According to the scientific service of the german Bundestag, the current uranium deposits will last another 25-47 years, based on the current amount of uranium consumption.
“reasonably assured resources”, based on OECD data:
25 years, 1,730,000t mineable at (current) market price of $40
47 years, 3,169,000t mineable at a market price of max $130
(max. speculative resources 11.280.000t)
50 years is the typical lifespan of a nuclear power plant
the waste has to be safely stored for a few thousand generations
Have a look at TerraPower’s Natrium plants: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/17/bill-gates-terrapower-builds-its-first-nuclear-reactor-in-a-coal-town.html
Unfortunately, no new uranium deposits are created by new reactor types
I wasn’t trying to point out the uranium subject.
Natrium plants use liquid sodium as a cooling agent instead of water. Sodium has a higher boiling point and can absorb more heat than water, which means high pressure does not build up inside the reactor, reducing the risk of an explosion.
Also, Natrium plants do not require an outside energy source to operate their cooling systems, which can be a vulnerability in the case of an emergency shutdown. This contributed to the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, when a tsunami shut down the diesel generators running its backup cooling system, contributing to a meltdown and release of radioactive material.
Natrium plants can also store heat in tanks of molten salt, conserving the energy for later use like a battery and enabling the plant to bump its capacity up from 345 to 500 megawatts for five hours.
The plants are also smaller than conventional nuclear power plants, which should make them faster and cheaper to build than conventional power plants. TerraPower aims to get the cost of its plants down to $1 billion, a quarter of the budget for the first one in Kemmerer.
“One important thing to realize is the first plant always costs more,” said Levesque.
Finally, Natrium plants produce less waste, a problematic and dangerous byproduct of nuclear fission.
safer, cheaper, less waste, lifespan unknown, ok.
That doesn’t tackle that uranium is a very limited resource, and this type of reactor even relies on it.Anyway, the last three nuclear power plants in Germany will be shut down by December 31, 2022 at the latest.
Do you know the reason(s) for the shutdowns?
I think this article sums it up well.
germany has been phasing out its nuclear reactors since fukushima happened
Were their reasons because of fukushima?
At least one country that understands what it is doing.
you mean post-colonial exploitation of resources in african countries?
