of them choose to block wind power installations. Wind turbines generate sound, both audible and infrasound (which can disturb sleep), and are sometimes considered a bit of an eyesore which can both reduce the value of properties near them and make people less inclined to move to that region which reduces tax income for the municipality. This could be offset by taxation of the wind power, but currently all taxable income from wind turbines go to the state instead of any of the local governments.
There was recently an inquiry into how to make municipalities more likely to approve wind power construction and the restriction that the government gave them was that they were not allowed to suggest tax revenue being diverted to the local government. Which was the only suggestion that they said would be effective.
So… yeah.
If Sweden did an honest investigation and found that renewables would be more costly and take longer, let em get nuclear.
Bullshit. Renewables are cheap as chips.
Think of a traditional power plant. There are 4 main cost catagories: Construction, Maintenance, Fuel, Demolition.
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In a traditional plant, over the life of the plant Fuel will by far be the biggest cost.
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For renewables, Construction, Maintenance and Demolition cost more (issues such as remote locations, weather, smaller generators means more generators which increases the mean time to failure) however they have ZERO fuel cost.
Renewable generation is profitable as fuck, moreso than nuclear. Your average wind farm pays itself off in less than 5 years.
This is a right wing government backing the interests of fossil fuels, by implementing policy that delays any meaningful reduction in fossil fuel use.
This is a right wing government backing the interests of fossil fuels, by implementing policy that delays any meaningful reduction in fossil fuel use.
Simply incorrect and ignorant and I could leave it at that.
But I won’t so here:
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Nuclear is carbon neutral
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The majority of Swedens energy production is still renewable and will continue to grow
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Nuclear is absolutely necessary for load balance
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Current nuclear plants are nearing their end of life and needs to be replaced
- I’m not critising nuclear for not being green.
- Renewables should grow (they’re profitable), but there should be further incentivised growth to help reduce reliance on fossile fuels more quickly.
- Yes, nuclear is brilliant for voltage and frequency stability. Large turbines have momentum in their spinning mass, when loads are switched on and off they keep spinning the same speed. However there are other options, eg rotating stabilisers, often used on very large ships but land installations are now being made also. These can be built without the nuclear red tape.
- Replacing existing nuclear plants is always a decent thing to do. You skip over many of the hurdles by building on the same site under the same nuclear permits. However taking money away from renewables to pay for this is questionable at best.
I think Sweden does have some geographical complications, along with a lackluster transmission network. These are much harder to get private investment for. However if there was a decent transmission network then there would be more utility of renewable generation in the north as well as the capability for import of energy from neighbouring countries or even export when Sweden has an excess.
Putting my balls on the table, I reckon if Sweden put all the money they’ve got in nuclear into transmission first and then renewables, I reckon they could switch off more fossil fuels more quickly.
i heard that nuclear still kind of heats up the earth since its not outputting what has been put in by the sun before. Supposedly thats a problem since space is a good insulator.
have you ever been in Sweden? it is a a rocky mountainous and mostly dark region. they only renewables that they can easily manage is geothermal and iirc they do not have the correct crust for it
According to another comment they have plenty of renewables up in the north but only use about 30% of that capacity. So it seems the main issue is with the transmission network for the country, its ability to get power from one place to another.
Instead of investing in 20 year nuclear power plant plans, they should be looking at accessing and expanding the available renewable generation in the short term.
For renewables, Construction, Maintenance and Demolition cost more
This is less true as time goes on. CCGT and coal has substantial overlap with all-in cost of firmed PV and onshore wind just in terms of capex and FOM. Nuclear O&M overlaps with all-in cost of wind or PV (although not the latter in sweden).
SMRs (most of the proposals to reduce cost) are also substantially less efficient than full sized reactors and the high grade Uranium or Uranium in countries you can pollute without consequence is mostly tapped out so prices are increasing (currently about $3/MWh for full scale or $6/MWh for an inefficient small reactor). By the time an SMR finally comes online, just the raw uranium will cost as much as renewables, let alone the rest of VOM (which is still a minority of O&M which is far, far less than Capex).
