Temperatures above 50C used to be a rarity confined to two or three global hotspots, but the World Meteorological Organization noted that at least 10 countries have reported this level of searing heat in the past year: the US, Mexico, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India and China.
In Iran, the heat index – a measure that also includes humidity – has come perilously close to 60C, far above the level considered safe for humans.
Heatwaves are now commonplace elsewhere, killing the most vulnerable, worsening inequality and threatening the wellbeing of future generations. Unicef calculates a quarter of the world’s children are already exposed to frequent heatwaves, and this will rise to almost 100% by mid-century.
Uranium is extremely common on Earth. What minerals are we lacking to go nuclear? If you were arguing that we need to switch the type of reactors we use, I could see that. A lack of fissile material, isn’t an issue.
I wouldn’t be so uncritical about this. Depending on rate of consumption (and data source) the world’s Uranium supplies will last for about 50 to 200 years. (The latter a low demand scenario based on current consumption rates.)
Technological advancements may push these limits. Possibly even into 10.000 to 60.000 years, when filtering active substances from seawater, which is currently quite a timeframe to consider it long-term sustainable even for a limited resource. However, we’re not there yet.
We also use thorium which is much more abundant than uranium.
If I remember correctly, we don’t have enough of it to go fully nuclear with our current energy demands. More so, we’ve mined nearly all of the soil thats anything above 0.02% uranium. As such, not only do we not have enough on the planet, getting it and refining it would almost defeat the whole point of doing so in the first place.
It is a problem in that there might be plenty of it but that doesn’t mean there’s enough.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying we have to go back to the stone ages. Its just that we can’t afford the super rich anymore.
Pretty sure there’s enough weapons grade plutonium to run the US for 100 years in decommissioned nuclear weapons alone.
I think 100 years is enough time to build pumped hydro storage and renewables like solar/wind.
The problem is that there a major, major shortage of one of the isotopes needed to re-enrich weapons grade uranium (pu 238). Thats before you get to the vast energy inefficiency of doing it which isn’t a problem, if you’re just decommissioning them anyway and you don’t care about energy consumption. However, in this instance, you would need to worry about energy consumption as well as the isotope there won’t be enough of to convert even a fraction of it.
Again, even if you had 100 years, there aren’t enough of the specialist minerals needed for hydro storage and renewables.
Essentially theres" a hole in our bucket."
The only answer is degrowth.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/02/nuclear-waste-us-could-power-the-us-for-100-years.html
What specialist materials are we talking about? Wind, solar, and pumped hydro use primarily copper, silicon, carbon, and concrete.
I’m not saying it can’t be converted or that the amount couldn’t, if refined, potentially fuel America for a number of years. So, I’m not sure what the link was for. I said its not feasible, due to the inefficiency of doing it on mass.
What about the energy transition materials like lithium, nickel and cobalt? We don’t have enough of those. All the windmills in the world won’t help, if you can’t convert motion into electricity.
Even then, copper looks to be facing an impending shortage. More still, refining enough silicone to supply the world with and keep up with increased demand of energy would have a colossal carbon footprint, almost big enough to cancel out the benefit. You’ll have to start refining soil thats 0.000000000001% silicone before you got even halfway through. Yeah, we have loads of these things but getting enough of it, in a pure enough form, to power the whole world simply isn’t realistic.
We can’t keep up with the speed that we increase our energy usage with the resources we have on the planet. Its a circular problem with only one solution. I’m not saying we have to go back to the primitive. We just have the treat the planet as though its resources are finite.
They’ll sell us any flavour of distraction other than “work less, do less, slow down and enjoy life more.” Whatever way you cut it, its the only answer.
You seem to be trying to push a narrative that I don’t oppose as if I do. I support degrowth but your reasons are flawed.
Pumped Hydro, solar, and wind don’t really use lithium, nickel, or cobalt. Those are mostly used in NCM Liion cells that none of these use. Permanent magnets would probably be the biggest headache tbh.
Idk why we’d need silicone, we’re not making sex toys here. /s silicon is most common in sand and rocks, something there is plenty of basically everywhere.
I don’t care what you’re saying for this circular problem. I’ve literally not addressed it once because I agree with you, I just don’t agree with your reasoning.
Neo magnets would be an issue to scale, but there are previous generation magnet material that will work just fine. It’s not as strong is all.
Most of the big generators on the grid don’t even have permanent magnets. They use electromagnets. This means they need some electricity to be added to get them started up, but once they are running they are self-sustaining. Normally that initial jolt is provided by backup generator or by battery.
Pushing a narrative is an interesting description of it.
You have to be able to store energy from renewables. How do you plan to store it without those? How to you plan for the shortfall of natural energy compared to energy consumption when you can’t meet it with nuclear?
I’m saying you because you’re claiming my reasons are flawed. I’m glad we agree on degrowth though.
Its late here and maybe I got confused. I thought I was talking about refined silicon though. Even though that’s still wrong lol.
If you’re refuting my reasons for degrowth on the basis that we can use nuclear and renewables to get around it, then its a circular problem. The energy needed to make enough to do it, with our current energy usage, with a rising population would cause so much carbon emissions. They’re just so inefficient.
