Substantiated with evidence, nuclear power is starting to be accepted as the most ecologically friendly source of energy by conservationists that are really concerned in protecting the wildlife's habitats from environmentally hypocritical means of energy production such as solar and wind that ruin natural landscapes and kill millions of birds.
"New York includes nuclear in clean energy portfolio"
http://www.world-nuclear-ne...
http://www.sfchronicle.com/...

Nuclear power is out of fuel in ten years. seawater would require filtering the Mississippi for each reactor, and 100 square miles of plastic per reactor. Breeder reactors don't work, have fatal flaws, are super expensive, and not commercial. They still need uranium.

Today's output for nuclear is only 2% of the world's energy demand and in only 30 years, it's short of fuel. Praying for miracles are all they have.

Billions of tons of mining wastes, tons per person, for just 2%!!!!!

Solar and wind are 1/4 the cost, and that's being kind.

Solar is doubling every 2 years and dropping in cost 20% each time. solar panels are 95% glass and aluminum and recyclable. in the 20 years some reactor have taken to get built, solar will be able to produce as much energy, not just electricity as the world need. Offshore wind is similar. back it up with hydro and waste to fuels. use mostly eletric vehicles, and long haul and chemicals are from oil from wastes.

Every nuclear reactor or coal plant built is money wasted.

There's always a fantasy future reactor to solve all the real problems of the real commercial reactors.

Why the nuclear fans cannot accept the IAEA report and the others is really a study for psychology.

Real, commercial reactors with real fuel cycles are projected to experience shortages of fuel in ten years.

This includes any fuel stored at reactors sites.

Read the reports folks.

I show data from the IAEA, the primer pro nuclear world organization, plus peer reviewed papers calculating nuclear industry will be short of fuel in ten years.

The pro nuclear folks have blogs, pr and science fiction.

The IAEA says that we will have uranium shortages starting in 2025, then getting worse fast.
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTC...
"As we look to the future, presently known resources
fall short of demand."
Fig 16 show the shortfall in 2025 and it going 1/4 of that 2050
fig 20 also show shortfall.

FACT, there is enough nuclear fuel stored at nuclear power plants to power next generation nuclear plants for at least 80 years, if all the power needed were produced by nuclear power plants and we stopped all mining today... https://www.youtube.com/wat...http://www.theguardian.com/... .http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmc....

The USA has enough uranium in inventory to power the country for about 400 years:

http://ergosphere.blogspot....

Thank you for the correction, sometimes I'm way too conservative in my estimates.

The USA is not the world, but I thought I'd just throw that out there since I'd already done the homework.

Speaking of homework, I wonder if anyone has bothered to rebut the "we'll run out of uranium!" shriekers by calculating how much FBR capacity we could start with the existing reserves of natural uranium.  If there's enough NU on hand to start fast-spectrum breeders faster than our expansion rate, it is not a limit.

As a first guess, a smallish FBR might need a load of 8 tons of 30% HEU (2.4 tons fissiles) to start (this isn't far off the S-PRISM papers claiming about 18 tons recycled Pu per GW(e)).  Producing 8 tons at 30% from 0.72% NU with a 0.22% tails assay requires about 480 tons of NU.  Our current consumption rate of ~65,000 tons per year could generate about 135 such starting charges every year.  If each one started a single S-PRISM at 380 MW(e), we'd be able to fire up ~51 GW of new FBR capacity every year in excess of what is sustainable based on spent fuel recycle.  That's the USA's average load in about 9 years and the world's current electric load in 40-50.

I don't think that is quite fast enough, but it's better than anything else I've seen.

FACT: NUCLEAR POWER IS PROJECTED TO BE SHORT OF FUEL IN TEN YEARS.

Some people just can't accept the reality that uranium is predicted to be in short supply in about ten years. Even the IEAE say it, but the nuclear fans don't believe their own world promoter of nuclear power. The IAEA has not changed the date of the short fall in over 14 years.

Here's several more OTHER srouces saying the same thing.

"In fact, we find that it will be difficult to avoid supply shortages
even under a slow 1%/year worldwide nuclear energy phase-out scenario
up to 2025. We thus suggest that a worldwide nuclear energy phase-out
is in order. " http://www.sciencedirect.co...

"https://damnthematrix.wordp...
http://energywatchgroup.org...
http://energywatchgroup.org...
it can be concluded that by between 2015 and
2030 a uranium supply gap will arise when stocks are exhausted and
production cannot be
increased as will be necessary to meet the rising demand. Later on production
will decline
again after a few years of adequate supply due to shrinking resources.
Therefore it is very unlikely that beyond 2040 even the present nuclear capacity can still be supplied adequately."

