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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse
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To: Wharf Rat who wrote (4283)6/10/2006 1:26:22 PM
From: Wharf Rat  Read Replies (2) of 24206
 
I found this article to be a real eye-opener:
Laurence Aurbach on Saturday June 10, 2006 at 12:18 PM EST
feasta.org

WHY NUCLEAR POWER CANNOT BE A MAJOR ENERGY SOURCE
by David Fleming, April 2006
It takes a lot of fossil energy to mine uranium, and then to extract and prepare the right isotope for use in a nuclear reactor. It takes even more fossil energy to build the reactor, and, when its life is over, to decommission it and look after its radioactive waste.

As a result, with current technology, there is only a limited amount of uranium ore in the world that is rich enough to allow more energy to be produced by the whole nuclear process than the process itself consumes. This amount of ore might be enough to supply the world's total current electricity demand for about six years.

Moreover, because of the amount of fossil fuel and fluorine used in the enrichment process, significant quantities of greenhouse gases are released. As a result, nuclear energy is by no means a 'climate-friendly' technology.

One of the most striking points is the profitability and EROEI of conventional nuclear power is dependent on never properly disposing of wastes or decommissioning and disassembling power plants. In light of that, the continuing inaction on a permanent disposal site in the U.S. is a lot more understandable.

There is also an audio recording of the author presenting his thesis. The research that the article is based on is available here.


theoildrum.com
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