Demand for uranium for reactors seen jumping 28% by 2030 -report
www.reuters.com
Demand for uranium in nuclear reactors is expected to climb by 28% by 2030 and nearly double by 2040 as governments ramp up nuclear power capacity to meet zero-carbon targets, the World Nuclear Association (WNA) said in a report on Thursday.

Nuclear capacity is expected to rise by 14% by 2030 and surge by 76% to 686 GWe by 2040, the report said

This is only good news if it displaces thermal coal and gas generating stations.

  • Blake [he/him]
    6•1 year ago

    Modern geothermal plants are much more versatile and can be used basically anywhere.

    With a mixture of energy distribution (modern interconnectors can transmit 800kV or more over 800km or more with less than 3% loss) non-electrical storage such as pumped storage, and diversified renewable sources, this problem is completely mitigated - we can generate wind, solar or hydro power over 2,000km away from where it is consumed for cheaper than we could generate nuclear electricity 20km away.

    • @bouh
      1•1 year ago

      Climate varies from year to year. Just in the recent years there are variation of 25% on the scale of the whole Europe. With climate change it’ll probably get worse. And load balancing on the scale of a continent has never been done without nuclear and fossile.

      • Blake [he/him]
        1•1 year ago

        What’s your point? If the sun stops shining everywhere for a year we’re all fucked anyways. If the wind stops blowing it’s because the sun has died. And if water decides to suddenly start disobeying the laws of physics then I think we will have bigger problems than turning on the TV.

        • @bouh
          0•1 year ago

          You’re looking completely ridiculous there. There are clouds in the sky and wind. These do affect solar and wind production. And these do vary from one year to another. The distribution of solar exposition or wind is not a constant, even on a continent scale.

          This means you need to account for variations from one year to another. Which means you need incredibly large quantities of storage (probably not feasible), or incredibly oversized production capacity (not feasible either).

          When antinuke people complain that nuclear lost capacity last year, that’s the same with solar and wind, but it’s random for the renewables when it’s technical planning that was poor for nuclear.