EVEN WORLD NUCLEAR AGREES! The uranium market should be adequately supplied from both primary and secondary sources in the period to 2025 provided all mines currently under development or planned enter service as expected. http://www.world-nuclear-ne...

"Nuclear power is out of fuel in ten years."
As a statement of existing reserves versus existing assumption, this is patently false. And that is a quite relevant to the podcast discussion, which refers to continuing to generate the majority of the US's current low carbon electricity supply.

Regarding the total reserves versus demand if there was some projected increase in nuclear power ... there is a normal economic relationship between rate of consumption and the incentive to search for and develop recoverable reserves, so that if we are using a mineral at a certain rate, it is actually unusual to have 90 years+ of recoverable reserves at that rate, as we do with uranium. On the other hand, mineral uranium is a non-renewable resource (though U233 is obviously a recyclable resource in a thorium fuel cycle), so there is some limit. So it would be a mistake to assume that there exists the amount of recoverable reserves we presently see, and 0 tonnes more, as we would expect from you (since you are clearly not interested in making a fair estimate) but it would also be a mistake to assume that there is an endless supply of additional reserves of relatively high grade ore.

Contrary to some misinformed people,there is plenty of nuclear fuel. Two technologies could greatly extend the uranium supply itself. Neither is economical now, but both could be in the future if the price of uranium increases substantially. First, the extraction of uranium from seawater would make available 4.5 billion metric tons of uranium—a 60,000-year supply at present rates. Second, fuel-recycling fast-breeder reactors, which generate more fuel than they consume, would use less than 1 percent of the uranium needed for current LWRs. Breeder reactors could match today's nuclear output for 30,000 years using only the NEA-estimated supplies.

http://www.scientificameric...

"Two technologies could greatly extend the uranium supply ... if the price of uranium increases substantially."
That implies that NPP's become even more uncompetitive.
Especially since av. electricity prices are widely expected to go down further towards 2-3cnt/KWh, as you can also observe in advanced markets such as Germany.

Your second technology (fast breeder) is tried in the past half century by many countries.
Nothing became successful.
France tried longest with 3 successive reactors loosing huge amounts of money (>$100B!), but even Super-Phénix became a failure.
In UK it resulted in a large area in Scotland being contaminated by radio-active material.
An overview by a pro-nuclear scientist: http://www.theguardian.com/...

Note that tax-payers have to pay all those costs, contributing to the exceptional high subsidy level of >10c/KWh for nuclear electricity.

Lies again. People who want to understand BasM's lies should study BasM's comment history. He has been lying for years.
https://disqus.com/by/BasM/

Nuclear can't solve anything. Even supply 2% of the world's energy for 50 years it will be short of fuel in ten years.

The IAEA says that we will have uranium shortages starting in 2025, then getting worse fast.
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTC...
"As we look to the future, presently known resources
fall short of demand."
Fig 16 show the shortfall in 2025 and it going 1/4 of that 2050
fig 20 also show shortfall.

Solar and wind are now available cheaper than any other sources. Before gov breaks
http://www.lazard.com/media...
The very first chart shows utility solar pv available at 60$ per MWH, coal at 66, and combined cycle at 61. That even using the 20 year solar panels life instead of the more realistic 30-40 year life.

Why are we even still talking about nuclear? billions of dollar in pr and influence is the only reason.

"As we look to the future, presently known resources fall short of demand."
Of course it is. There's no financial incentive to develop some of the new mines required this far in advance of the demand. If we looked at estimates in 1990, we would seem shortfalls by now ... because some of the mines now in production were not in production in 1990.

Isn't that amusing that the pro nuclear folks are so desperate, they can't read anymore.

"if developed, the agency estimates could supply a year’s worth of power to U.S. nuclear reactors." wooppe! 2026 the shortages start. Not really. The USA is only 1/4 of the world nuclear fleet, so it's 3 months.

Natural gas, coal, wind are the resources that usually come to mind when we think about power generation in Texas. But a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey estimates Texas has enough uranium underground to power nuclear plants across the country for five years. http://kut.org/post/usgs-te...

Ya notice the nonsense replies? wow, what are they talking about.

If you say there's enough nuclear fuel forever, enough times people will believe it.

The IAEA is the premier pro nuclear group, and they show that's not true. here's more.

