sandbox

sandbox , 5 days ago

In hot countries, thermal solar is a great opportunity - Imagine big mirrors that concentrate the sunlight on one particular spot.

But Photovoltaic is used just fine - one of the largest solar farms is near Dubai, and Saudi are planning on being a massive provider of solar power in the future - Saudi Arabia launches world’s largest solar-power plant

So, no, sorry, nuclear power isn’t relevant anymore. I know it’s tempting to cling to outdated technologies sometimes, I enjoy using a typewriter for example, but when it comes to solving climate change, I think we should use the best tools available, which nuclear is definitely not. It’s just too expensive and slow to provision.

sandbox , 5 days ago

There is so much uranium in the world. Even if we completely switched over to nuclear power and without improvements in Nuclear tech, our sun would have fizzled out and we still would have uranium left.

TL;DR: If we switched over to nuclear, we’d burn through the world’s reserves of accessible uranium ore in less than twenty years. Hopefully the sun will last a bit longer than that.

According to 2022 Red Book, there are around 8 million tonnes of Uranium which we could extract for $260 or less, per kg. The current price for uranium is around half that, FYI, so nuclear fuel prices would have at least doubled by the point we’re extracting that last million tonne.

Nuclear power plants use around 20 tonnes of uranium per TWh, according to the world nuclear association, and world energy consumption is around 25,000 TWh per year, according to the IEA. That would be half a million tonnes of uranium consumed per year. Meaning we would burn through the world’s reserve of reasonably accessible uranium in just sixteen years.

sandbox , 5 days ago

No industry has quite so much vaporware technology as nuclear power. Any idiot can promise and never deliver. Look at Elon Musk.

sandbox , 4 days ago

DOE Announces $2.7 Billion From President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda to Boost Domestic Nuclear Fuel Supply Chain

Wow, some industry lobbyists got government funding, amazing. Global fossil fuel subsidies are at $7 trillion, so I guess those are really relevant to our future as well!

I don’t want developing countries to waste their money on nuclear power when they can get much more cost effective renewables.