Thank you. So very illuminating. If only our politicians, academics, media talking heads and NGOs and their guilt ridden billionaire donors actually understood any of this. Alas, they do not.
Actually, I think they understand it, but their ideological agendas preclude them from accepting the reality because their supporters, who probably don't understand this, have been indoctrinated in all the BS from the climate hysterics
I doubt they actually understand the science behind it but they surely have at least a vague understanding of the difference between fantasy and reality. And you’re 100% right that they don’t care!
There won't be much need to mine more uranium when the advanced reactor designs are implemented, because they can re-use the spent nuclear fuel we've been stockpiling since the 60s.
The uranium used in power reactors is not as refined as that used for bombs.
But there will always be wars, even we only use spears and clubs.
If demand gets that great, there is a plentiful supply of uranium in seawater. Like oil, we will never run out. Its supply is limited only by the economics of its recovery or extraction.
Or we can just burn thorium. There are already plans to burn thorium in CANDUs with a HALEU/thorium mix fuel. And produces excellent isotopes in the waste like the extremely valuable Pu-238, @ ~$9M/kg.
There is enough thorium in the annual waste of one rare earth mine, that makes materials for wind turbines, to power the entire earth for a full year.
Completely agree! Ideology is little more than dogma cloaked in a more happy term. It is that ideology that has led to the divisiveness in science today as reported by Pielke, Doomberg, and others.
The drive to attach unreliable wind and solar generators to the grid should have stopped years ago when Australian wind watchers discovered and documented prolonged wind droughts on a continental scale.
More recently, European wind droughts called Dunkelflautes turned up and exposed the fragile nature of the wind power supply.
Even more recently Vaclav Smil, Mark Mills and Lars Schernikau joined the party to debunk the possibility of a transition to unreliable wind and solar power. Schernikau and Smith wrote "The Unpopular Truth About Electricity and the Future of Energy" to explain that wind and solar power can only survive as parasites on more efficient generators.
A state (like South Australia) or country where the energy supply is moving towards domination by wind and solar will eventually suffer from energy starvation and it will have to depend on more efficient sources of power, at home or abroad. For example South Australia imports coal power practically every night, despite burning gas, and Australia in turn depends on coal power in China to make the energy-intensive components of our imported wind turbines and solar panels.
With respect to South Australia, your comments are only partly true. As coal plants are closed in Australia, other States expand their production of solar and wind power and more large batteries are installed, the issue of energy starvation becomes less relevant. However, the big issue is the price of electricity, and South Australia has the highest prices despite the high penetration of renewables. This blows the claim that renewables lead to lower prices. The politicians pushing the move to renewables have not been able to provide an explanation of this seeming contradiction, even when claiming the marginal cost of generating electricity from wind and solar is zero. The explanation for higher prices seems to be, at least in part, the need to burn high priced gas when the wind is not blowing, and the sun is not shining, and the cost of installing large batteries and additional transmission lines. Nuclear power is ruled out for Australia on ideological grounds, although the government opposition is proposing small scale nuclear reactors if it is returned to power in elections next year. However, it is debatable whether this will be feasible on economic grounds (not to mention nimbyism) particularly due to the high penetration of renewables and investment in additional infrastructure.
Thank you EBBs for an excellent summary of how we got here! It's a reminder that in their short lives, previous generations would have been keenly aware of the effort involved in providing the necessities of life. Today in the rich world, we have electricity, drinking water and sometimes gas, delivered to our homes and businesses, and seldom give much thought to what it's taken to get there.
Further, lawmakers' backgrounds seldom equip them to deal with abstraction, the concept of trade-offs and least-worst approaches, and the sort of arithmetic you present regularly. That makes them vulnerable to siren lobbying. As Mark Mills points out, all energy is free in the sense that humans didn't create it; the cost is in the getting of it. This puts wind and solar squarely alongside all other sources, but the notion that they provide free energy has been used to sell them to the gullible.
Yes, great quote. But it is not just the cost of getting it, there are also massive costs in patching up and extending existing networks and adding reliability factors like big batteries.
Excellent job explaining the basics. Unfortunately, it will not be read/understood by the ignorant politicians and bureaucrats. When the lights go out and the shit hits the fan it’ll be hell. The fix won’t happen quickly because as they take the reliable coal plants off line they also tear them down. The stupidity and lunacy is astounding.
I liked the photo of your grandfather and his work horses. My grandfather was a northern WI logger and he used a similar team of horses in the woods. As little boy, I was in awe of those horses.
Thanks for this excellent summary of Vaclav Smil's work. I've been working as an advocate for nuclear power since about 2007. I've traveled thousands of miles, written very lengthy legal filings before regulators and oversight bodies at the local, state, and federal level in the United States. In 2022, the American Nuclear Society awarded me a presidential citation for my pro Diablo Canyon Power Plant advocacy. I've become very aware of the bloated multi-billion dollar annual expenditures of fossil fuel interests focused on franchise protection. Please search for both phrases, "The Anti Industry Industry" and "Robert Bryce" to learn more. For about two decades, Rod Adams has been documenting this problem via his "Smoking Gun" series at Atomic Insights. Since March, 2024, I've been writing a series of Substack articles at the GreenNUKE Substack https://greennuke.substack.com/ regarding the importance of nuclear power in California - and the efforts of the PacifiCorp subsidiary of Berkshire-Hathaway to shut down California nuclear power for their commercial advantage. A classic conflict-of-interest problem. I'm interested in the EBB perspective regarding this challenge.
Great piece, team. This should be a daily lesson in high school classrooms; I am sending this to our local science teachers out here 40 miles from the Twin Shitties.
This history was pretty much a lesson in my elementary school. The history of human energy usage/availability and its importance to civilization was definitely covered.
This should be required reading at the primary school level. But a bit about the history of natural gas. Both London (UK) and Baltimore (US) used factory gas derived from coal for their first gas lights. The first intentionally developed (drilled) use of natural gas in recorded history occurred in 1825 in Fredonia (New York State, US). Gunsmith William Hart used the recently developed technique of percussive drilling (Ruffner brothers in today's state of West Virginia, US, 1818) to pound a shallow hole along the banks of Canadaway Creek where gas had long been observed bubbling up. Five gas lamps were lit using a primitive gasometer (LaVoisie, France, 1780s) to store and meter the gas. Ancient China is now known to have used percussive drilling to obtain brine for salt production using natural gas from existing vents in the earth to boil-down the brine. Frontiersman Hart could hardly have known ancient Chinese history of technology.
Your logic is correct, but there will always be a waste stream. The engineer's objective is to make it as small as possible. The late Camilla Odnoff said "Waste is what you have, when you have no more imagination."
Which is exactly why spent fuel should never be disposed, only stored. Technology and innovation, and of course economics, will eventually necessitate its resurrection.
