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Uranium is a finite resoure
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Written on: 16 June 2010 [22:07]
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ecoadmin
Administrator
Topic creator
registered since: 20.07.2007
Posts: 585
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With the introduction of electric cars, the consumption of electrical energy will rise, at what rate has to be seen. When driving my electric vehicle and stopping somewhere, I often get approached by people who want to know more. The result is usually a discussion about clean energy. But what is clean? You know where I am getting too. Quite many people believe that it will not be possible to cover our needs just by renewable energy. So they look for the next best alternative. Nuclear? Coal? Due to the CO2 problem coal seems to be one of the last choices. For many nuclear power is the way to go, at least until we have developed the technologies to go fully renewable. That surprises me. Uranium is a finite resource. Current predictions say that we will run out of this material in about 100 years. Ok, I admit, still some time left, but really enough time to just continue as we do? The use of nuclear power, some say, is cheaper than e.g. wind, biomass or solar power. Sure? And who is paying for the clean-up of the mines, the storage and the development of such plants? Hmm...In Europe its quite normal that it takes approx. 25 years until a new plant is fully operational. Time and money could be spent much better during such a long time. And above all, lets face it, who is willing to live on top of a nuclear waste facility? I do not know many. The question of how to store such waste is a very interesting one. As far as I know, no country in the world has found the ultimate solution. Places where the waste is currently stored might be safe for a couple hundred years, but is it safe for a million years? In my country they have pretty sophisticated plans how to store that stuff safely. But not sophisticated enough in my opinion. Its planned that the waste remains accessible for about 100 years. Thereafter the gallery will be closed. For the next 1'000'000 years. Safe? Twike 890
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Written on: 16 June 2010 [23:19]
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iamian
 
registered since: 23.02.2009
Posts: 110
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For me I see nuclear power as having the most potential ... long term. Not this incredibly limited / inferior fission nuclear ... I'm talking fusion power. Our science is not there yet. Thankfully we have this massive nuclear fusion reactor already in place ... it has successfully been operating for about 4.5 billion year ... and we have about 5 billion years before it goes to its red giant phase and the planet earth is incinerated... this large fusion reactor comes with many preinstalled safety mechanisms. So when people talk to me about energy for human society ... Until we have mastered fusion power ourselves ... I see the massive amount of energy the sun throws at the earth every day as being the largest source of energy available to us... by several orders of magnitude larger than fossil fuels , fission , etc... The sun pumps out about ~174 PetaWatts ( ~1.74x10^17 ) worth of energy to us ... with ~85 being absorbed in the atmosphere ... leaving some ~84 PetaWatts to the surface... in 2006 Globally humans consumed a total combined from ( oil, gas, coal, Hydro, Nuclear, Geothermal, Wind, Solar, Wood ) at the rate of about ~15.8 TerraWatts ( ~1.58x10^13 ) ... In 2006 that total human combined energy usage was not even 0.001% of the amount of energy the sun provided ... not even 0.02% of the energy from the sun that reached the surface of the earth. All the fossil fuels are just chemically stored solar power from the past. I doubt if you combined all the fossil fuels together , and even added in all the fissionable material ... even using the best technology ... all combined I am relatively certain that what the solar potential still dwarfs all others combined ... the 84 Peta-Watts x 24 hours a day = 2.016 x 10^18 Wh per day ( ~2 Exa-WattHours )... every day of the year x 365 = 7.3584 x 10 ^ 20 Wh per Year ( ~0.7 Zeta-WattHours ) ... every year for the next x ~5 Billion years = ~3.6792 x10^30 Wh ( ~3.6 x 10^6 Yotta-WattHours ) - - - - - - Now if we make it long enough ... at best some ~5 Billion years from now ... we will have to leave this birth planet ... and Fusion power is the only energy source energy dense enough to fuel a space faring multi-generational society. Until then ... I think the radio-active fissionable fuels are best used for atomic batteries for deep space probes. - - - - - - - just my 2 bits. RE & Efficiency enthusiast
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