http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/201...
As an aside: There are some people who are very skeptical of both atoms and space exploration. I'm not sure what their motives are but given the amount of steel necessary to produce wind turbines, I'm unconvinced that "renewable" is actually "greener."
Beyond that, Steel is 100% recyclable^, and that accounts for over 65% of US steel production. Recycled steel can be done in arc furnaces, requiring no coal coke. [1]
Info like this is at the tip of your fingers.
[0] https://www.worldsteel.org/en/dam/jcr:f07b864c-908e-4229-9f9...
[1] https://seekingalpha.com/article/3785906-metallurgical-coal-...
^ This rate is never achieved. Global average is ~90%, as some countries aren't efficient: http://www.steel.org/sustainability/steel-recycling.aspx
Downvote me if you like but our fuel mix in this country is still ~40% combustion and the calculations on wind power say that at current power requirements civilization will harvest enough energy from the air currents to change the climate again. Maybe it stops hurricanes, I have no idea.
Also, steel, like atomic fuel, is toxic to produce and reprocess!
I know it is much-despised by but I am curious as to the lifetime energy footprint of a fission reactor facility with onsite fuel-reprocessing and waste transmutation. And then? Tokamak. Won't even need a turbine!!
Parts of that system don't even exist yet but me I believe one day there will be clean atoms, fission or fusion, and they will require even less energy to produce and maintain than the wind and solar grid.
But then, I have lived among the fission reactors my entire life. Perhaps I am "mad from the rads" ;)
?
Wind doesn't circulate through the atmosphere forever with perfect efficiency, it eventually dumps its energy into the ground via friction.
There's no difference between slowing wind down with a wind turbine and slowing it down with a tree, they both end up as heat eventually.
[1] http://www.wipp.energy.gov/WIPPCommunityRelations/images/pho...
However, containment vessels like that are usually for refined ores, which end up in reactors, smoke detectors, medical devices, radiotherapy machines, you name it. Too expensive and possibly hazardous to airlift.
As far as I know, production of atomic weapons has stopped in this country and we're not even sure if they still work (half-lives--they rot). Could've been materiel for a stewardship program at the Hanford Site, or waste being evacuated from the Hanford Site.
Generally speaking, the remaining atoms transported and transmuted are for peace. That's why Russia brokers Uranium to the States, and why people in Kazakhstan and elsewhere continue to mine fissile ore.
If you were to shut down the remaining fission plants of Planet Earth, civilization as we know it, would end almost immediately, such is our need for these fuels. It would not be pretty--consider the amount of electric heat, the number of electric stoves with 50+ year duty lifetimes. That's why Japan recycles spent fuel at the French reactor.
In light of the current geopolitical climate, it's probably better that NASA's (et al) plutonium should come from Canada vs. Russia.
“The United States stopped producing bulk Pu-238 with the closure of the Savannah River Site reactors in 1988.[12][13][14]
Since 1993, all of the Pu-238 used in American spacecraft has been purchased from Russia. In total, 16.5 kilograms (36 lb) has been purchased but Russia is no longer producing Pu-238 and their own supply is reportedly running low.[15][16]”
Interestinly, it looks like Canada (Ontario, Darlington) are starting set up operations to make some in the near future.