In fact, we find that it will be difficult to avoid supply shortages
even under a slow 1%/year worldwide nuclear energy phase-out scenario
up to 2025. We thus suggest that a worldwide nuclear energy phase-out
is in order.

http://www.sciencedirect.co...

EVEN WORLD NUCLEAR AGREES! The uranium market should be adequately supplied from both primary and secondary sources in the period to 2025 provided all mines currently under development or planned enter service as expected. http://www.world-nuclear-ne...

http://energywatchgroup.org...

it can be concluded that by between 2015 and 2030 a uranium supply gap will arise when stocks are exhausted and production cannot be increased

Hi Brian,

In previous conversations, you've made it clear that you consider yourself superior to people who disagree with you because you were admitted to MIT several decades ago.

So I've got a math test for you where you can show off your skills.

Which number is bigger: 2,001 or 2,014?

Brian seems to believe that if he repeats his lies enough times, someone will start believing them. Solar and wind combined produce a small fraction of the electricity produced by nuclear power, so if nuclear power's contribution is a paltry 2% then solar and wind must be insignificant. There is enough nuclear fuel to provide all humanities energy needs for thousands of years while improving the worlds standard of living and cleaning up the environment.

I guess I'm having trouble understanding how you come up with the idea that nuclear power is a clean way to make energy. In case you didn't know when these nuclear power plants blow up, huge areas have to be turned into exclusion zone for 100s of years or more. Thats not clean.....

Easy. Nuclear officianados go by sources that say Chernobyl had almost no impact. To get that result, they ignore or discount most of the results. Ask him how many deaths due to Chernobly. Ask him how many deaths due to Fukushima.
You will get some interesting responses.
Notice there is no response to the matter of exclusion zones. So the subject is changed.

Even if one accepts the most extreme outlier opinions regarding chernobyl, e.g. that there will eventually be a million deaths, it still works out that nuclear power is safer than most other power generation.
So it is not necessary to ignore anything.
I personally don't put much stock in the outlier extremes. I prefer what mainstream science says.

It's very easy to understand.
Statistically, per megawatt produced, it is the safest method to produce electricity. The huge evacuation was an over-reaction which hurt more than helped. It's like an accident in a kitchen in a theater created some smoke, but no fire, causing a panic which several people were seriously injured, then claiming they were injured by the big fire in the theater. The radiation released from Fukushima is expected to cause no measurable increase in cancer. The tsunami caused entire trains to be washed away, are people pushing to stop all rail traffic everywhere? Why not?.

Nuclear is the most dangerous, (DNA/health damage + deaths)/MWh, method to generate electricity.

Check the serious DNA damage which all nuclear facilities spread around, as indicated in the links of my comment in response to Rick below.
Check the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences: http://www.nyas.org/publica...
etc.

Interesting claim, regardless of your reliance on a book you already know was severely condemned in peer reviews linked to by the NYAS on that very same page next to the NYAS disclaimer that they do not consider that particular volume of the annals to be scientifically validated and the bit where NYAS say they're not going to print it any more and the bit where NYAS blames its original publication on a previous editorial regime.

(For anyone reading, this is a great example of how BasM seriously doesn't care a bit about the truth of anything he says. When taken to task he has literally pretended that the information I point out above isn't there on the page.)

Would you like to produce your estimate of deaths from coal? People keep asking you, and for some mysterious reason, you are unable to produce it. It's almost as if you're part of the coal lobby, BasM.

There is a huge difference (factor 1000 or so) between the pollution of old fashioned (e.g. Chinese) coal plants, and the new low temperature burning circulating fluidized bed plants, built by the German utilities recently.
The pollution of those is near that of gas plants.

And they don't damage DNA of next generations, as Nuclear Power Plants & waste storage do, as shown and explained here: http://bit.ly/1HC0N2M
Which is far worse.
Unless you consider health for your next generations to be less important?

Why do you focus on the most modern, cleanest and best coal technology when talking about coal but then focus almost exclusively on an exaggerated scientifically dubious accounting of the single worst example of nuclear power (chernobyl)?
-
You know that it was a reactor without even a containment building and that nobody is considering building more of those reactors.
Why not compare modern coal designs to modern nuclear designs?
-
Oh I forgot...you have already made up your mind and will do whatever is necessary to support your foregone conclusions.

What is the method in which nuclear power plants cause DNA damage but coal plants do not? You are aware of course that coal plants release more radioactivity than nuclear power plants, as well as tonnes of chemical releases (many are carcinogens) which nuclear power plants do not produce at all... It makes your strident anti-nuclear propaganda seem even more ridiculous.

