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Re:French Nuclear Outages Risk Making Europe’s Gas Crisis Worse by skrause on Friday July 22, 2022 @10:23AM (#32192141)
Almost all of the EU's uranium also has to be imported from non-EU sources, just like fossil fuels. So it's not really better if you want actual energy independence.
Re:French Nuclear Outages Risk Making Europe’s Gas Crisis Worse by Zealotux on Friday July 22, 2022 @10:33AM (#32192253)
But uranium is much easier to store due to its energy density, and we can rely on better sources for it such as Canada and Australia, and not questionable countries like for oil.
Re:French Nuclear Outages Risk Making Europe’s Gas Crisis Worse by pomian on Friday July 22, 2022 @11:13AM (#32192809)
Yes. It is much better if Canada and Australia are left with contaminated tailings ponds, that are full of acidic and radioactive waste. Those countries are definitely nimby.
Re:French Nuclear Outages Risk Making Europe’s Gas Crisis Worse by belorn on Friday July 22, 2022 @11:32AM (#32193063)
Tailings ponds exist for all mining. This is why groundwater leakage is a major issue in all mining operations. Regardless if you mine for steel, copper, coal, rare earth minerals, or uranium, operations like those will also bring to surface heavy metals, sulfides and radioactive contents.

Northern Sweden is known for its iron ore mines, and people who live anywhere near those areas are recommended to install radon detectors. The iron from those mines is then used in multiple countries, leaving behind the contaminated water and air in Sweden.

Re:French Nuclear Outages Risk Making Europe’s Gas Crisis Worse by melling on Friday July 22, 2022 @11:34AM (#32193097)
Coal, the current solution, is definitely a much better choice. No residual mess to clean up.

Kicking the climate change can down the road even farther requires a few more additional miracles. Heck, we still don’t see climate change as a major problem:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/20/us/politics/climate-chang...

Re:French Nuclear Outages Risk Making Europe’s Gas Crisis Worse by steeve on Friday July 22, 2022 @12:04PM (#32193551)
France's Uranium strategic reserves are 3 years. The main supplier is Canada. France has Uranium mines, but they were closed since it was cheaper to import. They still do exist, though.
Re:French Nuclear Outages Risk Making Europe’s Gas Crisis Worse by melling on Friday July 22, 2022 @10:31AM (#32192231)
My main point was we could have avoided half a century of massive coal usage. 40% of global power is still from coal.

It appears that we still need to resort to coal instead of renewables:

https://globalnews.ca/news/8993093/german-europe-coal-energy...

Re:French Nuclear Outages Risk Making Europe’s Gas Crisis Worse by ohgodplsno on Friday July 22, 2022 @10:30AM (#32192217)
Mostly because it's not financially interesting, in the same way that the US did not pump oil on its own territory for the longest time because it wasn't worth it. There are 200 uranium mines in France.
Re:French Nuclear Outages Risk Making Europe’s Gas Crisis Worse by melling on Friday July 22, 2022 @10:32AM (#32192248)
Yes, I agree. Coal was much cheaper. Back to my “pay now, pay later” point.
Re:French Nuclear Outages Risk Making Europe’s Gas Crisis Worse by himinlomax on Friday July 22, 2022 @10:54AM (#32192507)
Uranium fuel is a non issue. It's imported because there are very cheap sources abroad and it's a tiny fraction of nuclear power cost. There are known uranium sources in France, they're just not exploited at the moment because that would be a waste of money. But they're there in case demand rises.
Re:French Nuclear Outages Risk Making Europe’s Gas Crisis Worse by tomjen3 on Friday July 22, 2022 @02:21PM (#32195369)
How many cargo planes with Uranium do you have to fly to satisfy the entire requirement of France for a year?

Compared to the same for LNG?