Generally, the economics of nuclear involve a very large upfront cost followed by cheap energy afterwards. Maintaining existing plants usually makes sense but building new ones should only be done with careful consideration of other options in the long term. On demand power can be used to supplement a grid so having a variety of options makes sense.
But it seems like everybody just picks up one thing as their pet solution and tries to promote it in absolute terms, which doesn’t really make sense. Different environmental conditions call for different solutions, and imperfect options can still have a use case. There isn’t really a “best.”
The long term cost of nuclear is by far the highest, unless we actually figure out a no maintenance storage method or other way to get rid of the waste. It’s cheap in the moment, but effectively taking on a debt for a very long time. Not that dissimilar to fossil fuels, really. And just like with fossil fuels, the costs are socialized, because whatever company is responsible for the waste probably won’t be around in 100, 500, or 1000 years.
This is a misunderstanding of radioactive material. The atoms already exist & they are already spread all throughout the world. Building a reactor allows us to harness the energy of atoms decaying in a useful way.
As for the end product France is able to recycle up to 96% of spent fuel. The remaining 4% is being prepped & placed back in the ground at a site they are currently building.
If you want to read more this Stanford student wrote a well cited paper. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2024/ph241/friedman2/
Or you can read this this science insite article.
https://scienceinsights.org/what-does-france-do-with-nuclear-waste/
Generally, the economics of nuclear involve a very large upfront cost followed by cheap energy afterwards. Maintaining existing plants usually makes sense but building new ones should only be done with careful consideration of other options in the long term. On demand power can be used to supplement a grid so having a variety of options makes sense.
But it seems like everybody just picks up one thing as their pet solution and tries to promote it in absolute terms, which doesn’t really make sense. Different environmental conditions call for different solutions, and imperfect options can still have a use case. There isn’t really a “best.”
You are missing out on the very long tail of waste disposal and treatment and the associated costs and risks.
QAA podcast has a prettybleak good episode on it here
The long term cost of nuclear is by far the highest, unless we actually figure out a no maintenance storage method or other way to get rid of the waste. It’s cheap in the moment, but effectively taking on a debt for a very long time. Not that dissimilar to fossil fuels, really. And just like with fossil fuels, the costs are socialized, because whatever company is responsible for the waste probably won’t be around in 100, 500, or 1000 years.
This is a misunderstanding of radioactive material. The atoms already exist & they are already spread all throughout the world. Building a reactor allows us to harness the energy of atoms decaying in a useful way.
As for the end product France is able to recycle up to 96% of spent fuel. The remaining 4% is being prepped & placed back in the ground at a site they are currently building. If you want to read more this Stanford student wrote a well cited paper.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2024/ph241/friedman2/ Or you can read this this science insite article. https://scienceinsights.org/what-does-france-do-with-nuclear-waste/
indeed. and the fuel gets concentrated and after it is spent and no longer usable, you can buy the fuel pellets on a keychain, yes?
Who is downvoting basic subject knowledge?