Anyone suggesting new nuclear should be regarded as either someone lying to maintain a nuclear weapons program, a scammer, or a russian agent trying to sell dependence on rosatom.
The first is potentially defensible, but they could also not lie instead.
Sweden already has a significant surplus of electricity production, to the degree that we are one of the largest exporters in the EU and have had several bouts of negative spot prices this past summer.
However, we also have an effect deficit for the colder part of the year. Two-thirds of simulations by SVK (our national power distributor) find that the peak-load hour during the winter 26/27 will have a deficit equivalent to three gen-II nuclear reactors running at 100% (10’000MW), and 10 continuous hours of blackouts due to power shortage. This is during the coldest part of the year when solar is ineffective, and additionally is often combined with high-pressure fronts, which means low wind speeds.
In Sweden upwards of 75% of homes get their heating from electricity, and potentially a full day without power in temperatures of beyond -30°C would literally mean people freezing to death.
Our power bill for December was 800€, and we both have geothermal heating and reduced our indoor temperature significantly, averaging 14-18°C indoors for the month. This was more than January, February and March combined. Meanwhile, the bills for all summer months put together (May, June, July and I expect also August) cost less than the bill for April (100€).
The most viable short-term solution they’re looking at is (unfortunately) reopening old oil plants from the 60s & 70s however, this might not be possible either, due to newer EU legislations. Bringing them into compliance in time could cost 100’s of millions of SEK, which ironically is more than the “prohibitively expensive repairs” that the previous gov:t cited when they shut down 4 nuclear reactors 2015-2020.
Link to article for the doubtful - It’s in Swedish, so you’ll have to use a translator.
Assuming you’re telling the truth that there’s a massive shortfall in December already (a provable lie ) then you are suggesting the solution for an urgent shortfall of around a TWh per year is to build 10GW of nuclear plants which will be ready in 2045 for €300 billion and run them at an operating loss for 10-11 months per year.
This in order to provide low grade heat which could be stored in a district heating system for a few dollars per kWh for a total cost of about 3% of your suggestion or even in batteries for about 20% of the cost (which would also run at a profit the rest of the year and make the hydro go further).
Nuke shills say some colossally stupid things, but this really takes the cake.
We don’t need new tech, and while we do need nuclear in the long run, it is more important now that we switch off fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Nuclear is not fossil fuels, but it is notorious for taking a long time to build and get verified and turned on, as well as being horrendously late and over-budget. Renewables can be thrown up in a matter of months, are relatively very cheap and turn a profit quickly.
An irrational aversion to nuclear power is an obstacle, but there are plenty of rational objections and many of them point to nuclear being an obstacle/delaying tactic intended to sustain the fossil fuel industry for longer.
Irrational aversion to nuclear energy had countries stop building reactor for several decades, which lost the technical capabilities which now have to be reacquired.
The first reactor is hard to build and suffer delays and overcoats. The next ones are easier and cheaper. Like absolutely any other industrial project. Like renewable did over the last 20 years.
The first reactor is hard to build and suffer delays and overcoats. The next ones are easier and cheaper. Like absolutely any other industrial project. Like renewable did over the last 20 years.
Renewables did it with significantly lower risk and at significantly lower cost than nuclear.
Renewables cost more to build than a traditional coal power plant, but still far less than nuclear. Maintenance costs are comparible for renewables but more consistent, while nuclear can be much higher in a worst case scenario. Demolition costs are neglible for renewables (the equipment is sold on), while nuclear demolition almost always ends up requiring further state financing, billed to the taxpayer.
Like you say, development of nuclear tech has been stunted. Renewables are mature and cheap and mass produceable. Nuclear is needed long term, but renewables are ready now.
The goal isn’t to build the perfect utopian utlity network right away. The goal should be to switch off fossil fuels as quickly and as much as possible.