I have a new model for solar energy. I do an extremely deep dive into the subject. I show the cost at every percentage consumed, which I believe is the only sensible way to talk about the cost of solar. I show that a 100% solar consumption emits quite a lot of CO2. I show accurate EROEI calculations for each percentage of solar consumed, then show how this increases the cost of manufacturing solar. I show how much land will be disturbed, it's higher than you think. I also explain why most solar/wind energy models like Mark Jacobson's are invalid as they assume the existence of a super grid that will never be built.
Good analysis but you are using bogus numbers for solar PV energy inputs.
"Solar Panels Are Three Times More Carbon-Intensive Than IPCC Claims. Ecoinvent, the world’s largest database on the environmental impact of renewables, has no data from China, even though it makes most of the world's solar panels:"
"...Based on such data, the IPCC claims solar PV is 48 gCO2/kWh. But, as we’ll see below, a new investigation started by Italian researcher Enrico Mariutti suggests that the number is closer to between 170 and 250 gCO2/kWh, depending on the energy mix used to power PV production...."
You may be right. I intentially used numbers from NREL because that way no one can accuse me of exaggerating. By using their numbers, I can show solar is not clean. In truth, my numbers are lower bound estimates.
Or better, he and everyone who thinks like them get relocated to a midlatitude city that gets supplied with all the wind, solar and batteries they want then are cut off from the grid.
If any are still alive after 2 years we can revisit his “ideas”.
Yeah... sure. Solving for the wrong variable is typical of those who fail to truly comprehend the complexity of our #overshoot predicament. Ok - We rely on energy to expand carrying capacity and habitat, but we rely on a functioning biosphere and ecological 'services so much more... We could have all the cheap, clean, high-quality energy imaginable, and it would do us no good at all.
Also, I think it's worth noting that the fossil fuel industry did not 'save the whales' as this article contends - it simply moved ecocidal capitalist power to a different source of profiteering and exploitation.
We ain't even close to overshoot. To have a clean "functioning" biosphere requires more energy not less. But clean energy = nuclear energy. Fortunately Mother Nature granted us an incredible bounty of energy in the form of uranium & thorium, forged in the inferno of kilonovae.
With ample clean energy, there is not a single reason why we cannot mimic the complex highly developed ecosystem of the tropical rainforest, recycling virtually everything, an almost closed system, except for the vast energy input of nuclear fission, later fusion. It's already happening, but many people are just too close-minded or indoctrinated to see it.
This position you’ve made is either comical or deranged, or possibly both - ecologically blind, politically naive and ignorant of the unique qualities of oil. 1) Only somebody who doesn’t understand #overshoot would say “We ain’t even close to overshoot”. Readers should actually be laughing at this point -Dunning? Meet Kruger. (cue canned laughter) Hhahahaaa…… 2) a functioning biosphere requires “more energy not less”….. (cough cough) sorry what? (more canned laughter) Ummmm… no. The biosphere is struggling to process the amount of energy it’s already taking on - this is the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) that results in global warming/climate change. (reflex -Hhhaahaa) No - you’re not supposed to laugh about that. If, what you mean is that the biosphere needs more industrious humans to create “clean energy” in order to make the biosphere ‘functional’ then I suggest you’ve grabbed hold of the predicament either ‘tits up’ or ass-backwards depending on your proclivities…. (wink - more canned laughter). 3) Clean energy = nuclear energy…… Bhahahahahhaaaahaaa! You should do stand-up! I’m sure at least one reader must’ve piddled in their undies just a little bit by now. For sure! - At least one tiny damp stain. (let me know in comments if you did) Hilarious! Energy is never ‘clean’ and nuclear energy isn’t ‘clean' either. What’s the energy for? Making biodiverse ecological habitat? Really? No. Didn’t think so…. (chuckles). Because that’s actually what we need a lot more of - insects, avians, fish, amphibians, plankton, mammals, trees……. and how does nuclear energy deliver that? Well, it doesn’t. Energy only serves the purpose of rapid ecocidal resource extraction/production (whispers aside to audience - you know, the destruction of the biosphere in case you weren’t aware). Anyways…… I really really wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, but then you go on to say this - “With ample clean energy, there is not a single reason why we cannot mimic the complex highly developed ecosystem of the tropical rainforest….” sorry…. wtaf? At this point, readers aren’t sure whether to laugh hysterically, cry and feel sorry for you (which I do), or throw themselves into any nearest available oncoming traffic just to make it stop. That you can even type the words is astounding and reflects a breathtaking hubris that is peculiarly and distinctly human, if appalling and outright stupid. Humans haven’t been able to create anything nearly as durable and sustainable as millions of years of evolutionary process. You think humans can do it better??? (God laughs - I used to think I knew better too, and then I discovered I’m just a figment of somebody else’s imagination…) (More canned laughter) Oh, well… aside from the lack of ecological understanding, which isn’t unusual but is quite boldly and breathtakingly on display (dark sunglasses required), the political naiveté is also similarly concerning. Even if nuclear energy could be rolled out as a replacement (it can’t) in a timely fashion (it can’t), and this energy were (somehow) used for ‘good’ not ‘ecocide’ (it can’t), then you still have the problem of material limits (like copper shhhhh) and political opposition which will not easily fall sway to extraordinarily flawed premises. Lastly, there’s the misunderstanding regarding energy substitution. Where is Spock when you need him…. (Cue Spock voice-over) “It’s simple logic, captain - all apples are not apples in this case. You are demonstrating the logical fallacy known as false-equivalency. It’s not your fault of course - you’re only human.” (subdued and uncertain canned laughter….) Oil and fossil fuels generally do so many things nuclear power doesn’t know how to do, that it’s like comparing the Mona Lisa to a child’s finger-painting. Most importantly, fossil fuels allow us to create ammonia through the Haber-Bosch process which is how we’re imperfectly feeding 8billion humans and growing. What will they eat when the oil runs out??? Yellowcake? (Boom-tish).
He Tristian I don’t appreciate your condescending tone here. You can make your (bad) arguments respectfully but if you keep this up and you’re going to get booted from here.
Sorry Isaac (I think I spelled your name correctly but you have another try at mine - it is only two syllables - Tris-tan :) Demonstrably, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Classic Dunning-Kruger. This isn't unusual, it's even rife within academia and the public service! However, the stupidity conveyed here is among what I like to call the 'entitled stupid'. Yes, stupid abounds and it's not your fault that you're caught up in it like a deer in the headlights furtively hoping that the focus of the oncoming light will shift - it will not. The end result is typically bad for the deer...... I could opine endlessly as to all the failings of your sub-standard and incredibly weak analysis, but I suspect it will likely only fall on deaf ears... we can only hope that you will seize the agency that deer do not... I'm interested in further dialogue if you wish to provide refutation for your unjustifiable position. Good luck!
See my comments about Nuclear Disasters and the Unsolved problems of Storage of Waste.
