Green Energy

[Devin]

Does anyone really think we're going to get off fossil fuels as quickly as people are insinuating? 84% world energy is fossil fuel and it's been only slowly decreasing since the 80s and that includes hydro and nuclear as non fossil fuels

At what level of fossil fuel use do we need to get to? And how could we reasonably get to that level?

Edited September 1, 2022 by Devin

[aurum]

@Devin

There is a lot of people on the political left who do not believe a 100% transition to renewable energy is possible.

The main argument seems to be that what we really are doing as a society is just adding more energy, not really swapping fossil fuels for renewables. You still need fossil fuels for electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels etc. And renewables have a lot of issues that won't be solved for that make the swap impossible, like intermittency.

I personally feel renewables seem to still be humanity's best option, albeit an imperfect one. Fossil fuels cannot last forever, so inevitably you do have to find some other energy source.

[Devin]

@aurum yeah. I have a less mainstream view; use less and less energy, even if you don't believe in manmade climate change fossil fuels pollute the air and water you ingest. I would like a real crackdown on energy use/pollution

Ironically, the problem I'm looking at eventually solves it self though by reducing human population, but by an ugly means

Edited September 2, 2022 by Devin

[Nilsi]

Every person who has thought about this for more than one second advocates for nuclear energy, as a bridge between fossil and renewable energy. Its actually a rather elegant solution, and the green activists of the 20th century have kinda shot themselves in the foot, with all their anti-nuclear protesting.

Edited September 2, 2022 by Nilsi

[DocWatts]

A combination of renewables and nuclear energy seems to be the most realistic path forward imho.

There are legitimate concerns about nuclear energy, but those are that of cost, logistics, and waste rather than safety.

Newer nuclear reactor designs are far safer than stuff that was built half a century ago, and let's not forget that air pollution from fossil fuels kills tens of thousands of people every year.

The primary challenge rather is that a typical nuclear power plant costs tens of billions of dollars to construct, and takes around a decade to become operational.

And of course there's the issue of nuclear waste, but again this has to be weighed against the immediacy of catastrophic climate change from carbon pollution. 

And it's worth keeping in mind that nuclear energy is non-renewable, and if we used nuclear at the same rate as fossil fuels we'd have perhaps one to two centuries of nuclear fuel before it became cost prohibitive due scarcity.

So nuclear can be part of a broader move away from fossil fuels, but it can't be the lynchpin of that strategy.

Edited September 2, 2022 by DocWatts

[Devin]

2 hours ago, DocWatts said:

A combination of renewables and nuclear energy seems to be the most realistic path forward imho.

There are legitimate concerns about nuclear energy, but those are that of cost, logistics, and waste rather than safety.

Newer nuclear reactor designs are far safer than stuff that was built half a century ago, and let's not forget that air pollution from fossil fuels kills tens of thousands of people every year.

The primary challenge rather is that a typical nuclear power plant costs tens of billions of dollars to construct, and takes around a decade to become operational.

And of course there's the issue of nuclear waste, but again this has to be weighed against the immediacy of catastrophic climate change from carbon pollution. 

And it's worth keeping in mind that nuclear energy is non-renewable, and if we used nuclear at the same rate as fossil fuels we'd have perhaps one to two centuries of nuclear fuel before it became cost prohibitive due scarcity.

So nuclear can be part of a broader move away from fossil fuels, but it can't be the lynchpin of that strategy.

New nuclear reactor designs have not been tested like old ones, we don't know if there are design problems to be fleshed out yet.

What I'm wanting to see is mini reactors at industrial facilities to use the reactors generated heated, industrial needs a lot of heat

[Devin]

2 hours ago, DocWatts said:

A

And it's worth keeping in mind that nuclear energy is non-renewable, and if we used nuclear at the same rate as fossil fuels we'd have perhaps one to two centuries of nuclear fuel before it became cost prohibitive due scarcity.

 

https://whatisnuclear.com › blog › 2...

