>It’s disingenuous to factor in mining requirement for solar panels but not uranium.
It would be if it wasn't for the fact that nuclear power is incredibly energy dense so mining requirements for Uranium or Thorium or whatever iteration of nuclear we have, are not even in the same universe as what we will need to scale solar and wind.
> But these include better recycling of existing minerals (this includes solar panels)
I don't know what to say to that. Solar panels are not recyclable. Neither are wind mills. Both are high-tech devices. They may never be recyclable. Also recycling, especially recycling of high-tech devices, is not free as it tends to be incredibly energy intensive. In most situations it's more efficient to just bury the darn thing.
>better forest management, better land use for food production, more careful road design that doesn’t fragment the wildlife, etc. A
The problem is that by going with solar and wind you're compounding all these problems, and the general problem of ecosystem collapse.
>Given the timescale we have to react to and reverse the climate crisis the best technology that we have right now is wind and solar.
That's not true. It's where the mindshare inertia is (notice the deployment of wind and solar is pathetically low on a global scale), but if we truly internalized the danger of not just global warming but environmental collapse, we could pivot on a dime and we could expand our nuclear infrastructure probably in around two decades (we already lost 50 years by the way). It's like what happened with this pandemic. It takes a decade or more to roll out a new vaccine, unless a global pandemic shuts down the global economy and kills millions of people. Under those constrains, it turns out you can develop a vaccine in a year, and take another year to roll it out.
The other aspect is that there are no technical or engineering barriers to nuclear deployment. It's solely regulations and cost (though not prohibitively impossible costs. I'm willing to concede that nuclear is more expensive than things like natural gas). Wind and solar, on the other hand, still have unsolved technical challenges. You can't will those into existence.
But again, we haven't really internalized the dangerous of global warming and ecosystem collapse, so we're dicking around with wind and solar because it feels right.
> Solar panels are not recyclable. Neither are wind mills
I don’t understand why you say that. If a wind mill blade is made out of aluminium, it can be recycled as aluminium after it has been decommissioned. It being used in a high tech device doesn’t change that fact. Same if solar cells are primarily made out of glass and silicon, both could be recycled into anything else that requires glass or silicon.
I also don’t understand how you are so willing to give existing challenges of nuclear a break because “regulation and cost” are preventing it from being realized, but you are not willing to give recycling solar cells and wind mill parts the same break. Arguably the only hindrance to recycling high tech devises is economic and the economy of recycling could just as easily—and arguably more easily—be regulated and subsidized such that recycling high tech devises becomes a viable option.
But I feel like we are dancing around the issues here. There are plenty of things we are doing wrong as inhabitants of the planet, inefficient land use is one of these. In many cases we would only need to initiate trivial changes which would result in us keeping our standard of living while stopping doing sustained damage to the ecosystem. I honestly think that renewable energy infrastructure is one of these things. We could (and should) do it in a more sustainable way. Abandoning it in favor of nuclear because we cannot do it 100% sustainable is just silly (especially since neither can we do nuclear 100% sustainable).
EDIT: I honestly don’t know anything about solar cell technology (it being made out of glass and silicon is a guess). So I opened Wikipedia and found this[1].
> Most parts of a solar module can be recycled including up to 95% of certain semiconductor materials or the glass as well as large amounts of ferrous and non-ferrous metals.
EDIT 2: As children have clarified wind mill blades are mostly made out of fiberglass and not recyclable. This doesn’t though void my point as there is a lot we could do to make our impact more sustainable, including making wind turbines out of recyclable materials or finding ways to reuse fiberglass blades in new wind mills, etc. Most parts of a nuclear power plant aren’t easy to recycle either, so in either case complaining about the sustainability of wind turbines but not nuclear power plant is disingenuous.
> Edit: ... Most parts of a nuclear power plant aren’t easy to recycle either,
A nuclear power plant is compact compared to the energy produced, and has an exceptionally long lifetime in comparison to current "renewables".
The components of a solar panel are individually recyclable, but that doesn't mean that anyone has really figured out how to recycle the actual finished panels in any kind of significant energy/resource saving way.
Similarly, the amount of fuel needed to be mined for nuclear energy is trivial, especially if one allows reprocessing.
Nuclear power plants are absolutely massive, and don't have big wins when it comes to the amount of material needed versus, say, solar. Here's a presentation touting the AP1000, which needs ~5x less concrete than Sizewell B's design (slide 11):
At 2500kg/m^3 of concrete, and excluding the rebar, that's roughly 4.5W/kg of material. For Sizewell B, than's 0.9W/kg.
Meanwhile, a 300W solar panel weighs ~40 pounds, and even if it has massive mounting structures that weigh twice as much as the panel itself, that's 5-10W/kg.
A nuclear powerplant has a lifetime of 40-60 years. Solar panels have warranties of 25 years, but often operate a decade or more longer. Nuclear does not have an "exceptionally long lifetime" in comparison.