Nuclear Engineers are too short-sighted. We should never have trusted them with the future of our descendants. (Makes one want to believe in Satan manipulating humanity to destroy us!)
Why do you Grifters forever repeat the lie: "Unsolved problems of Storage of Waste"? It was solved long ago and remains solved. You deceivers think repeating a lie often enough will make it true.
So called nuclear waste is one of the most valuable resources on Earth, containing 10's of $trillions in clean energy. Easily used if the criminals allowed it to be. Like your buddies in the Rockefeller Crime Syndicate.
The people opposing Nuclear Energy are the Satan. Do you have ZERO knowledge of geopolitics? Living under a rock the past 8yrs?
Your responses rely on fearmongering. The actual results are that nuclear power is the safest dispatchable energy source by far. Nuclear power death tolls per terawatt-hour are comparable to nondispatchable solar and wind. See this 2020 article "What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?" by Hannah Ritchie from Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy This analysis neglects the huge amount of fossil energy that is used to compensate for the substantial intermittencies of solar, wind, and hydropower. Nuclear power doesn't need fossil energy backup.
Not at all. Address the issues with uranium mining, nuclear waste, and cooling the reactors after the power grid collapses. We CANNOT stop this. You would need to shut down the oil/gas/plastic industries. The fashion/beauty industries. The big agriculture industries. The travel and tourism industry. We have changed literally nothing. More environmentally devastating mineral/oil extraction. More clear cutting. More human rights abuses. Water wars are coming. Food wars are coming. Massive flooding, insane wildfires, record heat, massive droughts. You should be afraid.
Modern uranium extraction is via dissolution in water, not hard rock mining. Modern power reactors have efficient residual heat removal systems that may now be powered by FLEX equipment or the AP1000 approach with gravity-fed cooling water. After your second sentence, those problems have nothing to do with nuclear power. I remain optimistic regarding the future in contrast to what you claim is coming.
We've been using nuclear power since the 70's. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima meltdowns. Nuclear wasn't the answer then and it isn't now. Everyone is trying to keep this level of living and THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT SUSTAINABLE. I'm a realist. I've listened to discussions about climate change all of my life, I'm 56. Nothing has changed. Emission have gotten worse. The COP is a fucking joke. Oil and gas companies are invited. They need to be shut the fuck down. Too many people are living in denial. Agriculture has already been significantly affected by climate change disasters. Water wars are coming. Food wars will follow. You really need to start grasping this as the very dire threat that it is. The ruling class are IMPRISONING CLIMATE SCIENTISTS who are desperately trying to warn us and shut down big oil. This doesn't get better. It only gets worse. Entropy is a bitch.
There were less than 100 fatalities at the Chernobyl reactor, which lacked a containment. No fatalities or injuries from ionizing radiation at either Three Mile Island or at Fukushima. Nuclear power allows us to use hydrocarbon resources for higher uses than heat production. The United Arab Emirates are a good example. They recently turned on a 4-unit power plant at al-Barakah.
Humans are a problem-solving species. Projections of future famines were resolved by Borlaug's pioneering development of techniques to improve the yields per acre.
I reiterate, we've been using nuclear power since the 70s. It's CHANGED NOTHING. Our emissions have gone UP. I live near Asheville, North Carolina. Helene just missed us. Asheville is gone. Chimney Rock is gone. Pretty sure more nuclear reactors are finally going to work right? 🤦♀️ The way our species is currently living is UNSUSTAINABLE. We're in the middle of the 6th great extinction. Humans have caused it and humans are now on the endangered species list. This doesn't get better. It only gets worse. And nothing is going to change that. Entropy is a bitch.
To quote Thomas Sowell's famous remark: "There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs". Every energy source has its own set, but energy density makes nuclear fission's set of trade offs the front-runner, unless nuclear fusion can be made to work on earth. If not, what are we to prepare for?
Mining for uranium is devastating to the environment. Nuclear waste is a massive problem. When the power grid fails, how can nuclear reactors be cooled down? Climate change isn't fixable. It's like trying to stop a speeding freight train with the brakes disabled that's going downhill😞 Prepare for the power grid collapse and water and food wars.
As I recall, the indigenous tribe that was touting the evils of uranium mining had one of the biggest, dirtiest coal burning power plant on their land. A major source of their income. No mention of all the heavy metal contamination, incl lead, arsenic & mercury, was coming out of their smokestacks, making wild fish caught by natives across the US & Canada toxic to eat.
Cheer up, Jasmine, and learn about the newest in nuclear!
Nuclear waste is manageable, stored in dry casks, and re-usable in the newer type advanced reactors. The newer reactors are perfectly safe and will cool down passively all by themselves even with a complete grid failure. Not very much uranium mining will be needed because of those advanced reactors' ability to recycle existing nuclear waste.
Climate change isn't "fixable", but whether it's an existential threat is very debatable.
But I do agree that we're going to see plenty of power outages and grid failure before enough nuclear power plants can be built.
Dude, we have fundamentally changed NOTHING. We can't mine, drill, manufacture, and consume our way out of the nightmare we mined, drilled, manufactured, and consumed our way into. That's the reality.
Everything is a solution and that’s exactly why you need nuclear to back up solar and wind. Gas is stupid as a backup to intermittent energy sources as is often the case in many states in the US. In which your neighbor puts up solar panels and the grid needs more gas as backups. Nuclear is clearly the answer as SMRs will become commonplace over the next decade.
The problem with using nuclear to back up solar and wind is if you have enough nuclear capacity to supply all your demand when wind & solar crap out, what on Earth do you need the wind & solar for? Save a tidbit of fuel worth <1/2 cent/kwh?While adding massive infrastructure costs.
There are plenty of applications for solar even if it’s only a niche. The problem with your solution is building nuclear reactors is a decades long ordeal. How long will it take to get 3 mile island back online? Which was only out of service for 5 years. The reality is by the time any new nuclear project for the grid is complete. We would have multiples more solar and wind on the grid. Also decades would go by. Thats just reality, plus we have a country divided on policy’s, solutions, and a lot more. Which it’s likely to stay that way, if not get worse. For that reason it will be a host of solutions that will need to work together, like people. Or we will just go nowhere.
That's not the reality. The US was completing one new NPP per month by 1974. And utilities had two new plants on order per month. Until the blockade. At that rate the US would be 100% zero emissions nuclear electricity by 1990. Solar & wind fastest installs are nowhere near that rate in TWh/yr installed. And unlike for wind & solar, no massive unheard-of-ever subsidies, mandates and exemptions were needed.
And we already are going nowhere. Fossil remains @ 90% of World Primary Energy supply as it was 20yrs ago, in spite of over $5T wasted on wind & solar. In fact the rate of fossil expansion increased after the Kyoto Accords.
