- Government funding has been strongly biased towards solar/wind infrastructure on the basis of it being a more “clean” and “long term” solution.
- Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and other environmental groups have loudly asserted that their competition can’t reprocess waste.
- Despite their hypocritical claims, Nuclear energy continues to be the only energy source that is held accountable for all of its wastes and even reused a third of high level waste as fuel.
- Rare earth reprocessing, which is needed to support solar/wind long term, is negligible in the face of China’s dwindling supply and limited global reserves, accounting for well under 5% of supply.
- Despite the limited reserves of Uranium, there are multiple avenues to extend its fuel viability, including reprocessing, breeder reactors, and ocean extraction.
About one third of all nuclear waste ever produced has been recycled (World Nuclear ,2022); yet less than 5 percent of rare-earth materials harvested have been recycled (Kinch 2021). This statement alone should be alarming enough. After all, rare earth metals, Praseodymium, Europium, Neodymium, Lanthanum, among other metals with unfamiliar names, are required to make components of solar and wind projects like magnets and semiconductors (Hongquiao, 2016.)
China asserts that it has about 23% of global reserves; according to analysis from the Chinese State Council, the state-owned media which has every reason to be biased in favor of China.
The country should only be able to supply 90% of the world’s rare earth materials at a low cost for 15 years (Mancheri et al., 2012.) Since the report was made in 2012, this is quite alarming as it points to two realities.
- One, rare earths from China will become increasingly difficult to extract, and therefore more expensive, in the next five years.
- Two, even if the rest of the world rose to match Chinese production capacity, it’s likely that global reserves would be depleted to a similar extent within 60-100 years; this is in contrast to the Uranium industry, which the NEA projects has about 230 years’ worth of supply (Fetter, 2009.)
For an industry as insistent on sustainability and reliability as the solar/wind conglomerate, one would think, wouldn’t they recycle more, perhaps be more considerate of the depletion of these rare earths?
Fortunately, the alternative, nuclear energy, has multiple avenues to extend its viability. There is a 60,000-year supply of uranium within Earth’s oceans; the Uranium’s usable life can be extended by a factor of 100 or more using fast breeder reactors (Fetter, 2009.)
Fast breeders can use the U-238 in nuclear fuel in addition to the U-235 by converting it into plutonium. The result is an astounding 30,000 years to 7.8 million years of fuel, depending on if we use land-based reserves or ocean based reserves in the fast breeders.
Either way, that’s between 300 times longer and 78,000 times longer than we’d expect rare earths to keep with current extraction rates.
In conclusion, one may assess that when it comes to energy and it being sustainable, one must consider the entire energy system. In wind and solar, the inputs are perceptively infinite, these infinite inputs are however constrained by the size of the infrastructure. In essence, if you run out of resources to build your solar/wind power plants, it matters not how endless the supply of sun and wind are, you simply cannot harvest them effectively.
In contrast, though the supply of global Uranium is finite, it is in fact far larger than many would expect, and from ocean extraction to fast breeder reactors, there are multiple ways to extend nuclear fuel lifespan magnitudes beyond what rare earth reprocessing could ever hope to accomplish.
If nuclear energy is “unsustainable”, then solar and wind are by definition at least hundreds, perhaps thousands of times more unsustainable.
A proposed solution is to redistribute the funds which have been wrongfully stolen from the sustainable clean energy source, nuclear energy, by dirty, inefficient, and unsustainable solar and wind, correcting the flaw in the grid system, granting authority to the industry that knows how to handle its wastes.
Reference:
Hongqiao, L. (2016, August 25). The Dark Side of Renewable Energy. Earth Journalism Network. Retrieved February 9, 2023, from https://earthjournalism.net/stories/the-dark-side-of-renewable-energy
Radioactive Wastes – Myths and Realities . Radioactive Wastes – Myths and Realities : World Nuclear Association – World Nuclear Association. (2022, January). Retrieved February 9, 2023, from https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities.aspx
Kinch, D. (2021, November 3). Recycling could account for 25% of rare earths market in 10 years: Mkango CEO. S&P Global Commodity Insights. Retrieved February 9, 2023, from https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/metals/110321-recycling-could-account-for-25-of-rare-earths-market-in-10-years-mkango-ceo#:~:text=%22Less%20than%205%25%20of%20rare,Global%20Platts%20in%20an%20interview.
Mancheri, N., Vekasi, K., Klinger, J., Park, S. R., Blaxland, J., Hufbauer, G., Armstrong, S., Takahashi, T., Arao, D. A., editors, E. A. F., Weerakoon, D., Tsuya, N., Poling, G., Yaacob, A. R., *, N., & Alfredo. (2012, August 16). China’s White Paper on rare earths. East Asia Forum. Retrieved February 9, 2023, from https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2012/08/16/chinas-white-paper-on-rare-earths/
Fetter, S. (2009, January 26). How long will the world’s uranium supplies last? Scientific American. Retrieved February 9, 2023, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/
