Could Nuclear Power Wean the U.S. From Oil?

bblackfrog asks: "Is a Federal nuclear energy program viable? That is, can the USA eliminate our economic dependence on crude oil with a large scale federal program to build and maintain enough nuclear power plants to replace our current oil-based energy needs? The obvious political hurdles are (a) the left opposes nuclear energy, (b) the right opposes federalizing energy, and (c) the oil companies and Saudis wield a lot of clout. This makes a federal nuclear energy program far fetched I admit, however I'm more interested in the economics. Slashdot has covered advances in nuclear power technology. China's doing it." (Read more, below.) "How much energy is required to replace our fossil fuel consumption? What are the initial costs of the program, and just how cheap could the electricity be? How expensive would it be for our industries to convert? How expensive for home and auto conversions? How much of this cost should be picked up by the government? Bottom line: is nuclear power cheaper than our current oil-driven middle-east policy, with all of its blowback?"

Comments

Uranium is a finite resource

[gtrubetskoy]

With respect to conventional nuclear energy, what many people don't realize is that Uranium is a finite resource which will run out way before oil. Based on what's on this page (this was just a quick google, there probably is better data out there), with 4 million t available and at the rate of 34K t per year, there is only 117 years of Uranium left.

So if it's going to be nuclear energy, it will need to be a process that does not require Uranium.

Re:Uranium is a finite resource

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you say "Breeder reactor" you use plentiful U238 and turn it into Plutonium...

Re:Uranium is a finite resource

[turgid]

You can recycle the plutonium produced by fission of uranium either to make MOX fuel or use it as fuel in a fast reactor.

The uranium will run out a lot less slowly than oil (in the US) or gas (in Europe) if this is taken into account.

Unfortunately, public anti-nuclear hysteria will prevent us from properly exploiting these resources until our backs are firmly against the wall. If Bin Laden were to disrupt the flow of gas from Siberia to Europe and plunge the continent into chaos, cold, darkness, sickness and death, maybe the politicians will do something about it. However, until their is a major disaster either involving economics (high oil prices) or logistics (Siberian gas supply) nothing will get done.

Meanwhile, we're still developing nuclear fusion which is coming along a lot better than most people think...No uranium (or oil or coal or gas) required.

Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi

[AKAImBatman]

1) What will we do with the waste?

It should be reused for fuel. This allows a reactor to get more energy out of less nuclear material, resulting in both reduced cost and waste. The only reason why the US doesn't do this, is the concern over terrorists or spies obtaining bomb-grade materials.

2) Do we have enough fissionable fuel to accomplish this?

The estimates are that we'd have a ~100 year supply of Uranium if all power was switched to nuclear power today. This figure does not take reprocessing and non-uranium fission into account.

Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi

[WindBourne]

1. Well, from earlier studies, the best location for waste fuel is in north west texas. However, it was decided 3 years ago to locate medium-high waste in nevada, which is more earthquake prone.
2. As to fissionable fuel, we have 3% of the uranium in the world. Australia and I believe Russia have deposits that are absolutely huge in comparisons (IIRC, Australia has something like 25% of all known deposists), so no problem. But Uranium will not last long. Instead, to lower the costs, you would have to use a breeder reactor. But of course, that produces plutonium. But if all reactors were breeders, we would have some 7000 years worth of fuel. Not bad

Personally, I think that we need to start getting a more balanced policy. That would include not only nukes, but more alternative as well as money to research on energy storage. Sadly, over the last few years, the US admin cut a lot of alternative research and has invested in oil all the way.

Weapons grade? Who are you kidding?

[Engineer-Poet]

Breeder reactors produce an abundance of weapons-grade materials.

A common lie of anti-nuke activists. Weapons-grade uranium is concentrated to over 70% U-235, and weapons-grade plutonium is > 93% Pu-239. PWR-grade uranium is about 3% U-235, and neutron capture in breeders contaminates the plutonium with much more than 7% of Pu-238, Pu-240 and Pu-241. You can't make a bomb out of 3% U-235 (it cannot go prompt-supercritical because it needs a moderator) and the high spontaneous-fission rate of the higher isotopes of plutonium makes it impractical to make bombs from them (too much heat generation, little chance of the implosion system getting its job done before the chain reaction starts and takes the mass sub-critical again).

Re:First you need to ask yourself these two questi

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the US just decommissions reactors once they've used up the pressure vessel. The pressure vessel (which holds the core) is removed, put into a big huge steel casing, and trucked across the country to INEL, Hanford, or Nevada. The spent fuel rods are kept on-site in water pools for long periods of time (20-30 years). The rest of the radioactive byproducts are shipped to some burial sites or, again, to Hanford, Nevada, INEL, depending.

You would think that such a huge chunk of high-strength steel would be impervious, but the neutron radiation does weaken all the parts over time.