First you need a rational regulator that actually cares about saving lives. I haven't heard of any Navy reactors melting down. With >200 nuclear reactors operating in ships. And 50MW reactors can be built start to finish in 2yrs. Where is this "Save the World from Global Boiling" sentiment when it comes to nuclear. More like we need to save the protected bureaucrats in the NRC from having to earn their pay.
Watch this excellent video by Copenhagen Atomics, they are planning on mass producing thorium MSRs, using 5% enriched uranium startup fuel (they would like to use SNF derived MOX startup fuel but the regulators won't let them). 40MWe capable heat output per module, in a shipping container sized unit, and they plan on building one/day in a factory. They can get lots of investors, lots of interest, the reactor and factory design is not a problem. The big obstacle is these corrupt regulators. All in countries that proclaim they are in an all out war against climate change & CO2 emissions. Hypocrites, Grifters & Liars. Read what happens when their investors talk with the Regulators:
Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor, Copenhagen Atomics Onion Core - Thomas Jam Pederson @ TEAC12
"This video explains how advanced small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) technology can be used to completely replace all of the energy we now derive from fossil fuels, for less investment than what’s already been spent on renewable energy in the last two decades alone."
"This video explains how advanced small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) technology can be used to completely replace all of the energy we now derive from fossil fuels, for less investment than what’s already been spent on renewable energy in the last two decades alone."
Exactly, we pretend to go green by putting up solar panels and windmills. Then leave energy policies in place that burn more gas for every solar panel and windmills we put up.
It’s pretty simple we need the cleanest energy to back up intermittent sources of energy like solar and wind, which will only be part of the solution. The current system in far too many cases just burns more gas as more solar and wind come online. It’s beyond a head scratcher. Nuclear would be the best solution to run in tandem with wind and solar. This is by far the best solution we have in short to mid term.
With due respect, ma'am, I believe most people around the globe already recognize that nuclear power is the best possible solution to meeting long term energy needs. Even the Sierra Club is beginning to recognize that. Hell, even Joe Biden has said nuclear is a long-term answer and must be developed.
Two things are apparent from this conversation. First, no energy source, none, is without risk, and no energy source is "free." You speak of the devastating effects of mining uranium. Have you considered the devastating effects of mining for lithium or cobalt? Copper? Have you considered the devastating effects of disposing toxic waste from solar farms?
Second, and most importantly, all people need to recognize is that the economy is a derivative of energy. As energy goes, so goes our economy. I suggest you read up on the UN's Human Development Index to see how important energy is to the quality of life. If we are to adapt to the expected changes brought about by climate, we must have energy. Without it, we surely will die.
You need only look at Canada, with an avg primary energy consumption of 100,000 kwh/yr per person. Or 260,000 kwh per household. That's an avg of 30kw of continuous 24/7, 365 days/year energy per household.
Now anyone care to calculate how hard it would be for one household to supply itself with that much energy, in order to survive. Chopped wood? Solar panels? Wind Turbines? Calculate the cost per household for that. Does anyone believe that is feasible?
My wife and I only use about 8000 KWh per year, so I take it by the term "primary energy" you mean all forms of energy, not just electricity, right? So, heating, driving, etc. - and then adding industrial energy use, to get the total per capita figure of 100,000 kwh?
Yes, that is each citizen's share of the nation's primary energy consumption. And that's how much energy must be produced for their behalf. Since typically 90% of that energy is fossil, that's how much energy must be replaced with wind & solar, if we continue to proceed along that path. Which is about all that is happening at present.
However, EnergyBadBoys have failed to explain that NUCLEAR is the most perilous because human engineers have short memories, and so enjoy building and inventing that they forget to look backward to worry about future failures.
They are far more dangerous and disruptive than Fossil Fuel and Renewable Energy problems.
Nuclear Electricity is
=> UNAFFORDABLE: worldwide
=> UNINSUREABLE: who paid to move the neighbours of the above Nuclear Disasters? Can Nuclear plants buy $1trillion liability limits?
Canadian plants carry only C$500M, the expected settlement of the LacMégantic railway fire.
=> UNSTOREABLE: waste for 300,000 years! Still no place found & used.
=> UNREPLACEABLE: NextGen SmallModularReactors [SMR] are a decade away from approval, and their flaws will appear 20+ years later (CANDU’s failed Zirconium boiler tubes)
Thank you. So very illuminating. If only our politicians, academics, media talking heads and NGOs and their guilt ridden billionaire donors actually understood any of this. Alas, they do not.
Actually, I think they understand it, but their ideological agendas preclude them from accepting the reality because their supporters, who probably don't understand this, have been indoctrinated in all the BS from the climate hysterics
I doubt they actually understand the science behind it but they surely have at least a vague understanding of the difference between fantasy and reality. And you’re 100% right that they don’t care!
This article has the least amount of science possible. If they can't get this, they never will.
QUESTION: Is there enough uranium on the planet and is it distributed such that war would be obsolete?
There won't be much need to mine more uranium when the advanced reactor designs are implemented, because they can re-use the spent nuclear fuel we've been stockpiling since the 60s.
The uranium used in power reactors is not as refined as that used for bombs.
But there will always be wars, even we only use spears and clubs.
If demand gets that great, there is a plentiful supply of uranium in seawater. Like oil, we will never run out. Its supply is limited only by the economics of its recovery or extraction.
Or we can just burn thorium. There are already plans to burn thorium in CANDUs with a HALEU/thorium mix fuel. And produces excellent isotopes in the waste like the extremely valuable Pu-238, @ ~$9M/kg.
There is enough thorium in the annual waste of one rare earth mine, that makes materials for wind turbines, to power the entire earth for a full year.
Completely agree! Ideology is little more than dogma cloaked in a more happy term. It is that ideology that has led to the divisiveness in science today as reported by Pielke, Doomberg, and others.
“ . . . it is these ocean state changes that are
1:02:28 correlated with the great disasters of the past impact can cause extinction but
1:02:35 it did so in our past only wants[once] that we can tell whereas this has happened over
1:02:40 and over and over again we have fifteen evidences times of mass extinction in the past 500 million years
1:02:48 so the implications for the implications the implications of the carbon dioxide is really dangerous if you heat your
1:02:55 planet sufficiently to cause your Arctic to melt if you cause the temperature
1:03:01 gradient between your tropics and your Arctic to be reduced you risk going back
1:03:07 to a state that produces these hydrogen sulfide pulses . . . “
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ako03Bjxv70
Nice climate emergency theories but in practice no real concern should exist about FF or CO2 .... or if we follow NetZero will go extinct.
Ignorance is bliss?
You need education....https://nigelsouthway.substack.com/p/netzero-versus-prosperity?
LOL
They understand it, but they want to create artificial shortages, all in the manner of keeping their ill-gotten political power.
The drive to attach unreliable wind and solar generators to the grid should have stopped years ago when Australian wind watchers discovered and documented prolonged wind droughts on a continental scale.
