Assuming the west knuckled-down for the next 20 years on setting up a large-scale, long-term nuclear energy industry, would this largely solve the problem of carbon emissions?High capacityLong operational lifespanHigh densityMassive fuel availabilityExtremely little CO2 production, even including the entire lifecycle of mining/construction/demolitionSure emissions would remain in other industries, but combined with other low-emissions sources it would eliminate most emissions from electricity generation
Considering I'm going to reborn 5x before leaving it's a nothing burger.
yes.if we committed to building 5 new plants every year for 20 years we'd more than double US nuclear capacity and would be getting about 50% of our projected grid power from fission.
>>17064300it would be a miracle to build even 5 in 20 years
>>17064292>problem of carbon emissions?>problemTake your meds soientist
>>17064292>Massive fuel availabilityWe have uranium for 100 years.Double the consumption and we have uranium for 50 years.Hope we find some in unexplored areas, say that the Siberian permafrost melts and makes mining there permissible. But we would still need to double the known reserves to reach 100 years of uranium availability.
>>17064565inb4 Thorium fags
Once we cut trucking and shipping over to nuclear, we can cut that much diesel out of the mix.But nuclear truck insurance will be unaffordable.And can you imagine the mess when the Strait of Hormuz becomes a reactor graveyard?
>>17064565That's just current exploitation, which is operating at a bare minimum. It also doesn't factor in ocean uranium, which is effectively as limitless as sunlight.
>>17064669>the western redwood forests are unlimited in lumber supplyKek
>>17064292>carbon emissionsWhy do you think carbon emissions are the problem? Don't you think there's another problem the carbon emissions popped up to tackle in the first place?
>>17064782No, I just think some greedy morherfuckers wanted to make a ton of money at the expense of every other living thing.
>>17064292I've been told that in 20 years we will have viable fusion instead of fission, so what's the point?
>>17064782>Don't you think there's another problem the carbon emissions popped up to tackle in the first place?Yeah, and that problem is not having power. Which nuclear also solves.
>>17064565>We have uranium for 100 years.Based on what, where did this wild assertion come from?
>>17064292>would this largely solve the problem of carbon emissions?No.We have known uranium resources for only 200 years of operations at current rate. Doubling down will cut that by a lot.>>17064789>in 20 yearsThey have said that since WWII.
>>17065068>We have known uranium resources for only 200 years of operations at current ratesee>>17064911
>>17064565According to studies from 60s oil ended in 87, gas in 88 and coal in 89.
>>17064292Why not geothermal instead
>>17065153Where the FUCK are you going to find enough spots for that?
>>17065157Potentially anywhere.Canada in particular is working on cost-effective techniques for deep drilling. When you can reliably reach a sufficient depht, the geographical limitations of geothermal basically disappear (except for really seismic areas)
>>17065157Down?
>>17065172"Potentially anywhere" is a dream statement, what methods do we have RIGHT NOW that if built will provide low-carbon power?
>>17065133And you’re still citing them.Shame.
>>17064292Theoretically yes but it would cost far too much to be a practical solution so obviously it won't happen. Wind and solar are just far too cheap to compete with. There's also the problem of uranium availability which is certainly quite far from infinite power source but the scheme could certainly work for few years if we are posting a genie wish type hypotethical. >>17064911Current uranium use is about 60k tU per year, there are 6m tU in reserves, that's 100 years based on current usage. 100 years is a typical figure you will see based on this simple math and is roughly in the small ballpark regardless if you take a naive everything stays the same calculation or predict increasing uranium demand and new reserves being found. You can get slightly different numbers if you use high demand growth or use higher base prices for extraction etc, the ballpark is still the around the same 100 year, not immediately critical decade range but not nearly infinite thousand year range either.Nuclear provides about 5% world primary energy use. Bringing that up to 100% requires scaling up nuclear by a factor of 20, that leaves us enough uranium for about 5 years of operation, 10 if you want to be generous.>>17065172Geothermal "anywhere" is horrendously inefficient power source, it loses to solar and wind basically everywhere as it is let alone if you intentionally pick bad locations for it. And it should be said that geothermal scales down from good location to bad location much faster than solar or wind.
>>17065081https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/uranium-report-plenty-more-where-came>A report released today finds that new discoveries and re-evaluations of known conventional uranium resources will be adequate to supply nuclear energy needs for at least 100 years at present consumption level. That was in 2006.https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/uranium-mining-overview>Thus the world's present measured resources of uranium (5.9 Mt) in the cost category above present spot prices and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last about 90 years.And that was a recent report. So in 20 years, the expected resources have declined by 10 years.
>>17065450Known conventional uranium resources <> the probable billions of tons on Earth given its average concentration of approximately 2–3 ppm in the Earth's continental crust. Not even counting what's in the water.
>>17064292Nuclear power is incompatible with future brown population of the world.
>>17065819Sure, much talk but no results. That will make for very expensive uranium fuel once the conventional sources run out.