Nuclear fuel will last us for 4 billion years

Oct 28, 2020 — Nuclear fuel will last us for 4 billion years. Nick Touran, Ph.D. (nuclear engineering), 2020-10-28. Reading time: 7 minutes

[Devin]

https://phys.org › news › 2011-05-n...

Why nuclear power will never supply the world's energy needs - Phys.org

May 11, 2011 — Currently, the global nuclear power supply capacity is only 375 gigawatts (GW). In order to examine the large-scale limits of nuclear power, .

[DocWatts]

27 minutes ago, Devin said:

https://phys.org › news › 2011-05-n...

Why nuclear power will never supply the world's energy needs - Phys.org

May 11, 2011 — Currently, the global nuclear power supply capacity is only 375 gigawatts (GW). In order to examine the large-scale limits of nuclear power, .

(Your link wasn't working, fyi).

According to Scientific American the existing supply of Uranium would last us about two centuries.

Of course that's using uranium based fission, it fusion ever becomes viable that would change things significantly.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/#:~:text=According to the NEA%2C identified,today's consumption rate in total.

[Devin]

https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-10-28-nuclear-energy-is-longterm-sustainable.html

[DocWatts]

42 minutes ago, Devin said:

https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-10-28-nuclear-energy-is-longterm-sustainable.html

Thanks.

Both sources seem to be in agreement that using commercially existing reactors, we'd have about two centuries worth of Uranium.

A new generation of breeder reactors which can use spent fissile material as fuel sound extremely promising, and I'm fully on board with public investments into R&D for nuclear energy alongside renewables.

[Devin]

16 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

Thanks.

Both sources seem to be in agreement that using commercially existing reactors, we'd have about two centuries worth of Uranium.

A new generation of breeder reactors which can use spent fissile material as fuel sound extremely promising, and I'm fully on board with public investments into R&D for nuclear energy alongside renewables.

Breeder reactors have been operational

 

Also from your national scientific source

"According to the NEA, identified uranium resources total 5.5 million metric tons, and an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered—a roughly 230-year supply at today's consumption rate in total. Further exploration and improvements in extraction technology are likely to at least double this estimate over time."

in the 80s they said we'd be out of oil by now

Edited September 2, 2022 by Devin

[DocWatts]

On 9/2/2022 at 2:03 PM, Devin said:

Breeder reactors have been operational

 

Also from your national scientific source

"According to the NEA, identified uranium resources total 5.5 million metric tons, and an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered—a roughly 230-year supply at today's consumption rate in total. Further exploration and improvements in extraction technology are likely to at least double this estimate over time."

in the 80s they said we'd be out of oil by now

The world will never "run out" of uranium (or oil). It's just that the difficulty of extraction and associated costs (including externalities) become too high for it to be a viable energy source, once a certain threshold of scarcity has been reached.

Edited September 4, 2022 by DocWatts

[Ulax]

I think if we manage to crack how to create nuclear fusion reactors safely then we'll have huge abundance of energy relatively quickly, dependent on how quickly the plants can be built after the scientific discovery's are made.

 

[Nilsi]

14 hours ago, Ulax said:

I think if we manage to crack how to create nuclear fusion reactors safely then we'll have huge abundance of energy relatively quickly, dependent on how quickly the plants can be built after the scientific discovery's are made.

 

We have already built prototype nuclear reactors, that are cooled with salt instead of water, causing them to safely shut down in case of emergency.

[Ulax]

@Nilsi Nuclear fusion ones? If so, do you have a link you could share?

[Nilsi]

3 hours ago, Ulax said:

@Nilsi Nuclear fusion ones? If so, do you have a link you could share?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor

[Ulax]

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor

@Nilsi Oh. It says its a nuclear fission reactor, rather than nuclear fusion reactor

Edited September 5, 2022 by Ulax

[Nilsi]

1 minute ago, Ulax said:

Oh it says its a nuclear fission reactor, rather than nuclear fusion reactor

So? Apparently it works.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Nilsi

[Ulax]

Just now, Nilsi said:

So?

My original comment that you replied to was about nuclear fusion reactors rather than nuclear fission reactors.

The former have a lot more potential than the latter in terms of energy production.