John Rumm wrote:
On 23/04/2011 12:09, Peter Scott wrote:
On 23/04/2011 12:01, Tim Watts wrote:
Peter Scott wrote:

I will ignore the comments you make about me and my knowledge, as
you do
not know.

If we produce all of our energy from nuclear sources where do you
imagine the 'waste' energy will go? Out into space?

Why not - that's where most of the rest goes.

Perhaps. Do you know? The point I was making is that the waste from
renewables is here already. Nuclear generates *new* waste energy. It is
not as benign as TNP implies and to suggest otherwise distorts the
argument. I believe we need nuclear but it is certainly not the *only*
answer. Far from it. Apart from anything else, nuclear fuels *will* run
out.

Depends on what you mean by "will run out". Using just uranium in single
pass processes - yup there is a finite amount of the stuff that is
easily recoverable. However even that will provide many decades worth of
supply. Liquid salt thorium reactors can provide many many decades more
than uranium (and the two are not exclusive - we can have both).
However, that's assuming that we stick to single pass fuel use (that
recovers around 1% of the actual energy available). Reprocess the stuff
and use it again, or start building a few fast breeders so you can use
the stockpiles of what is currently thought of as "waste" and you
multiply those decades out into many centuries. With luck we might have
a viable fusion process by then.




Precisely. There is enough fissile material to keep us going for 1000
years at present population levels, and if populations increase
beyond what they are, we will run out of space, food and other elements
like copper way before we run out of fuel.

Even faster if we use 30% load average renewables instead of 98%
load average nuclear power stations.

Nuclear power is just a way to get sunlight on the earth in a more
convenient and usable form.