What would your reasons for degrowth be then? I’d genuinely like to know.
Go read my other comment. Batteries don’t need rare materials for grid scale storage. It’s the small ones in phones that need things like Nickel, Cobalt, and Lithium to be as energy dense as possible. Grid storage began phasing out Nickel and Cobalt a while ago and will eventually phase out Lithium as Sodium batteries get better and cheaper.
Current nuclear is a sad joke compared to what we learned we could do even 50 years ago. The initial investment for nuclear is always expensive, but the pay off is cheap energy for like 40 or 50 years. While it does release CO2 to make new reactors there are ways around even that. Using less or no concrete would be a great start. Making iron is kind of hard though, I will give you that. Maybe we will have to switch to aluminum or something.
Consumer electronics are probably the biggest problem we can’t solve right now. That’s why we need devices made to last and things like the right to repair. Getting rid of individual vehicles would really help too, as trains can accept power straight from the grid without needing huge batteries.
It’s really telling that this is regarded as such a terrible thing by almost everyone.
Thank your local homeless person for doing their part in degrowth and underconsumption. Socrates and Jesus were finally vindicated. They really are the saints here.
We literally don’t need any of those. Grid scale storage I don’t think has used Nickel and Cobalt for some time, as the best way is to use Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries which need fewer replacements (longer cycle life) and are less volatile (explosive). Sodium batteries remove the need for even Lithium. Sodium is many times more abundant btw. As bad as they are Lead Acid batteries are also an option, as well as many other battery technologies made with less rare earth materials. Heck you could just do pumped hydro and not worry about batteries at all.
You also don’t need any of those materials to make electricity from motion. A generator is a fairly simple device needing only coils of wire and a few moving parts. Some need permanent magnets but even that isn’t hard really. Storing power was always the problem, not making it.
Likewise current reactors are a joke in terms of fuel efficiency. Basing any estimate on current reactor technology being used is kind of silly, as we already know we can do so much better. The majority of earth’s nuclear fuel is in fertile materials, not fissile materials. We have known this for a long time by the way. Decades ago countries like the USA and Japan were doing research into reactors using U-238, more than 100 times as abundant as U-235. It has been demonstrated that breeder reactors for Plutonium from U-238 are feasible even 50 or 60 years ago. The reason we don’t do this is because U-235 reactors were determined to be cheaper, and probably safer. I think sacrificing some safety and cost is necessary when up against something like climate change. With modern technology I am sure safety issues could be reduced or eliminated. Likewise Thorium is a thing, but that’s more experimental than U-238 to Plutonium technology.
If we are talking about solar panels: just don’t. Solar panels are mostly glass and silicon. I believe some rarer materials are needed to make them as efficient as they are now, but that doesn’t mean they are actually needed. In fact why bother with solar panels at all? They aren’t even the most efficient way of turning solar power into useful energy. Solar systems that work using mirrors to heat molten salt have their own energy storage built-in, and don’t require exotic materials, and are more efficient anyway. They might require more investment, or be more complex to deploy, but overall they are a great option.
Degrowth might be necessary in the short term. Long term wise though humanity very much has room to grow further. We haven’t even talked about mining the moon yet, and if we can’t do that we are very much screwed anyway. Being dependant on one planet is horrifically bad for long term survivability. You think climate change is an extinction level event? Try a gamma ray blast from a pulsar.
All you’ve really demonstrated is that you don’t understand technology specifically renewables and nuclear. There is a real concern with lack of rare materials, but not for renewables. The real issue is computers. Modern computers and especially smartphones need a lot of rare things. So constantly replacing your smartphone might not be practical anymore, and things like battery life and processing speed might actually get worse for a while as we are forced to use alternative materials. Not really a huge deal in the scheme of things though.
Also thinking the rich elite are the only people consuming things at an unsustainable rate is hilarious. They use more resources per person obviously, but the number of them is also really small. If you actually looked into it you would probably find that lost of the consuming of resources is to support the lower and middle classes. Don’t get me wrong oil executives are a real issue because of how they effect government policy and the behaviour of the rest of society. They do deserve a significant share of the blame. Not every rich person is an oil executive though. Having ultra rich people around is bad but this isn’t the reason why.
You don’t need any of those things…well other than the nickel in the coils I specificallymention and the other components that I clearly know nothing about…
Pipe dreams are lovely and all that but until we have something more solid, its best to dismiss the use of other isotopes as it’ll take a decade just to build the power station needed to make the energy. Thats before we get to the time it will actually take to fully research it all.
You’re attempting to argue that I don’t know about renewables or the technology necessary to go green and you’re talking about mining THE MOON in order to, wait for it, lower carbon emissions of all things.
The fucking moon
No wonder you found it so funny. I never said “the rich elite are the only people consuming things at an unsustainable rate.” Honestly, you’re hilarious for attempting to twist what was said into that. Have some intellectual integrity please.