Nuclear power plants built in the past were massive.
That doesn't mean we have to still build them. Technology marches on - we have improved designs. Micro-reactors solve a lot of issues - including transmission loss/electrical grid fragility/diversification of generation.
I was hopeful about this, but sadly, it's just not true. NuScale is a great example. They're failing because they can't hit the cost numbers on their pilot project, and note that this project is cited on DoE land that did not require any form of political negotiation with voters or anti nuclear activists.
I'd be ecstatic if someone figures out how to change the ROI on nuclear, but I'm no longer optimistic about it. Just saying the words "small modular reactors" isn't a solution.
> Meanwhile, a 300W solar panel weighs ~40 pounds, and even if it has massive mounting structures that weigh twice as much as the panel itself, that's 5-10W/kg.
Someone's forgetting capacity factor-- 10 to 30%.
I also don't think looking at mass-- and primarily concrete-- is the best way to measure resource usage.
> A nuclear powerplant has a lifetime of 40-60 years. Solar panels have warranties of 25 years, but often operate a decade or more longer. Nuclear does not have an "exceptionally long lifetime" in comparison.
A nuclear powerplant might have a design lifetime of 40 years, but we're finding that there is little issue with operating them to 80 years and beyond with maintenance and retrofit programs.
> Someone's forgetting capacity factor-- 10 to 30%.
Which puts solar and nuclear on completely the same scale...
If you don't think mass is a good way to compare, and you're concerned about resources, please suggest the metric that will somehow make nuclear look good. Because that concrete is not very recyclable. So the 95% recyclability of solar panels is making them look a looooot better than nuclear once we move beyond mass to something more nuanced.
I think the capacity factor of nuclear is much closer to 95% or higher these days, but call it 100% for simplicity
PV capacity factor is typically 16%-28% [1], which adjusting the W/kg, gives us:
Solar PV: 0.8W/kg - 2.8W/kg, capacity factor adjusted (with supporting infrastructure weighing 2x the panels, a total spitball)
Nuclear: 0.8W/kg - 4.5W/kg, capacity factor adjusted, two different modern reactor designs, concrete only.
With this ratio, higher numbers mean better power densities, and the ranges completely overlap between nuclear and solar PV. Nuclear isn't achieving orders of magnitude better power density over solar.
The materials in a solar panel are recyclable, but practically speaking it’s extremely difficult since they’re epoxied together. There’s also the issue of heavy metal content like cadmium.
My point with the above comment was that pointing to the unsustainability of renewable infrastructure is disingenuous, especially if you are not doing the same with nuclear infrastructure. Both are unsustainable currently, both can be made sustainable, arguable renewables even more so.
GP was complaining about the fact nuclear would be a better overall option because of sustainability issues that renewables have. I believe GP was being disingenuous and says so in bad faith. The fact is that we as a species have a terrible track record in unsustainable behavior. Renewables are not exempt from this. We can (and should) do better (including subsidizing e-waste recycling; putting tariffs on—or taxing—new aluminum that underbids recycled; etc.).
Not doing renewables because of this unsustainable track record is just plain silly, and arguing for such is probably done in bad faith, especially if nuclear is not held to the same standards.
It would be if it wasn't for the fact that nuclear power is incredibly energy dense so mining requirements for Uranium or Thorium or whatever iteration of nuclear we have, are not even in the same universe as what we will need to scale solar and wind.
> But these include better recycling of existing minerals (this includes solar panels)
I don't know what to say to that. Solar panels are not recyclable. Neither are wind mills. Both are high-tech devices. They may never be recyclable. Also recycling, especially recycling of high-tech devices, is not free as it tends to be incredibly energy intensive. In most situations it's more efficient to just bury the darn thing.
>better forest management, better land use for food production, more careful road design that doesn’t fragment the wildlife, etc. A
The problem is that by going with solar and wind you're compounding all these problems, and the general problem of ecosystem collapse.
>Given the timescale we have to react to and reverse the climate crisis the best technology that we have right now is wind and solar.
That's not true. It's where the mindshare inertia is (notice the deployment of wind and solar is pathetically low on a global scale), but if we truly internalized the danger of not just global warming but environmental collapse, we could pivot on a dime and we could expand our nuclear infrastructure probably in around two decades (we already lost 50 years by the way). It's like what happened with this pandemic. It takes a decade or more to roll out a new vaccine, unless a global pandemic shuts down the global economy and kills millions of people. Under those constrains, it turns out you can develop a vaccine in a year, and take another year to roll it out.
The other aspect is that there are no technical or engineering barriers to nuclear deployment. It's solely regulations and cost (though not prohibitively impossible costs. I'm willing to concede that nuclear is more expensive than things like natural gas). Wind and solar, on the other hand, still have unsolved technical challenges. You can't will those into existence.
But again, we haven't really internalized the dangerous of global warming and ecosystem collapse, so we're dicking around with wind and solar because it feels right.