"coal plants release more radioactivity than nuclear power plants"
Not seen any serious study with that result. Only unfounded statements or fantasies.
Estimate that the released radio-activity of a coal plant depend highly from radio-activity level of the coal.

Coal plants generate no new radio-activity, while nuclear plants create lot of new radio-activity!
So you won't find additional radio-activity in the waste of the German lignite plants. Hence that can and is used for roads, transported back to the open mine with the conveyor belt, etc.

Regarding the highly significant DNA damage for newborn 5-40km away from normal operating nuclear facilities, study this short overview: http://bit.ly/1HC0N2M

BAS How long have you been posting your anti-nuclear propaganda? You expect me to believe that in all that time, no-one ever showed you the 37 year old study performed at the Oak-Ridge National Laboratories? How can anyone believe anything you say?

I explain below why you should not take this 'study' by nuclear scientist serious.

The SA article writes that the nuclear scientists estimated the radiation exposure around the coal plants....
They did not measure. Being afraid that they would find nothing?
The 'study' seems to be only a number of assumption in order to show that nuclear does better.
Where is the publication in a peer reviewed scientific journal?

So the whole article seems to be just a nuclear sales promotion story based on nothing. Read the story at the end:
- "China aims to quadruple nuclear capacity to 40,000 megawatts by 2020..."
Now 8 years passed and we are 5 years before 2020.
Even wind produces more electricity than nuclear in China now.
And before 2020 solar may surpass nuclear too...
- "U.S. may build as many as 30 new reactors in the next several decades"
Doesn't look like it at all now.

Still the fantasied story gives pro-nuclear fanatics the excuse to come up with ridiculous claims such as that coal plants produce more radiation (only nuclear fission which occur in nuclear plants can do that)!
Such lies make that pro-nuclear cannot be trusted.

In other words you lied when you said you hadn't seen it.

No. I just read and analyzed the article for the first time.

What is the difference between "new" radioactivity and "old" radioactivity? The only thing that matters is the level of radioactivity that one is exposed to 1 REM = 1 REM = 0.01 Sv and the time frame of exposure.

"Old radioactivity" has class. It has a house in the country. "New radioactivity" comes from trade, and doesn't know how to hold a knife properly.

Do you have a comprehension problem? Coal plants release more radioactive contamination into my environment than nuclear power plants do, even natural gas from fracking releases more radioactive contamination into the atmosphere I breath than nuclear power plants do... You whole theory is based on incorrect information, how can a man of average intelligence be so obtuse? http://www.scientificameric...

Bas works hard at being obtuse.

So you found an article of 2007 which is based on a study from 1978 (37yrs old) by nuclear scientist of ORNL (not published in peer reviewed scientific journal) that fly ash from coal-fired power plants in Tennessee and Alabama may deliver more radio-activity than the near zero which they assume for NPPs. Which is not true.

As shown by the studies in this overview which show the DNA/health damage NPP's create: http://bit.ly/1Uhr5L7

Reads like nuclear activist Hansen (who chose climate as his vehicle) stating that Chernobyl caused less than 100 death while we know it's more than a million now.

Anyway no longer relevant as present up-to-date coal plants are totally different and the radio-activity standards for coal are more strict now. In addition: the lignite of the German plants doesn't contain the radio-activity of coal in USA.

Furthermore the article confirms my statement that coal plants don't produce new radio-activity, while NPP's do that all the time. Off-loading the burden of dangerous nuclear waste to next generations.

After studying the SA article more accurate, it became clear that it's only a fantasy nuclear promotion story!
In the same category as the lies of:
- the cigarette industry (one a day is healthy); and
- the asbestos industry "correctly handled asbestos is not dangerous" while WHO estimates its products take ~100,000 cancer lives a year; and
- Hansen stating that Chernobyl took less than 100 lives, while more than a million is more correct as published by the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (Hansen needed that ridiculous exceptional low lied number in order to show that nuclear is less dangerous).

The concerned nuclear scientist didn't even measure any radio-activity of coal waste, he just estimated an high number....

