France[0]
> If it's so valuable why does no one actually want it,
I mean France does... we actually gave them the tech. The reason we stopped is more political. But more people do this than just France, but they are the biggest example since 17% of their entire grid is powered from recycled nuclear. The other reason we don't do it is that it is just cheaper to buy more Uranium than setup reprocessing plants. France doesn't have as easy of a supply chain so it makes sense for them to recycle. Obviously the US's supply chain could change, so access to that waste is a potential benefit.
[0] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...
In France nuke-power is backed by gas (which produced 10,3% of gridpower in 2017).
The sole reactor currently planned (Flamanville-3) is a complete disaster, more than 10 years behind schedule and 4x overbudget.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
No one is saying that we should _only_ use nuclear. Not diversifying your energy portfolio is a terrible idea. France is trying to reduce its dependence upon nuclear (which is a good idea) and replace its fossil fuel infrastructure first. This is because renewables are becoming cheaper. The plan is to have a diversification of nuclear + renewables (which is what pro-nuclear advocates are fighting for). Nuclear serves as a baseload and backbone and is supported by renewables to fill the gap.
You will not find pro-nuclear supporters upset with France's decision to reduce their dependence on nuclear. In fact you will often find support. As battery technology gets better and cheaper and as price of renewables continue to fall you will also find that pro-nuclear advocates will cheer this on.
There is a big misconception that many believe people are arguing nuclear vs renewables or arguing that the grid should be _only_ nuclear. What we are arguing for is nuclear + renewables vs renewables + coal + oil + gas. The reason being that _today_ we have the technology to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions with _current_ technologies. We are looking at countries that already have successful models for emissions and saying "hey, we should do something similar to that, since it clearly works." It would be insane to not look at what models are already successful and try to say that the technologies they use are counter productive. The proof is sitting right there, all you have to do is look. We are arguing for models closer to Sweden (since we, the US, have lots of access to hydro) than were are for France's current system (though their goals would also be a good model to consider).
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...
[1] https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/FR?wind=false&solar=fals...
[1.5] Note that Sweden also uses a significant amount of nuclear
Not in France, the nuclear plants here can do some load following (to some extent).
>You will not find pro-nuclear supporters upset with France's decision to reduce their dependence on nuclear. In fact you will often find support.
I cannot agree here, there is a growing movement mainly lead by Jean-Marc Jancovici deploring the shutdown of safe and profitable nuclear power plant.
The main argument being when you already have a low carbon energy production, the money invested in the construction of new renewables power plant will better used in home insulation subsidies or subsidies for a heat pump.
FYI I'm French.
> France has one of the lowest CO2 emissions per capita
Apples and oranges...
France has wayyyy less factories than Germany, however it imports goods produced elsewhere. CO2 emitted in order to produce those goods is to be accounted for!
Real CO2 emission: France: 6.92t/year/capita in 2017 Germany: 10.83t/year/capita in 2017
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prod-cons-co2-per-capita?...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prod-cons-co2-per-capita?...
Moreover Germany is richer than France (=> more equipment => more CO2 emitted).
GDP per capita (PPP): 52.4k€/capita versus 47.6
At this point from your data 9.13/5.2 (1.75) ratio we are back to 9.74/6.92 (1.4)
Germany's climate is much colder (=> more heating => more CO2 emitted). Heaters in Germany are massively oil-based systems because there was an historic low taxation on heating oil. Sadly I can't find solid data.
Food for thought.
> Not diversifying your energy portfolio is a terrible idea.
Yes, indeed. However it doesn't imply that we must use each and every energy source, without any consideration for all its characteristics. Nuclear plants and their waste are dangerous, and contrary to a common belief they cannot solve the climate challenge while letting us avoid changing our habits.
> You will not find pro-nuclear supporters upset with France's decision to reduce their dependence on nuclear
Some, in France, think that we should go full nuclear, and they fight for it. Example: https://www.enviscope.com/lassociation-des-ecologistes-pour-...