More recently, European wind droughts called Dunkelflautes turned up and exposed the fragile nature of the wind power supply.
https://www.flickerpower.com/images/The_endless_wind_drought_crippling_renewables___The_Spectator_Australia.pdf
Even more recently Vaclav Smil, Mark Mills and Lars Schernikau joined the party to debunk the possibility of a transition to unreliable wind and solar power. Schernikau and Smith wrote "The Unpopular Truth About Electricity and the Future of Energy" to explain that wind and solar power can only survive as parasites on more efficient generators.
A state (like South Australia) or country where the energy supply is moving towards domination by wind and solar will eventually suffer from energy starvation and it will have to depend on more efficient sources of power, at home or abroad. For example South Australia imports coal power practically every night, despite burning gas, and Australia in turn depends on coal power in China to make the energy-intensive components of our imported wind turbines and solar panels.
With respect to South Australia, your comments are only partly true. As coal plants are closed in Australia, other States expand their production of solar and wind power and more large batteries are installed, the issue of energy starvation becomes less relevant. However, the big issue is the price of electricity, and South Australia has the highest prices despite the high penetration of renewables. This blows the claim that renewables lead to lower prices. The politicians pushing the move to renewables have not been able to provide an explanation of this seeming contradiction, even when claiming the marginal cost of generating electricity from wind and solar is zero. The explanation for higher prices seems to be, at least in part, the need to burn high priced gas when the wind is not blowing, and the sun is not shining, and the cost of installing large batteries and additional transmission lines. Nuclear power is ruled out for Australia on ideological grounds, although the government opposition is proposing small scale nuclear reactors if it is returned to power in elections next year. However, it is debatable whether this will be feasible on economic grounds (not to mention nimbyism) particularly due to the high penetration of renewables and investment in additional infrastructure.
But wind and solar are not unreliable. They do exactly what you would expect them to do. But they are variable
Thank you EBBs for an excellent summary of how we got here! It's a reminder that in their short lives, previous generations would have been keenly aware of the effort involved in providing the necessities of life. Today in the rich world, we have electricity, drinking water and sometimes gas, delivered to our homes and businesses, and seldom give much thought to what it's taken to get there.
Further, lawmakers' backgrounds seldom equip them to deal with abstraction, the concept of trade-offs and least-worst approaches, and the sort of arithmetic you present regularly. That makes them vulnerable to siren lobbying. As Mark Mills points out, all energy is free in the sense that humans didn't create it; the cost is in the getting of it. This puts wind and solar squarely alongside all other sources, but the notion that they provide free energy has been used to sell them to the gullible.
Great quote - I like it - "all energy is free in the sense that humans didn't create it; the cost is in the getting of it"
Yes, great quote. But it is not just the cost of getting it, there are also massive costs in patching up and extending existing networks and adding reliability factors like big batteries.
Excellent job explaining the basics. Unfortunately, it will not be read/understood by the ignorant politicians and bureaucrats. When the lights go out and the shit hits the fan it’ll be hell. The fix won’t happen quickly because as they take the reliable coal plants off line they also tear them down. The stupidity and lunacy is astounding.
When the lights go out, they'll blame it on climate change, instead of their disastrous policies.
I liked the photo of your grandfather and his work horses. My grandfather was a northern WI logger and he used a similar team of horses in the woods. As little boy, I was in awe of those horses.
It's a beautiful thing to see a matched pair of percherons pulling logs.
Thanks for this excellent summary of Vaclav Smil's work. I've been working as an advocate for nuclear power since about 2007. I've traveled thousands of miles, written very lengthy legal filings before regulators and oversight bodies at the local, state, and federal level in the United States. In 2022, the American Nuclear Society awarded me a presidential citation for my pro Diablo Canyon Power Plant advocacy. I've become very aware of the bloated multi-billion dollar annual expenditures of fossil fuel interests focused on franchise protection. Please search for both phrases, "The Anti Industry Industry" and "Robert Bryce" to learn more. For about two decades, Rod Adams has been documenting this problem via his "Smoking Gun" series at Atomic Insights. Since March, 2024, I've been writing a series of Substack articles at the GreenNUKE Substack https://greennuke.substack.com/ regarding the importance of nuclear power in California - and the efforts of the PacifiCorp subsidiary of Berkshire-Hathaway to shut down California nuclear power for their commercial advantage. A classic conflict-of-interest problem. I'm interested in the EBB perspective regarding this challenge.
Great piece, team. This should be a daily lesson in high school classrooms; I am sending this to our local science teachers out here 40 miles from the Twin Shitties.
This history was pretty much a lesson in my elementary school. The history of human energy usage/availability and its importance to civilization was definitely covered.
But that was the early 70s.
This should be required reading at the primary school level. But a bit about the history of natural gas. Both London (UK) and Baltimore (US) used factory gas derived from coal for their first gas lights. The first intentionally developed (drilled) use of natural gas in recorded history occurred in 1825 in Fredonia (New York State, US). Gunsmith William Hart used the recently developed technique of percussive drilling (Ruffner brothers in today's state of West Virginia, US, 1818) to pound a shallow hole along the banks of Canadaway Creek where gas had long been observed bubbling up. Five gas lamps were lit using a primitive gasometer (LaVoisie, France, 1780s) to store and meter the gas. Ancient China is now known to have used percussive drilling to obtain brine for salt production using natural gas from existing vents in the earth to boil-down the brine. Frontiersman Hart could hardly have known ancient Chinese history of technology.
I read a stat a couple years ago, Australia in 2021 exports energy and uranium was 25% of those exports by energy output.
Coal and gas exports were 75%, at 650 million tons while the uranium 25% was 8000 tons
So 217mil/8000, 27000 times more energy density.
And I think that is based on current nuclear tech that leaves most of the energy still in the “waste”.
Next gen reactors will use that waste and extract magnitudes more energy.
Will that make nuclear 270,000x more energy dense, 2.7million?
Here in Alberta we went the wrong way decades ago along with next door Sask which has massive uranium resources.
The oilsands are basically a big kettle, burning gas to boil water for extracting the oil.
Nothing boils water better than a nuke.
Should be saving all that gas for heating homes and running my range.
But it’s never too late to start doing the right thing
Your logic is correct, but there will always be a waste stream. The engineer's objective is to make it as small as possible. The late Camilla Odnoff said "Waste is what you have, when you have no more imagination."
Which is exactly why spent fuel should never be disposed, only stored. Technology and innovation, and of course economics, will eventually necessitate its resurrection.
