1st premise: The solution to the climate crisis is to electrify everything, and to generate the electricity from (ideally) zero-carbon sources.[1]
2nd premise: Humanity’s total power consumption is about 18 terawatts.[2]
3rd premise: Total recoverable reserves of uranium 235 correspond to about 1022 joules of fission energy.[3]
From the 2nd and 3rd premises, we can easily calculate that there are only sufficient reserves of recoverable uranium 235 for conventional nuclear energy to power the world for about a decade:
human power consumption = (18 terawatts)x(365 days/year)x(24 hours/day)x(60 minutes/hour)x(60 seconds/minute) = 5.7x1020 watt-seconds/year ≈ 1021 joules/year
(1022 joules of fission energy)/(1021 joules/year of human power consumption) = 10 years, QED
So if conventional nuclear energy (i.e., the pressurized water reactor or PWR, and the boiling water reactor or BWR) isn’t up to the task of dealing with the climate crisis, then what about unconventional nuclear energy? Well, for years already top climate scientist James Hansen has been calling for the rapid buildout of the integral fast reactor (IFR), to consume existing stockpiles of nuclear waste, and the liquid fluoride thorium reactor, to prevent more nuclear waste from being created. (An important point being that both the IFR and the LFTR can be made inherently much safer than today’s conventional nuclear reactors.)[4]
Nevertheless, in this writer’s (admittedly nonexpert) opinion, given the historical and probable future problems associated with breeder reactors (like the IFR),[5] and the unproven nature of the LFTR,[6] it is doubtful that unconventional nuclear energy is a superior solution to solar, wind, and other forms of non-nuclear renewable energy, which are already on hand.[7] And—preemptively—the answer is no: baseload electrical power and the intermittency of solar and wind are not insurmountable problems for those forms of energy, the solution to both being the same thing, i.e., the virtual power plant or VPP. The enabling technologies for the VPP are the smart grid, FACTS (flexible AC transmission system), HVDC (high-voltage DC), and energy storage, e.g., batteries and pumped hydro.[8]
Conclusion: Conventional nuclear energy cannot possibly be THE answer to the climate crisis. A case can certainly be made for unconventional nuclear energy, but non-nuclear renewable energy sources like solar and wind, combined with the smart grid and the VPP concept, are likely to be the superior choice.
Addendum: Thanks to @WhatTheFlux (see comment below) for pointing out that if seawater extraction of uranium could be scaled up, then conventional nuclear power would become, if not a renewable energy source, at least a (practically) limitless one.
Update, 14 Jan 2024:
Another flawed idea now circulating is that the world supply of uranium is so small that its use for energy would last only a few years. It is true that if the whole world chose to use uranium as its sole fuel, supplies of easily mined uranium would soon be exhausted. But there is a superabundance of low-grade uranium ore: most granite, for example, contains enough uranium to make its fuel capacity five times that of an equal mass of coal.
— The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity by James Lovelock, 2007
Note: In the following conversation, I have made no attempt to independently verify the answers given by ChatGPT.
Me:
Is there research supporting the idea that granite could be an economically feasible non-conventional source of uranium for use as fuel in nuclear reactors?
ChatGPT 3.5:
While granite does contain trace amounts of uranium, the economic feasibility of using granite as a source of uranium for nuclear reactors is generally not considered viable. Traditional uranium sources, such as uranium ore deposits, are more practical and cost-effective for nuclear fuel production. Granite's uranium content is typically low, and the extraction process from granite is challenging and may not be economically competitive with established uranium mining methods.
Me:
Same question, but regarding seawater instead of granite.
ChatGPT:
Extracting uranium from seawater is an area of ongoing research, but it's currently not economically feasible on a large scale. The concentration of uranium in seawater is extremely low, making the extraction process complex and expensive. Researchers are exploring various methods to improve efficiency, but as of now, conventional uranium sources remain more economically viable for nuclear fuel.
Sources:
- Steve Hanley, ‘Want To Limit Global Warming? Electrify Everything, Finds Study,’ Clean Technica, 16 Apr 2019 https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/16/want-to-limit-global-warming-electrify-everything-finds-study/
- ‘World energy consumption,’ Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
- Bent Sørensen, ‘Renewable Energy’ (5th Ed), Elsevier, 2017, p. 148 https://books.google.com/books/about/Renewable_Energy.html?id=js91DQAAQBAJ
- Andrew Revkin, 'More Scientists Call for Nuclear As Climate Change Solution,’ Nuclear Energy Institute, 28 Jan 2014 web.archive.org/…
- Jim Green, 'The slow death of fast reactors, energypost.eu, 2 Nov 2016 https://energypost.eu/slow-death-fast-reactors/
- Eva C. Uribe, Thorium power has a protactinium problem, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 6 Aug 2018 https://thebulletin.org/2018/08/thorium-power-has-a-protactinium-problem/
- We Can Stop Searching For The Clean Energy Miracle. It’s Already Here.
Joe Romm, ThinkProgress, 12 May 2016
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/we-can-stop-searching-for-the-clean-energy-miracle-its-already-here-fcf5ec3b355f/
- ‘Virtual power plant,’ Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_power_plant