Other think that we may have to chose a "100% renewables" option. Example: https://www.ouest-france.fr/environnement/nucleaire/nucleair...
In 2010 in the US 8.4% of the energy comes from nuclear plants, and renewables (hydro included) produce approx 6% Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#En...
That is to say in order to only 'decarbonate' the energy sector (there are other sectors to decarbonate!) thanks to nuclear power the US should deploy ~11 times more nuclear power capacity than it already has, and adapt or retrofit all energy-consuming equipment in order to have it use gridpower (or to embark some nano-reactor). This seems completely unrealistic, from many perspectives. Even a mix (nuclear + renewables) with 3 to 5 times more nuclear seems unrealistic.
'CO2-clean' energy production as a whole isn't possible.
Electricity production accounts for 27% of CO2 emissions, and 63% (of the electricity) is produced by fossil fuel, and 20% by nukeplants). Source: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... => quickly reducing CO2 emission by 27% by producing all gridpower does not imply any adaption/retrofit of any existing stuff, however it implies a 5-fold increase of nuclear capacity or a balance with renewables (taking into account the baseload) and would not be a decisive progress as the GIEC invites us to "fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching 'net zero' around 2050". Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Global_Warmi...
Therefore, indeed, "the proof is sitting right there, all you have to do is look": in order to reduce emissions we have to consume wayyyyy less energy and stuff.
> What we are arguing for
IMHO the sole realistic option is "let's drastically reduce our energy & stuff needs", or even "degrowth". Even an "all-nuclear gripower" plan, which is completely out-of-reach, cannot fix the climate problem: gridpower offers only about 25% of the consumed energy in advanced countries, and beyond energy-production many human activities emit huge amounts of CO2 in ways we cannot modify, or at best cannot modify quickly (agriculture comes to mind, as in the US it produces ~10% of the emitted CO2, and feeding cows with gridpower may prove to be difficult).
> _today_ we have the technology
We don't know, _today_, how to make a fool-proof nuclear plant nor how to effectively dispose of its waste. We don't know how to solve the NIMBY challenge. Financing a nuclear plant becomes more and more difficult. Even building it is a major ordeal (see the EPR projects). And even if we fix all this there is no all-nuclear approach able to tackle the challenge (dividing CO2 emissions by 3).
Is it cheaper to buy more Uranium and deal with the so-far-and-growing half-trillion dollar cleanup liability than to set up and operate reprocessing plants? Of course I wouldn't be surprised if that liability is considered "tomorrow's problem", so no one in power cares about it.
I was talking to an environmental scientist that other day who was lamenting that the liability for solar panel waste was being treated as "tomorrow's problem", and no one in power cares about it.
If we factor in the tomorrow problem nuclear looks even better, because we have a chance of being able to deal with it. Nobody attempts to solve the decommissioning problems of most waste, there is too much of it so we just dump it in landfill and hope there isn't anything too nasty in it. There is no plan at all to deal with it beyond 100 years or so, and it doesn't get less toxic over time.
Keep in mind, panel longevity is upwards of 25-30 years, at which point they'll still be producing 80-90% of their rated output. Inverters (single or micro) can be recycled in traditional electronics recycling processes.
https://www.veolia.com/en/newsroom/news/recycling-photovolta...
Recycling and disposal does need consideration for renewables, as well as nuclear. You cannot just say "Well no one is looking into it for solar, so nuclear should get a free pass too!", especially when nuclear waste is so much more hazardous. Also when considering the infrastructure costs associated with setting up proper reprocessing facilities, no it does not obviously come out ahead. It's incredibly expensive upfront.
I think it would take the deep pockets and standardization of a government-run program to truly see nuclear be done properly, but I doubt there is appetite for a similarly run program in the USA.
The reason for not dumping it in the ocean is exactly as stated above. It's extremely valuable, in large part because of the plutonium content, and it's senseless to throw away something so valuable that the nation may eventually have a need for.
Still, there are risks, and I agree it makes sense for reprocessing facilities to be government controlled.
That being said, without also deploying breeder reactors at scale there's not a lot of benefit from reprocessing.
