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Comment by Moldoteck | Hacker News Reader

uranium can be stockpiled. Or like in japan/france - reprocessed & reenriched. It'll be more expensive but will cover most of temporary problems of uranium supply. For renewables - if you don't have local factories at scale and a steady supply of materials, incl for energy storage - the problem will be the same

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> stockpiled

Doing so may trigger a market tension.

France reprocesses only part of its fuel, and only 1 time.

> the problem will be the same

Uh?

An existing fleet of reactors is moot without uranium.

An existing fleet of renewables just works (it only needs wind, sun, geothermal activity...)

you need to gradually replace renewables, especially for a grid that was gradually deployed. You still can stockpile nuclear, France does have several years worth of fuel for such emergencies. France reprocesses only part of the fuel, is expanding Orano facility, but why is this relevant? They do it and they get additional un-enriched uranium stockpile. WTH dude? Are you just throwing random antinuclear statements around? Only in german forums i've seen such strong antinuclear opinions

Most materials used by renewables are eternally (at human scale) reusable. In France recycling 95% of the sheer mass of a wind turbine is now mandatory ( https://www.lemoniteur.fr/article/demantelement-des-eolienne... )

> France does have several years worth of fuel

Indeed, 'le stock stratégique', about 9 years at best (counting the average amount of uranium already present in reactors). 9 years at best for an overall of your gridpower production system... good luck with this!

I mean... france really doesn't have a problem with n fuel... It's not just classic stockpiles but the reprocessed ones. Needless to say that imports are pretty diversified - even if one country will ban exports to France, they'll not face total ban from all partners, so in this regard they are indeed lucky.

France already encountered challenges: for 5 decades some there pretended that Niger will provide, then it abruptly became tricky ( https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kked7ydqyo ).

Some recycling operations (past contracts) involving Russia also had to be maintained during the current embargo.

No major problem for now, indeed.

However a war or a nuclear renaissance may abruptly lead to challenging conditions, if superpowers need more uranium.

Uranium supply is not an issue at all, given that plenty of nations sell it, it is not rare mineral and can be found in abundance.

and you need to replenish uranium fuel like once in 5 years - so this is not an issue at all for nuclear energy

> Uranium supply is not an issue

I disagree: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41783584

> you need to replenish uranium fuel like once in 5 years

At best. Then, if you cannot obtain uranium, your reactor is just a pile of hot waste.

Imo I find such statements like 100-150 years of supply similar to the statements about petroleum supply that was about to end and suddenly with demand, new supply was found, just like with other materials like lithium

This is a billion dollar bet, who wants to take it?

No such risk with renewables.

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