The production of the uranium fuel, the gigantic building itself, the transport (the fule gets shipped around the world), the storage after its depleted.
Its definitely better than any Combustion fuels, but not at all better than actual renewables.
if you want to be like that nothing is. Solar requires vast amounts of rare earths to be mined and wind requires huge amount of unrecylable blades and generators to be produced. On total lifecyle damage to the environment all three are very low but non zero.
Solar requires vast amounts of rare earths to be mined
Not true, the newest solar panels don’t need rare earths at that scale.
and wind requires huge amount of unrecylable blades and generators to be produced.
Both are recyclable and even if they were not they are not radioactive, poisonous or otherwise hazardous… The blades are from a Artificial resin And glas fiber and the generators are from normal industrial materials like iron aluminum and copper.
Over all actual renewables are much more environmentally friendly and have less emissions. But yes they are also not absolutely zero emission (even though that being possible)
When considering these externalities for nuclear, you have to do the same for renewables as well. i.e. scrap turbine blades, concrete in dams, weathered PV panels, land use taken up by panels and turbines.
Remember that the materials used in most renewable generation are also shipped around the world and many have very dirty refining processes.
I’m a firm renewable energy supporter but you have to be fair to both processes.
You neglect the problem that the stuff from a nuclear reactor is literally unusable forever and becomes Special waste while the remains of renewables are recyclable, yes even turbine blades, there is just not enough market for it to attract a business so far, that will change of course with time, also the stuff is not toxic or radioactive…
Remember that the materials used in most renewable generation are also shipped around the world and many have very dirty refining processes.
Depends, newer version of the stuff don’t need rare earths, or much less, meaning the dirtiest of it falls out of the equation.
I am fair, nuclear is just not future proof for large scale usage. It also takes to long to be “effective” 10 years to build one powerplant, and is waaaay to expensive. you could build more actually renewables for less money in the same time and the electricity from it is basically free as there are almost no operational costs.
Incredibly well quantified emissions that are in total lower than the emissions from mining uranium (except for two or three cherry picked mines which are supposed to be representative), or the emissions from building and decomissioning a nuke if you take real lifetimes and load factors.
Most uranium ore is lower energy density than low grade coal. Digging it up with diesel equipment after removing twice as much overburden with explosives in a coal powered country and then milling it with 10s to 100s of litres of sulfuric acid is incredibly dirty. All of the “representative” lifecycle studies use Ranger (which used a specific much cleaner more expensive process only suitable for some specific ores on ore 30-70x as concentrated) or Cigar lake which is 1000-2500x as concentrated.
Even after that nuclear is still relatively low carbon, but about 10x a modern wind turbine. It is largely irrelevant (the best llw carbon technology is the one that deploys soonest), but that doesn’t stop the shills constantly lying to try and delay decarbonisation.
The problem is reliability, Europe sees more and more droughts building energy facilities that turn useful water into useless steam makes little sens when there are other options.
Also nuclear makes Sweden dependant on a country thaz exports nuclear fule.
And for solar the costs are shrinking and shrinking, the newest and most efficient panels don’t even need rare earths anymore and are recyclable. Btw Sweeden would be better suited for Hydroelectric dams and Wind wich have even less such problems.
Might be a problem for landlocked countries like Switzerland or so but all swedish reactors are cooled with sea water which is not in short supply any time soon.
Seaside reactors have other problems like rising Sea levels… Just putting some wind turbines up would not lead to another Chernobyl when something bad happens…
Fukushima had structural risks and wasn’t compliant with international standards. Modern reactors don’t carry runaway reaction risks. They just shut down in the event of a power loss. There is zero risk of another Chernobyl with modern reactors.
Easily solved by building them one meter above expected future sea level 😂
And wind turbines have the problem of needing backup power plants when the wind is not blowing. The whole reason for the energy crisis that europe have right now is because germanys backup plants can’t run as their supplier have their hand full trying to murder their neighbour.
Wind and solar are great stuff. Puting solar cells on every south facing roff is a no brainer. Hydro- and geothermal powerplants only work where the geography allows it and are in these places also no brainers. But wind is a whole different beast. If you have a good way to save the excess power generated when they are runing then they are super. But right now, outside of repumping back water in to hydro dams, there are no good ways of utilizing it. That leaves at best 50% of a normal country’s power demand to be covered by either fossil fuels or nuclear. Unless you are a climate change denier then that choice is pretty simple. Nuclear is the only viable option if you want to keep the lights on.
Anyway I’m not a civil engineer or geologist or renewable energy engineer or anything, so I won’t pretend to know what the best path is. I’m just hoping they did their studies correctly and are picking the best option.
But even if they’re not, it’s good they’re moving away from fossil fuels, whichever direction they move in.
Its not even zero emission…
What are the emissions, aside from waste heat?
The production of the uranium fuel, the gigantic building itself, the transport (the fule gets shipped around the world), the storage after its depleted.
Its definitely better than any Combustion fuels, but not at all better than actual renewables.
if you want to be like that nothing is. Solar requires vast amounts of rare earths to be mined and wind requires huge amount of unrecylable blades and generators to be produced. On total lifecyle damage to the environment all three are very low but non zero.
Not true, the newest solar panels don’t need rare earths at that scale.