You’ve failed so hard at an “akshually” but please do carry on. As I guessed, you’re against degrowth as anything but a temporary measure and rather than having the spine to come out and stand for it, you try waffle instead.
Just want to leave this here, in case you choose to delete it later
Nickel in generator coils? What? They are mode from copper. Sometimes aluminum because it’s cheaper than copper. The majority of nickel isn’t even used in things like batteries, it’s used to make steel alloys like stainless steel and heat resistant alloys used for engine parts. Also you keep pretending all of these material aren’t recyclable. Metals can be reshaped an indefinite number of times. It’s like arguing you can only use water once.
I am not talking about a pipedream. I am talking about something that was actually implemented in the soviet union. This isn’t Thorium that has never had a commerical implementation that was successful. Both of these reactors are still operational:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-600_reactor
There is even a third one that has now been decommissioned, but still operated for around 20 years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-350_reactor
You’re lost again. I am talking about doing that in the long term after we have decarbonized.
Given you kept talking about the elite and how they can’t exist in your degrowth scenario, it seemed to me that blame was implied. I am not being dishonest here. If anything you are the one changing goal posts by doing the whole I didn’t say that routine when it’s clearly implied.
Yes. Did I not say it isn’t necessary in the long term? I thought I stated it pretty clearly. I don’t support long term degrowth anymore than I support shrinking the human population long term. Maybe the population of earth specifically, but not the population of all humanity.
I am still waiting for a response to that last quote. I think you’ve found something you can’t dispute.
we need to get rid of them anyway, but do we have enough nuclear fuel, when combined with renewables+batteries, for base load?
Sure, I’m all for getting rid of them but it really seems to be the only option. It really won’t be that bad. It’ll just mean we can’t all take the piss with energy, lose the super rich, eat less meat and do a lot less work.
Its that we’ve all been made to see the idea of degrowth as something terrible because the rich would be the first thing to go. You just can’t have the rich without a vast amounts of excess production.
Please think about this: why shouldnt working less and polluting less be the first thing we should try, if we really wanted to save the planet etc.?
I completely agree, but I also think we should be pursuing every avenue of possible solution simultaneously, some of which might be energy intensive. I have the feeling we are far more climate-fucked than is immediately apparent.
Thats WAY too expensive and takes way to long to build. Renewables are the answer. Sun, wind.
Not enough rhodium and rubidium on earth to achieve that.
Since when do you need either of those to build a wind turbine? We are talking about very simple machines here, plenty of ways to build one.
Need those for solar. They specified sun and wind.
You don’t need photovoltaics to use solar power. Never heard of the solar power tower? Or the ones using molten salt for heat storage?
The earth receives just over 1 billion watts of raw energy from the sun daily. Using that energy to boil steam to turn tubines caps that energy generation ability to 105,566,992 watts of power if we capture all the solar radiation that hits earth.
Humanity currently uses 17.5 terrawatts of power daily. How do you make up the 99% shortfall? Little hint, wind and hydroelectric isn’t enough to make up that gap. Nuclear is currently our only option outside of asteroid mining.
Edited: I read the number wrong.
This makes zero sense. Do you mean terrawatt hour daily, or do you mean terrawatts averaged over a day? Terrawatts are a measure or power, not energy. Watts are joules per second. You can say you average a certain power in watts over a day.
Anyway since you can’t be trusted with basic physics apparently I am going to work it out myself.
We generate around 180,000 TWh per year according to our world in data. That’s about 493 TWh per day if we assume 365 days a year. That’s the same as 1774800 terrajoules per day. Since we are looking for joules per second (watts), we can then divide by the number of seconds in a day, which is 86400 seconds. This gives us 1774800/86400 = 20 TW. So you somehow got close to the right anwser without actually understanding the units involved.
The part where you are actually way off the mark is the 1 billion watt figure. According to MIT the sun actually gives us 173,000 TW continuously, or 173 PW (pettawatts). So 20 TW is tiny in comparison. Obviously I don’t expect us to capture all of that, but we are talking about things that aren’t even in the same units, nevermind order of magnitude. How you managed to get this so utterly wrong I have no idea. Just looking at it I can tell that number isn’t right, as China are planning to have 1200GW of solar capacity (that’s 1200 billion watts) by the end of 2024 according to The Guardian.
Solar power towers are reported between 12% and 25% efficient at demonstration scales according to wikipedia. Yet you are claiming just above 1% efficiency. This dosen’t sound like a great deal, but if you look into it photovoltaics aren’t doing that much better. It turns out that current commerical products only offer around 21.5% according to this wikipedia article. This varies a lot depending on how old the panel is (they degrade), how it was built, what proportion is shaded, if it moves to track the sun and so on. Both of these technologies have room for improvement. Panel efficiency can vary anywhere from up to 40.6% down to as low as 8.2% wikipedia.
Edit: You have made youself an example of why we need more scientific and numerical literacy. How you got numbers so hilariously wrong is truly beyond me.
Got the numbers wrong because I relied on a quick search and got bad sources, apparently. I wasn’t claiming 1% efficiency, I calculated it at a generous 28%. The 1% is what was being produced vs what DDG said we needed.