Is anything being done to reclassify nuclear as 'renewable'?

[Posty McPostface]

Here's a simple article that presents the case that nuclear is actually a renewable resource.

An excerpt:

However, the big deal about extracting uranium from seawater is that it makes nuclear power completely renewable.

Uranium is dissolved in seawater at very low concentrations, only about 3 parts per billion (3 micrograms/liter or 0.00000045 ounces per gallon). But there is a lot of ocean water – 300 million cubic miles or about 350 million trillion gallons (350 quintillion gallons, 1,324 quintillion liters). So there’s about 4 billion tons of uranium in the ocean at anyone time.

However, seawater concentrations of uranium are controlled by steady-state, or pseudo-equilibrium, chemical reactions between waters and rocks on the Earth, both in the ocean and on land. And those rocks contain 100 trillion tons of uranium. So whenever uranium is extracted from seawater, more is leached from rocks to replace it, to the same concentration. It is impossible for humans to extract enough uranium over the next billion years to lower the overall seawater concentrations of uranium, even if nuclear provided 100% of our energy and our species lasted a billion years.

In other words, uranium in seawater is actually completely renewable. As renewable as solar energy. Yes, uranium in the crust is, strictly speaking, finite. But so is the Sun, which will eventually burn out. But that won’t begin to happen for another 5 billion years. Even the wind on Earth will stop at about that time as our atmosphere boils off during the Sun’s initial death throes as a Red Giant.

According to Professor Jason Donev from the University of Calgary, “Renewable literally means 'to make new again'. Any resource that naturally replenishes with time, like the creation of wind or the growth of biological organisms for biomass or biofuels, is certainly renewable. Renewable energy means that the energy humans extract from nature will generally replace itself. And now uranium as fuel meets this definition.”

So by any definition, solar, wind, hydro and nuclear are all renewable. It’s about time society recognized this and added nuclear to the renewable portfolio.

Any thoughts on the matter?

Do other countries consider nuclear as renewable? Japan only comes to my mind.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

Regardless of whether the fuel itself could be considered "renewable", one also needs a matching capacity for safe disposal of the waste products.

 

[glappkaeft]

I'm a big fan of nuclear power but I can't make any sense whatsoever of that argument.

 

[russ_watters]

Yes, there is motion on this front:
https://www.nei.org/News-Media/News...ts-Dismiss-Challenges-to-NY,-IL-Zero-Emission

 

[StoneTemplePython]

This article seems to be based on linguistic games.

An honest definition of a renewal is a process that begins fresh at each interval / epoch. (This is awfully close to the definition of renewal process in probability theory.)

You don't actually have a renewal process here because nuclear leaves behind toxic waste that needs stored after usage. There is nothing at all like this with wind or solar -- traditional 'renewables' do not have this issue. Note that historically the "waste" was the goal -- i.e. nuclear power has historically been intimately tied in with making bombs. That doesn't mean it must be in the future, but nuclear is in some deep fundamental sense different than other power sources.

 

[russ_watters]

This article seems to be based on linguistic games.

An honest definition of a renewal is a process that begins fresh at each interval / epoch. (This is awfully close to the definition of renewal process in probability theory.)

You don't actually have a renewal process here because nuclear leaves behind toxic waste that needs stored after usage. There is nothing at all like this with wind or solar -- traditional 'renewables' do not have this issue.

Kind of. "Renewable" is used as the descriptor for subsidies and incentives specifically because it should exclude nuclear due to it being a finite resource (not because of the waste). It's a political choice to subsidize "renewables". But just lasting a long time is a pretty pointless criteria on which to judge energy use. After reliability and cost, the principal requirement moving forward will be lack of pollution - specifically carbon - released into the environment. And on that score, nuclear is on par with hydro, solar and wind.

 

[BWV]

The article states IF uranium could be economically extracted from seawater THEN it might be considered renewable. Seems premature to have the discussion today.

This
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/
states that we have about a 200 year supply at current consumption levels

 

[Posty McPostface]

Don't fast breeder reactors at the least make it a stronger case of nuclear being 'renewable' and mitigate the waste disposal issue brought up here. E.g GE's PRISM reactor, most Gen IV reactors and even the proposed traveling wave reactor?

From what I've read, they can keep on producing their own fuel, theoretically. Not sure about this in practice.

 

[Vanadium 50]

From what I've read, they can keep on producing their own fuel, theoretically.

And where did you read that nonsense? You can extract more energy out of a given chunk of uranium this way, but you can't get an infinite amount of energy out it.

 

[Posty McPostface]

And where did you read that nonsense? You can extract more energy out of a given chunk of uranium this way, but you can't get an infinite amount of energy out it.

It's the very first sentence on the Wikipedia entry on 'Breeder reactors'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor

A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates more fissile material than it consumes.[1]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding that not all of the fissile material produced can be used subsequently for continuous energy production in said reactor, yes?

Edit: I stand corrected, not all fissile material is fissionable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fissile_material

 

[Vanadium 50]

t's the very first sentence on the Wikipedia entry on 'Breeder reactors'.

Which a) is why we don't allow Wikipedia as a source here, and b) why you have to read more than one sentence. Sentence two says their fuel economy is better, not perfect. Sentence three explains quantitatively what the limitations are. Sentence four continues the theme of sentence two.

You got me. Another one of your ill-informed, ill-sourced, trollish piece of clickbait. I fell right into it.
Ha.
Ha.
Ha.

 

[DaveC426913]

Does renewable mean renewable? Or does it really just mean "an energy source is - currently - effectively unlimited"?

Solar power, wind power and wave power are essentially unlimited only because the source is vastly larger than our usage.

By the same logic, wood coal and natural gas were all "renewable" two centuries ago, simply because they were - at the time - effectively limitless.

 

[BWV]

Despite the irrational prejudice of some, Wikipedia is an excellent encyclopedia (not a primary source) with usually good references. Under the renewable energy entry it defines the term as

Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources, which are naturally replenished on a human timescale, such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves, and geothermal heat.[2]Renewable energy often provides energy in four important areas: electricity generation, air and water heating/cooling, transportation, and rural (off-grid) energy services.[3]

The key point being the human timescale. Wood, with properly managed forestry, is renewable as it can be replenished in a ‘human timescale’. Coal and natural never were. The term now also gets conflated with carbon neutral, which again wood can be while coal and natural gas are not

 

[Posty McPostface]

Which a) is why we don't allow Wikipedia as a source here, and b) why you have to read more than one sentence. Sentence two says their fuel economy is better, not perfect. Sentence three explains quantitatively what the limitations are. Sentence four continues the theme of sentence two.

You got me. Another one of your ill-informed, ill-sourced, trollish piece of clickbait. I fell right into it.
Ha.
Ha.
Ha.

I'm sorry for being misinformed?