Minor correction, fire was first used by homo-erectus, a human ancestor, so humanoid is the correct term. 😉
Excellent description gents. easily understandable and worthwhile for everyone to read
I have a new model for solar energy. I do an extremely deep dive into the subject. I show the cost at every percentage consumed, which I believe is the only sensible way to talk about the cost of solar. I show that a 100% solar consumption emits quite a lot of CO2. I show accurate EROEI calculations for each percentage of solar consumed, then show how this increases the cost of manufacturing solar. I show how much land will be disturbed, it's higher than you think. I also explain why most solar/wind energy models like Mark Jacobson's are invalid as they assume the existence of a super grid that will never be built.
https://schlanj.substack.com/p/the-hidden-costs-of-solar-power
Good analysis but you are using bogus numbers for solar PV energy inputs.
"Solar Panels Are Three Times More Carbon-Intensive Than IPCC Claims. Ecoinvent, the world’s largest database on the environmental impact of renewables, has no data from China, even though it makes most of the world's solar panels:"
https://public.substack.com/p/solar-panels-more-carbon-intensive
"...Based on such data, the IPCC claims solar PV is 48 gCO2/kWh. But, as we’ll see below, a new investigation started by Italian researcher Enrico Mariutti suggests that the number is closer to between 170 and 250 gCO2/kWh, depending on the energy mix used to power PV production...."
You may be right. I intentially used numbers from NREL because that way no one can accuse me of exaggerating. By using their numbers, I can show solar is not clean. In truth, my numbers are lower bound estimates.
I've studied your analysis, and it is very good. Thank you.
Ditto here. Appreciated JohnS's analysis.
Jacobson is a crackpot
Should be relocated to a rubber room
Or better, he and everyone who thinks like them get relocated to a midlatitude city that gets supplied with all the wind, solar and batteries they want then are cut off from the grid.
If any are still alive after 2 years we can revisit his “ideas”.
Yeah... sure. Solving for the wrong variable is typical of those who fail to truly comprehend the complexity of our #overshoot predicament. Ok - We rely on energy to expand carrying capacity and habitat, but we rely on a functioning biosphere and ecological 'services so much more... We could have all the cheap, clean, high-quality energy imaginable, and it would do us no good at all.
Also, I think it's worth noting that the fossil fuel industry did not 'save the whales' as this article contends - it simply moved ecocidal capitalist power to a different source of profiteering and exploitation.
We ain't even close to overshoot. To have a clean "functioning" biosphere requires more energy not less. But clean energy = nuclear energy. Fortunately Mother Nature granted us an incredible bounty of energy in the form of uranium & thorium, forged in the inferno of kilonovae.
With ample clean energy, there is not a single reason why we cannot mimic the complex highly developed ecosystem of the tropical rainforest, recycling virtually everything, an almost closed system, except for the vast energy input of nuclear fission, later fusion. It's already happening, but many people are just too close-minded or indoctrinated to see it.
This position you’ve made is either comical or deranged, or possibly both - ecologically blind, politically naive and ignorant of the unique qualities of oil. 1) Only somebody who doesn’t understand #overshoot would say “We ain’t even close to overshoot”. Readers should actually be laughing at this point -Dunning? Meet Kruger. (cue canned laughter) Hhahahaaa…… 2) a functioning biosphere requires “more energy not less”….. (cough cough) sorry what? (more canned laughter) Ummmm… no. The biosphere is struggling to process the amount of energy it’s already taking on - this is the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) that results in global warming/climate change. (reflex -Hhhaahaa) No - you’re not supposed to laugh about that. If, what you mean is that the biosphere needs more industrious humans to create “clean energy” in order to make the biosphere ‘functional’ then I suggest you’ve grabbed hold of the predicament either ‘tits up’ or ass-backwards depending on your proclivities…. (wink - more canned laughter). 3) Clean energy = nuclear energy…… Bhahahahahhaaaahaaa! You should do stand-up! I’m sure at least one reader must’ve piddled in their undies just a little bit by now. For sure! - At least one tiny damp stain. (let me know in comments if you did) Hilarious! Energy is never ‘clean’ and nuclear energy isn’t ‘clean' either. What’s the energy for? Making biodiverse ecological habitat? Really? No. Didn’t think so…. (chuckles). Because that’s actually what we need a lot more of - insects, avians, fish, amphibians, plankton, mammals, trees……. and how does nuclear energy deliver that? Well, it doesn’t. Energy only serves the purpose of rapid ecocidal resource extraction/production (whispers aside to audience - you know, the destruction of the biosphere in case you weren’t aware). Anyways…… I really really wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, but then you go on to say this - “With ample clean energy, there is not a single reason why we cannot mimic the complex highly developed ecosystem of the tropical rainforest….” sorry…. wtaf? At this point, readers aren’t sure whether to laugh hysterically, cry and feel sorry for you (which I do), or throw themselves into any nearest available oncoming traffic just to make it stop. That you can even type the words is astounding and reflects a breathtaking hubris that is peculiarly and distinctly human, if appalling and outright stupid. Humans haven’t been able to create anything nearly as durable and sustainable as millions of years of evolutionary process. You think humans can do it better??? (God laughs - I used to think I knew better too, and then I discovered I’m just a figment of somebody else’s imagination…) (More canned laughter) Oh, well… aside from the lack of ecological understanding, which isn’t unusual but is quite boldly and breathtakingly on display (dark sunglasses required), the political naiveté is also similarly concerning. Even if nuclear energy could be rolled out as a replacement (it can’t) in a timely fashion (it can’t), and this energy were (somehow) used for ‘good’ not ‘ecocide’ (it can’t), then you still have the problem of material limits (like copper shhhhh) and political opposition which will not easily fall sway to extraordinarily flawed premises. Lastly, there’s the misunderstanding regarding energy substitution. Where is Spock when you need him…. (Cue Spock voice-over) “It’s simple logic, captain - all apples are not apples in this case. You are demonstrating the logical fallacy known as false-equivalency. It’s not your fault of course - you’re only human.” (subdued and uncertain canned laughter….) Oil and fossil fuels generally do so many things nuclear power doesn’t know how to do, that it’s like comparing the Mona Lisa to a child’s finger-painting. Most importantly, fossil fuels allow us to create ammonia through the Haber-Bosch process which is how we’re imperfectly feeding 8billion humans and growing. What will they eat when the oil runs out??? Yellowcake? (Boom-tish).
He Tristian I don’t appreciate your condescending tone here. You can make your (bad) arguments respectfully but if you keep this up and you’re going to get booted from here.
Sorry Isaac (I think I spelled your name correctly but you have another try at mine - it is only two syllables - Tris-tan :) Demonstrably, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Classic Dunning-Kruger. This isn't unusual, it's even rife within academia and the public service! However, the stupidity conveyed here is among what I like to call the 'entitled stupid'. Yes, stupid abounds and it's not your fault that you're caught up in it like a deer in the headlights furtively hoping that the focus of the oncoming light will shift - it will not. The end result is typically bad for the deer...... I could opine endlessly as to all the failings of your sub-standard and incredibly weak analysis, but I suspect it will likely only fall on deaf ears... we can only hope that you will seize the agency that deer do not... I'm interested in further dialogue if you wish to provide refutation for your unjustifiable position. Good luck!
