There is a very finite supply of uranium.
The same as with coal, natural gas, oil etc.
If we build a substantial number of nuclear power plants
all across the world, that resource may run out within
200 years.
We have then left our future generations with several hundred new sites that cant be used for anything productive for 100s of years or a lot more.
A ton of nuclear waste nobody knows what to do with.
Transporting highly dangerous uranium from where they dig it up, to the power plants and then from there to somewhere safe is risky.
It would be the top mission of terrorist groups to capture.
They dont have to make a bomb, or anything very advanced.
Just spreading it over a city like NYC would be bad.
Some say we reached peak uranium in the 80s, some say in 30 years ahead. All agree that it is going to happen.
The usual retort from nuclear lobbyists is that we will have nuclear power that is new and advanced so there won't be any nuclear waste left that we must worry about.
And that new nuclear powerplants will not have the errors the hold ones did, so Fukushima, Chernobyl could never happen.
These new advanced nuclear reactors do not exist in any numbers and a lot of them do not exist period. They are ideas on a drawing board.
Thorium reactors would have access to fuel that is a lot more plentiful and easier to extract. Nobody has yet built a proper Thorium reactor that is reproducible and affordable. Waste would also be less dangerous. Yet some of the transitions the thorium reactor process would have would be extremely dangerous. Hopefully, they would not stay in that state awfully long.
Breeder reactors would extend the uranium supply for an extremely long time. There are two reactors that are in part based on this concept.
If we were to start investing in nuclear power, then we need to finance building one these new reactors and observe it over 10 to 30 years.
That should be enough time to learn about most bugs, dangers, faults, and problems.
If it looks good, we build a few more and see what happens.
Over several hundred years we could have enough new reactors running.
Planning to construct a lot of untested reactors in parallel around the world is to me an exceptionally bad idea. We need to test learn, fail and learn in an iterative process
IMHO Focus of financing and building sources for electricity should be focused on renewable energy that can keep going for a long time.
Uranium is very common element. From your linked article :
> If one is willing to pay $300/kg for uranium, there is a vast quantity available in the ocean.[63] It is worth noting that since fuel cost only amounts to a small fraction of nuclear energy total cost per kWh, and raw uranium price also constitutes a small fraction of total fuel costs, such an increase on uranium prices wouldn't involve a very significant increase in the total cost per kWh produced.
So countries could build known
and will tested reactor types to decarbonize world electricity production.
Further, given weather calamities due to global warming are detected, having dispatchable power less dependent on weather conditions is super important.
Eventually we would need to remove co2 from atmosphere as well, which is requires additional energy
There is a very finite supply of uranium. The same as with coal, natural gas, oil etc.
If we build a substantial number of nuclear power plants all across the world, that resource may run out within 200 years.
We have then left our future generations with several hundred new sites that cant be used for anything productive for 100s of years or a lot more.
A ton of nuclear waste nobody knows what to do with.
Transporting highly dangerous uranium from where they dig it up, to the power plants and then from there to somewhere safe is risky. It would be the top mission of terrorist groups to capture.
They dont have to make a bomb, or anything very advanced. Just spreading it over a city like NYC would be bad.
Some say we reached peak uranium in the 80s, some say in 30 years ahead. All agree that it is going to happen.
The usual retort from nuclear lobbyists is that we will have nuclear power that is new and advanced so there won't be any nuclear waste left that we must worry about.
And that new nuclear powerplants will not have the errors the hold ones did, so Fukushima, Chernobyl could never happen.
These new advanced nuclear reactors do not exist in any numbers and a lot of them do not exist period. They are ideas on a drawing board.
Thorium reactors would have access to fuel that is a lot more plentiful and easier to extract. Nobody has yet built a proper Thorium reactor that is reproducible and affordable. Waste would also be less dangerous. Yet some of the transitions the thorium reactor process would have would be extremely dangerous. Hopefully, they would not stay in that state awfully long.
Breeder reactors would extend the uranium supply for an extremely long time. There are two reactors that are in part based on this concept.
If we were to start investing in nuclear power, then we need to finance building one these new reactors and observe it over 10 to 30 years. That should be enough time to learn about most bugs, dangers, faults, and problems.
If it looks good, we build a few more and see what happens.
Over several hundred years we could have enough new reactors running.
Planning to construct a lot of untested reactors in parallel around the world is to me an exceptionally bad idea. We need to test learn, fail and learn in an iterative process
IMHO Focus of financing and building sources for electricity should be focused on renewable energy that can keep going for a long time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power