billvon wrote: ↑Jan 10 2019 10:38pm
2) Fuel isn't really an issue with modern designs. CANDU reactors can run on natural (unenriched) uranium and we have hundreds of years of that. There are a great many breeder reactor designs that run on fertile material (like thorium and existing nuclear waste) that we have thousands of years of supply for. And even if we stick to existing designs, we can reprocess fuel.
Do you know any breeders that are able to produce energy / fuel at an acceptable cost?. All I know are military facilities.
CANDU is mainly used in Canda (their Technology) and India. India used them to make Plutonium to build their nuclear bombs, despited they declared otherwise when buying them.
You also have the plutonium problem. Even 3rd world pakistan was able to build its nukes with plutonium. It's just a mater of time until they are used in regional wars or obtained by terrorists.
3) Yes nuclear has some risk - but so does every form of power. Nuclear is one of the lowest. The failures are scarier, but they occur so infrequently that the overall risk is very low.
One major accident in Germany is able to "consume" more area than al wind and solar power plants combined and this is not area we are able to chose from ourselves.
The cost is potentially horrendous. Imho nuclear is only accepatbale if their is a global insurance fonds with several trillion USD of capaital that is able to pay in case of an accident.
All nuclear power plants world wide should pay into that fund.
Than you have to ask about cost of production. New nujes in Europa cost around 10-15€ct/kWh. Add to that the (unknown) cost for waste management and add to that the cost for true insurance.
Solar and wind cost around 5-7€ct/kWh each. No additional cost except for grid integration.
There's no way to get around having some form of baseline reliable, conventional electrical power supply (nuclear, coal, natural gas etc) for most of the world, even with renewables supplying most of our energy. And of the choices, nuclear is the least deadly.
Up to 80% solar and wind simple (natural) gas power plants will provide that. With a stronger European grid eben 90% solar+wind is possible with the remaining to come from hydro, storage and gas. Gas can be natural gas, Biogas or gas from Power2Gas Systems.
At 80% solar+wind you have maybe 2000-2500 hours per year where you need other ways of power, at 90% solar+wind maybe 1000-1500 hours. It doesn't Sound wise to use nuclear for that.
If you build a new nuclear power plant now you expect it to run 40 years, maybe even longer. If you plan it now in 2019 it will start production in 2030 and should run to 2070.
Nuclear may be an option for some countries or could be used to produced liquid hydrogen for export or energy for water desalination, but obviously it is not an option for us. At least not the technology that is available today.