Lets hope he gets back on his medication.
Son, a little advice, when you're stoned out of your mind, don't make posts on Substack.
Yeah mann... youre so right.. it's the drugs mann... the drugs..... wheeee!
See my comments about Nuclear Disasters and the Unsolved problems of Storage of Waste.
Nuclear Engineers are too short-sighted. We should never have trusted them with the future of our descendants. (Makes one want to believe in Satan manipulating humanity to destroy us!)
Why do you Grifters forever repeat the lie: "Unsolved problems of Storage of Waste"? It was solved long ago and remains solved. You deceivers think repeating a lie often enough will make it true.
So called nuclear waste is one of the most valuable resources on Earth, containing 10's of $trillions in clean energy. Easily used if the criminals allowed it to be. Like your buddies in the Rockefeller Crime Syndicate.
The people opposing Nuclear Energy are the Satan. Do you have ZERO knowledge of geopolitics? Living under a rock the past 8yrs?
No, nuclear isn't the answer. There isn't a solution. People really need to recognize that and prepare accordingly.
Your responses rely on fearmongering. The actual results are that nuclear power is the safest dispatchable energy source by far. Nuclear power death tolls per terawatt-hour are comparable to nondispatchable solar and wind. See this 2020 article "What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?" by Hannah Ritchie from Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy This analysis neglects the huge amount of fossil energy that is used to compensate for the substantial intermittencies of solar, wind, and hydropower. Nuclear power doesn't need fossil energy backup.
Not at all. Address the issues with uranium mining, nuclear waste, and cooling the reactors after the power grid collapses. We CANNOT stop this. You would need to shut down the oil/gas/plastic industries. The fashion/beauty industries. The big agriculture industries. The travel and tourism industry. We have changed literally nothing. More environmentally devastating mineral/oil extraction. More clear cutting. More human rights abuses. Water wars are coming. Food wars are coming. Massive flooding, insane wildfires, record heat, massive droughts. You should be afraid.
I’m only afraid of the climate/insane and the green blob
🤡
Modern uranium extraction is via dissolution in water, not hard rock mining. Modern power reactors have efficient residual heat removal systems that may now be powered by FLEX equipment or the AP1000 approach with gravity-fed cooling water. After your second sentence, those problems have nothing to do with nuclear power. I remain optimistic regarding the future in contrast to what you claim is coming.
We've been using nuclear power since the 70's. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima meltdowns. Nuclear wasn't the answer then and it isn't now. Everyone is trying to keep this level of living and THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT SUSTAINABLE. I'm a realist. I've listened to discussions about climate change all of my life, I'm 56. Nothing has changed. Emission have gotten worse. The COP is a fucking joke. Oil and gas companies are invited. They need to be shut the fuck down. Too many people are living in denial. Agriculture has already been significantly affected by climate change disasters. Water wars are coming. Food wars will follow. You really need to start grasping this as the very dire threat that it is. The ruling class are IMPRISONING CLIMATE SCIENTISTS who are desperately trying to warn us and shut down big oil. This doesn't get better. It only gets worse. Entropy is a bitch.
There were less than 100 fatalities at the Chernobyl reactor, which lacked a containment. No fatalities or injuries from ionizing radiation at either Three Mile Island or at Fukushima. Nuclear power allows us to use hydrocarbon resources for higher uses than heat production. The United Arab Emirates are a good example. They recently turned on a 4-unit power plant at al-Barakah.
Humans are a problem-solving species. Projections of future famines were resolved by Borlaug's pioneering development of techniques to improve the yields per acre.
I reiterate, we've been using nuclear power since the 70s. It's CHANGED NOTHING. Our emissions have gone UP. I live near Asheville, North Carolina. Helene just missed us. Asheville is gone. Chimney Rock is gone. Pretty sure more nuclear reactors are finally going to work right? 🤦♀️ The way our species is currently living is UNSUSTAINABLE. We're in the middle of the 6th great extinction. Humans have caused it and humans are now on the endangered species list. This doesn't get better. It only gets worse. And nothing is going to change that. Entropy is a bitch.
To quote Thomas Sowell's famous remark: "There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs". Every energy source has its own set, but energy density makes nuclear fission's set of trade offs the front-runner, unless nuclear fusion can be made to work on earth. If not, what are we to prepare for?
Mining for uranium is devastating to the environment. Nuclear waste is a massive problem. When the power grid fails, how can nuclear reactors be cooled down? Climate change isn't fixable. It's like trying to stop a speeding freight train with the brakes disabled that's going downhill😞 Prepare for the power grid collapse and water and food wars.
“Climate changes isn’t fixable.” Then why waste trillions upon trillions of dollars pretending to stop it. So stupid.
Capitalism🤦♀️ There's profits to be made.
That’s not capitalism. It is state sponsored handouts and soft socialism for the favored class.
🤡
Most uranium mining in the USA is currently ISR. No “devastation” there. And nuclear waste is a political problem, not a technical problem.
Talk to the indigenous people 🤡
As I recall, the indigenous tribe that was touting the evils of uranium mining had one of the biggest, dirtiest coal burning power plant on their land. A major source of their income. No mention of all the heavy metal contamination, incl lead, arsenic & mercury, was coming out of their smokestacks, making wild fish caught by natives across the US & Canada toxic to eat.
🤡
Cheer up, Jasmine, and learn about the newest in nuclear!
Nuclear waste is manageable, stored in dry casks, and re-usable in the newer type advanced reactors. The newer reactors are perfectly safe and will cool down passively all by themselves even with a complete grid failure. Not very much uranium mining will be needed because of those advanced reactors' ability to recycle existing nuclear waste.
Climate change isn't "fixable", but whether it's an existential threat is very debatable.
But I do agree that we're going to see plenty of power outages and grid failure before enough nuclear power plants can be built.
Dude, we have fundamentally changed NOTHING. We can't mine, drill, manufacture, and consume our way out of the nightmare we mined, drilled, manufactured, and consumed our way into. That's the reality.
*Manufacture.
Everything is a solution and that’s exactly why you need nuclear to back up solar and wind. Gas is stupid as a backup to intermittent energy sources as is often the case in many states in the US. In which your neighbor puts up solar panels and the grid needs more gas as backups. Nuclear is clearly the answer as SMRs will become commonplace over the next decade.
The problem with using nuclear to back up solar and wind is if you have enough nuclear capacity to supply all your demand when wind & solar crap out, what on Earth do you need the wind & solar for? Save a tidbit of fuel worth <1/2 cent/kwh?While adding massive infrastructure costs.
Nuclear should be used to move fresh water to the Southwest…and for peak demand. Nuclear for base load hasn’t worked.
Nuclear baseload is the most cost effective way to use nuclear. All baseload power should be moved to nuclear.
