And what would you base this arguement on? Or were you just stating an anecdotal opinion?
Well, there are currently 439 active reactors in the world producing 6% of global primary energy output. 86% of global primary energy output comes from fossil fuels, to replace this with nuclear energy would require over 6,000 new reactors to be built. Ok, this is a simple back-of-the-envelope calculation and with newer efficient reactors this number may not have to be so big. Lets assume with new modern reactors we would require 3,000~4,000 new reactors to replace the energy we get from fossil fuels. Considering the time and money involved in building reactors this would be both a mammoth engineering and financial commitment and I haven't even taken into account the effect this sort of nuclear expansion would have on uranium supplies, the fact that these reactors would have a limited lifespan and would have to be replaced again within 100 years or the waste issues, ergo I can't see nuclear (fission) energy powering civilization for 6.6+ billion people for longer than a 100 year time period.
Here's an article you might be interested in reading:
[broken link removed]
This suggests we have enough nuclear fuel resources to last for millenia.
I'm sorry, but if you breakdown some of these figures you will quickly see what pie-in-the-sky they really are for any practical purposes.
Estimated total uranium reserves: 4,039,110tt [tt = 1000 tonnes]
Unconventional resources in seawater: 4,000,000tt
Granted, there is in total more uranium in the world's oceans than everywhere else, way way more, BUT, and it's a really BIG BUT, what is the abundance of uranium in seawater compared to what we currently mine? I'll tell you:
High grade ore contains 2% uranium, in other words 20,000 ppm (parts per million)
Low grade ore contains 0.1% uranium, in other words 1,000 ppm
Any guess as to the uranium content of seawater? 0.0000003% or just 0.003 ppm.
That means the abundance of uranium in seawater is 6.7 million times LESS than in high grade ore! Think about that for a minute and try to imagine how it could be extracted from seawater in any manner that is remotely possible. Have you seen a picture of an
open-pit uranium mine? That is what is required to mine uranium in the 20,000ppm ~ 1,000ppm range. How would this done in the oceans where the content is a mere 0.003 ppm (or 6.7 million ~ 0.34 million times LESS abundant!).
It would be easier to mine uranium from GRANITE where the abundance of uranium in granite is 4 ppm. Still way below ore grade but massively better than
seawater.
Of the remaining known and estimated reserves of 39,110tt much of that also includes 22,000tt of unconventional reserves in phosphates and almost 10,000tt of speculative unproven reserves in conventional forms.
According to a 2007 story broadcast on 60 Minutes, nuclear power gives France the cleanest air of any industrialized country, and the cheapest electricity in all of Europe. What a shame we never built one.
Yes, France does and it is a shame we have not built one (or four as was planned on the 70s). As I said earlier we need to get the finger out and have a nuclear debate in this country. Time is of the essence.