Coal can contain radioactive material in it; after all, coal is a rock, and it contains lots of minerals in addition to the carbonaceous plant material that provides the energy. Some of these minerals may contain naturally-occurring radioactive elements (uranium, thorium). When coal is burned, ashes go out the stack; most of these are removed by electrostatic precipitators, but not all. This is how a coal-fired plant can release radioactivity.
In nuclear plants, the radioactive fuel elements are sealed into rods, which are cooled by a variety of liquid coolants. Some of the rods do leak after some time of use. The cooling liquid, however, is also in a sealed recirculating system, which in turn exchanges its heat with another system on the outside, which is the system that drives the power generator. Not much of a nuclear plant's waste is released into the atmosphere, so the radioactive emissions from a coal plant easily surpass it.

Richard Barrans Jr., Ph.D.
Chemical Separations Group
Chemistry Division CHM/200
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 South Cass Avenue
Argonne, IL 60439
richb@anl.gov

http://www.stab-iitb.org/ne...

Barrans story suggests that nuclear plants do not release damaging radiation.

However it's clear that nuclear plants do damage DNA of newborn (= also health of next generations thereafter) at distances of 5-50km away (depending on local major wind speeds and directions): http://bit.ly/1Uhr5L7

Furthermore, there are many studies*) that show increased cancer rates for those in the surroundings of nuclear plants.
An example: https://www.nirs.org/radiat...
A further explanation: http://www.sciencedirect.co...
____
*) Not always confirmed. Often because the numbers involved are not high enough to reach statistical significance (if the NPP is in the desert it will not be confirmed even if the cancer chance is 75%...).

Nice promotion story. Alas it's not true.
It's one of the many pro-nuclear fantasies.

DNA & health damage spreading is only shown for NPP's, nuclear fuel processing, and nuclear waste storages:
http://bit.ly/1Uhr5L7

Coal burning plants do not create new radio-activity. That is only possible via processes as nuclear fission in e.g. nuclear reactors.
Coal plant ashes could only be radio-active (more than normal background) if the coal was radio-active which is usually not the case.
It is only possible if the coal is from areas near uranium deposits, or e.g. monazite sands, etc.

So it may be measured in exceptional cases, but regularly coal plant ashes are not radio-active as coal is not radio-active (not more than normal background)! Hence coal ashes are used for many applications (paving the roads, etc).

It took me seconds to find this serious study on the internet, which you claimed there weren't any, are you incompetent at internet searches or just have no integrity?

- why only a "study" from 37 years ago by nuclear scientist?
- where is the publication in peer reviewed scientific journal?
- why no measurement of the radio-activity of the coal ashes (only wild estimation)?
This all creates the strong impression of a nuclear promotion activity...

Bas the coal advocate won't give a straight answer. Bas is on record opposing efforts to close old coal-fired stations. He's hiding that from people. To quote him on Germany, "coal out now would do nothing for the climate".

Notice also how he will use Chernobyl - a design not only that no one suggests building now, no one outside the Soviet Union accepted building even then - to compare with his shiny new supposedly harmless coal plants.

Bas is also on record as claiming mainstream estimates of deaths form climate change are a fantasy.

So, Bas, try again, give people an estimate of deaths from coal.

"... no one suggests building now, no one outside the Soviet Union accepted building even then..."
There is not so much difference as you suggest:
- Same design was accepted and built by some E-European countries
- Similar explosions were stated to be impossible with modern western designs. Such as those of Fukushima ...
Those released even more radio-activity according to a number of sources.

"Bas is on record opposing efforts to close old coal-fired stations."
Old coal-fired stations should be closed asap. Please try to read more accurate.
With your reading problems it's senseless to do such estimations.

This is a good example of Bas lying. He claims the Chernobyl RBMK design was built in other countries outside the Soviet Union.

Here is a list of RBMK reactors:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

All in the Soviet Union.

Bas also claims that the Fukushima and Chernobyl explosions were the same. They weren't.

Bas just says stuff. Preferably involving someone else's children dying.

Try to read better. I wrote similar explosions.

I made a mistake; RMBK Ignalina is in EU and NATO member Lithuania.
But that belonged once to the Soviet Union. Sorry.

They weren't similar explosions.

Bas is trying to persuade us that he knows so much about Chernobyl and Fukushima, but he doesn't even understand what happened at either.

Notice how Bas has moved from "other non-Soviet East European countries" to one that was part of the Soviet Union. He's trying to persuade us that a European of his vintage doesn't know damn well that Lithuania was part of the USSR. Their EU and NATO membership are just a rhetorical distraction. What actually happened was he just made up a claim without checking.

Notice how he won't tackle the actual issue: no one wants to build Chernobyl style reactors now, and even back then, no one outside the Soviet Union would build them because they were not considered safe enough. He wants to stop modern air travel because of the Hindenburg.