Nuclear vs. Renewable: Drawbacks?
A video comparing nuclear energy to renewable energy, and comparing the various practical drawbacks to implementing these technologies on a large scale. I hope it's clear why I say there is no silver bullet, and why we can't rely on any single technology–nuclear OR renewable–for our energy generation. I also added a fun little segment at the end for a particular Youtube user–you know who you are.
(cont’)France ran out of uranium in 2002 and must now import 10,527 tonnes u3o8 per year (2008). That’s about 3,500 tonnes of uranium fuel after it has been enriched. And they’re able to get 910 tonnes from refueling. That’s at most 25%
There is a difference between able and do. AREVA reprocesses spent fuel at its LaHague facility, producing both plutonium and uranium. France’s nuclear program produces 1,250 tonnes of high-level waste. France has only capacity to re-processes 850 tonnes of that waste, yielding 810 tonnes of RepU. So far, they are only enriching 1/3 of the RepU to use in reactors. The process also produces 8.5 tonnes of plutonium, which they use to produce 100 tonnes of MOX.
I’m not talking about separating plutonium, I’m talking about recycling the Uranium.
90% of the ORIGINAL URANIUM is able to be recycled and used again. This is has been the backbone of the French Nuclear Industry for decades.
Today, it is still cheaper to produce low enriched uranium from new ore than to separate plutonium from previously irradiated fuel elements.
I would bet the farm on technologies that are getting cheaper rather than more expensive. Wind and solar are rapidly coming down in price. Nuclear is going up.
Uranium does not affect the cost of electricity at $5 per kilo. At higher prices fuel *does* become a significant cost of producing electricity from nuclear power.
We have a national grid. It carries all the electricity made currently. If we are replacing coal, oil and gas, why do we need more of a grid? This is electric companies begging for a subsidy
The problem with solving the tons and tons of hurdles with nuclear power is that we’ve been working on it for 55 years and no major changes