Both are recyclable and even if they were not they are not radioactive, poisonous or otherwise hazardous… The blades are from a Artificial resin And glas fiber and the generators are from normal industrial materials like iron aluminum and copper.
Over all actual renewables are much more environmentally friendly and have less emissions. But yes they are also not absolutely zero emission (even though that being possible)
Solar requires 0 rare earths, troll.
When considering these externalities for nuclear, you have to do the same for renewables as well. i.e. scrap turbine blades, concrete in dams, weathered PV panels, land use taken up by panels and turbines.
Remember that the materials used in most renewable generation are also shipped around the world and many have very dirty refining processes.
I’m a firm renewable energy supporter but you have to be fair to both processes.
You neglect the problem that the stuff from a nuclear reactor is literally unusable forever and becomes Special waste while the remains of renewables are recyclable, yes even turbine blades, there is just not enough market for it to attract a business so far, that will change of course with time, also the stuff is not toxic or radioactive…
Depends, newer version of the stuff don’t need rare earths, or much less, meaning the dirtiest of it falls out of the equation.
I am fair, nuclear is just not future proof for large scale usage. It also takes to long to be “effective” 10 years to build one powerplant, and is waaaay to expensive. you could build more actually renewables for less money in the same time and the electricity from it is basically free as there are almost no operational costs.
Okay.
Make a PV system out of a strict subset of the materials in the reactor.
Put the PV system over top of Inkai mine.
Get more power than the uranium from the mine would produce for longer.
The 40 year guaranteed lifetime of the panels is longer than the 30 year lifetime of the average nuclear plant at shutdown.
Your materials can be recycled after.
The ground around the mine isn’t poisoned with heavy metals permanently,
This all assuming everything goes perfectly for the nuclear plant and waste disposal.
have you seen how large wind turbines are ?
I have like 20 in visible range from my window, yes, whats your point?
how did they got there is my point. to build anything there are emissions.
Incredibly well quantified emissions that are in total lower than the emissions from mining uranium (except for two or three cherry picked mines which are supposed to be representative), or the emissions from building and decomissioning a nuke if you take real lifetimes and load factors.
wait per energy output? that seems wrong. also what about nukes?
Most uranium ore is lower energy density than low grade coal. Digging it up with diesel equipment after removing twice as much overburden with explosives in a coal powered country and then milling it with 10s to 100s of litres of sulfuric acid is incredibly dirty. All of the “representative” lifecycle studies use Ranger (which used a specific much cleaner more expensive process only suitable for some specific ores on ore 30-70x as concentrated) or Cigar lake which is 1000-2500x as concentrated.
Even after that nuclear is still relatively low carbon, but about 10x a modern wind turbine. It is largely irrelevant (the best llw carbon technology is the one that deploys soonest), but that doesn’t stop the shills constantly lying to try and delay decarbonisation.
Read the other comments explaining it.
Most of those costs are similar for renewables…rather than a building it’s the production and installation of fields of solar panels, for example.
In both cases I’m pretty sure it’s a negligible fraction of the lifecycle emissions compared to energy generated.
The problem is reliability, Europe sees more and more droughts building energy facilities that turn useful water into useless steam makes little sens when there are other options.
Also nuclear makes Sweden dependant on a country thaz exports nuclear fule.
And for solar the costs are shrinking and shrinking, the newest and most efficient panels don’t even need rare earths anymore and are recyclable. Btw Sweeden would be better suited for Hydroelectric dams and Wind wich have even less such problems.
Might be a problem for landlocked countries like Switzerland or so but all swedish reactors are cooled with sea water which is not in short supply any time soon.
Seaside reactors have other problems like rising Sea levels… Just putting some wind turbines up would not lead to another Chernobyl when something bad happens…
Fukushima had structural risks and wasn’t compliant with international standards. Modern reactors don’t carry runaway reaction risks. They just shut down in the event of a power loss. There is zero risk of another Chernobyl with modern reactors.
Easily solved by building them one meter above expected future sea level 😂
And wind turbines have the problem of needing backup power plants when the wind is not blowing. The whole reason for the energy crisis that europe have right now is because germanys backup plants can’t run as their supplier have their hand full trying to murder their neighbour.
Wind and solar are great stuff. Puting solar cells on every south facing roff is a no brainer. Hydro- and geothermal powerplants only work where the geography allows it and are in these places also no brainers. But wind is a whole different beast. If you have a good way to save the excess power generated when they are runing then they are super. But right now, outside of repumping back water in to hydro dams, there are no good ways of utilizing it. That leaves at best 50% of a normal country’s power demand to be covered by either fossil fuels or nuclear. Unless you are a climate change denier then that choice is pretty simple. Nuclear is the only viable option if you want to keep the lights on.
Sweden?
Drought?
Anyway I’m not a civil engineer or geologist or renewable energy engineer or anything, so I won’t pretend to know what the best path is. I’m just hoping they did their studies correctly and are picking the best option.
But even if they’re not, it’s good they’re moving away from fossil fuels, whichever direction they move in.
Well no, that’s the thing. They’ve replaced moving away from fossil fuels now with promising they’re going to in 2045
Renewables need all of that too plus they generate SHITLOADS of waste.
Oh so exactly like renewables that actually produce more co2 during their life cycle?