Bush and Obama and Trump were all in the pocket of Big Nuclear…where are the plants??
There are plenty of applications for solar even if it’s only a niche. The problem with your solution is building nuclear reactors is a decades long ordeal. How long will it take to get 3 mile island back online? Which was only out of service for 5 years. The reality is by the time any new nuclear project for the grid is complete. We would have multiples more solar and wind on the grid. Also decades would go by. Thats just reality, plus we have a country divided on policy’s, solutions, and a lot more. Which it’s likely to stay that way, if not get worse. For that reason it will be a host of solutions that will need to work together, like people. Or we will just go nowhere.
That's not the reality. The US was completing one new NPP per month by 1974. And utilities had two new plants on order per month. Until the blockade. At that rate the US would be 100% zero emissions nuclear electricity by 1990. Solar & wind fastest installs are nowhere near that rate in TWh/yr installed. And unlike for wind & solar, no massive unheard-of-ever subsidies, mandates and exemptions were needed.
And we already are going nowhere. Fossil remains @ 90% of World Primary Energy supply as it was 20yrs ago, in spite of over $5T wasted on wind & solar. In fact the rate of fossil expansion increased after the Kyoto Accords.
First you need a rational regulator that actually cares about saving lives. I haven't heard of any Navy reactors melting down. With >200 nuclear reactors operating in ships. And 50MW reactors can be built start to finish in 2yrs. Where is this "Save the World from Global Boiling" sentiment when it comes to nuclear. More like we need to save the protected bureaucrats in the NRC from having to earn their pay.
Watch this excellent video by Copenhagen Atomics, they are planning on mass producing thorium MSRs, using 5% enriched uranium startup fuel (they would like to use SNF derived MOX startup fuel but the regulators won't let them). 40MWe capable heat output per module, in a shipping container sized unit, and they plan on building one/day in a factory. They can get lots of investors, lots of interest, the reactor and factory design is not a problem. The big obstacle is these corrupt regulators. All in countries that proclaim they are in an all out war against climate change & CO2 emissions. Hypocrites, Grifters & Liars. Read what happens when their investors talk with the Regulators:
Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor, Copenhagen Atomics Onion Core - Thomas Jam Pederson @ TEAC12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqxvBAJn_vc
Should be no problem massively ramping up nuclear, if the PTB were actually serious:
Energy Transition: Nuclear SMRs vs Renewables, Energy Transition Crisis:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yBF2fGUO5cQ
"This video explains how advanced small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) technology can be used to completely replace all of the energy we now derive from fossil fuels, for less investment than what’s already been spent on renewable energy in the last two decades alone."
There is no solution🤦♀️ We're trying to stop a speeding freight train that's breaks have failed. Good luck with that.
Here is the solution, all laid out for your viewing pleasure:
Energy Transition: Nuclear SMRs vs Renewables, Energy Transition Crisis:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yBF2fGUO5cQ
"This video explains how advanced small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) technology can be used to completely replace all of the energy we now derive from fossil fuels, for less investment than what’s already been spent on renewable energy in the last two decades alone."
You are right the best approach is to leave what’s not working in place.
That's EXACTLY WHAT WE'VE BEEN DOING 🤦♀️
Exactly, we pretend to go green by putting up solar panels and windmills. Then leave energy policies in place that burn more gas for every solar panel and windmills we put up.
It’s like dumb and dumber
It’s pretty simple we need the cleanest energy to back up intermittent sources of energy like solar and wind, which will only be part of the solution. The current system in far too many cases just burns more gas as more solar and wind come online. It’s beyond a head scratcher. Nuclear would be the best solution to run in tandem with wind and solar. This is by far the best solution we have in short to mid term.
Once we start moving into nuclear why would we put another penny into wind and solar?
We don’t need nuclear to back up wind and solar we just need nuclear.
Solar power captures nuclear fusion…that’s why it is winning out.
With due respect, ma'am, I believe most people around the globe already recognize that nuclear power is the best possible solution to meeting long term energy needs. Even the Sierra Club is beginning to recognize that. Hell, even Joe Biden has said nuclear is a long-term answer and must be developed.
Two things are apparent from this conversation. First, no energy source, none, is without risk, and no energy source is "free." You speak of the devastating effects of mining uranium. Have you considered the devastating effects of mining for lithium or cobalt? Copper? Have you considered the devastating effects of disposing toxic waste from solar farms?
Second, and most importantly, all people need to recognize is that the economy is a derivative of energy. As energy goes, so goes our economy. I suggest you read up on the UN's Human Development Index to see how important energy is to the quality of life. If we are to adapt to the expected changes brought about by climate, we must have energy. Without it, we surely will die.
We've been using nuclear power since the 1970's🤦♀️ Things have only gotten worse. People are dying now.
A classic example of the logical fallacy "post hoc ergo propter hoc." (Example: I drank water and now I'm deathly ill. Must've been the water.)
🤣🤡🤣
Maybe this will help....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciStnd9Y2ak&t=613s
You need only look at Canada, with an avg primary energy consumption of 100,000 kwh/yr per person. Or 260,000 kwh per household. That's an avg of 30kw of continuous 24/7, 365 days/year energy per household.
Now anyone care to calculate how hard it would be for one household to supply itself with that much energy, in order to survive. Chopped wood? Solar panels? Wind Turbines? Calculate the cost per household for that. Does anyone believe that is feasible?
My wife and I only use about 8000 KWh per year, so I take it by the term "primary energy" you mean all forms of energy, not just electricity, right? So, heating, driving, etc. - and then adding industrial energy use, to get the total per capita figure of 100,000 kwh?
Yes, that is each citizen's share of the nation's primary energy consumption. And that's how much energy must be produced for their behalf. Since typically 90% of that energy is fossil, that's how much energy must be replaced with wind & solar, if we continue to proceed along that path. Which is about all that is happening at present.
Every form of energy has problems.
However, EnergyBadBoys have failed to explain that NUCLEAR is the most perilous because human engineers have short memories, and so enjoy building and inventing that they forget to look backward to worry about future failures.
Here’s a long list of accidental
Nuclear Disasters :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and_radioactive_incidents
They are far more dangerous and disruptive than Fossil Fuel and Renewable Energy problems.
Nuclear Electricity is
=> UNAFFORDABLE: worldwide
=> UNINSUREABLE: who paid to move the neighbours of the above Nuclear Disasters? Can Nuclear plants buy $1trillion liability limits?
Canadian plants carry only C$500M, the expected settlement of the LacMégantic railway fire.
=> UNSTOREABLE: waste for 300,000 years! Still no place found & used.
=> UNREPLACEABLE: NextGen SmallModularReactors [SMR] are a decade away from approval, and their flaws will appear 20+ years later (CANDU’s failed Zirconium boiler tubes)
=> UNDEFENDABLE: Zaporizhzhia!