this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2024
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Completely agree with you on the first part. My point is that:
I would like to add that I did not try to call you dumb, I'm sorry if that's the way it ended up sounding like. The dumb part was directed to the people in charge of the decisions, not you.
Yes I agree. It is possible to build long term storage facilities and there is one operating in Finland for example. And the finnish people in the region actually welcomed the facility. But the situation is very much different in Germany. Whenever plans for a such a facility became public massive protests ensued and the projects became politically unfeasable.
Of course we should listen to the experts in the field, but even they had no success in convincing the populace of a possible site. I'm convinced that we need such a facility and that it should be a scientific emotionless process. But this is currently not possible in Germany. And as long as there is no such consensus and we don't have such a facility, I think it's irresponsible to produce more nuclear waste and leave it on the surface for the coming generations to take care of.
The German plan for the "Energiewende" (Energy Transition) is to phase out coal until 2038 and become 100% climate neutral by 2045. The current plan is to do that using a mix of renewables and hydrogen power plants which will substitute the current coal power plants.
https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/DE/Dossier/energiewende.html
Google translate: https://www-bmwk-de.translate.goog/Redaktion/DE/Dossier/energiewende.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Why would you bury fuel that you've only harvested 1% of the energy from? If you're not gonna build reprocessing facilities, sell it to France or Russia.
I don't think exporting waste to different countries were only 10% of the fuel is recycled is a responsible way to manage nuclear waste.
Also there are nuclear proliferation concerns when reprocessing nuclear fuel. I for one would not want to supply Russia with possible raw materials for nuclear weapons.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing
As for reprocessing, storage is in competition with newly mined fuel. As mining becomes more expensive or nuclear demand increases, there's greater impetus to recycle more fuel. Conversely, if there's fewer plants consuming the fuel or more mines opening, recycling projects die.
The more plants close, the less waste you're gonna get reprocessed.
Russia already has 40,000 nukes, they're not a proliferation risk.
That's true.
In response to your mining argument:
"The known uranium resources represent a higher level of assured resources than is normal for most minerals. Further exploration and higher prices will certainly, on the basis of present geological knowledge, yield further resources as present ones are used up. There was very little uranium exploration between 1985 and 2005, so the significant increase in exploration effort that we are now seeing could readily double the known economic resources. On the basis of analogies with other metal minerals, a doubling of price from price levels in 2007 could be expected to create about a tenfold increase in measured resources, over time."
So there's enough cheap enough utanium to go around and no need for the industry to recycle spent fuel.
That is where the supply and demand equation is right now. When the supply was lower before the 90s, the equation favored recycling, and if we build more plants to drive up price, it will favor it again.