I see this manipulative arguement used all the time with lithium mining.
https://www.gtk.fi/en/research/time-to-wake-up/
"No matter what minerals will be needed, we will need large quantities of them as the renewable power sources like wind and solar, require extensive mineral resources to manufacture the infrastructure for fossil-free energy.
And there is a challenge. Given the estimated required number of Electric Vehicles (EV’s) of different vehicle class, it is clear that there are not enough minerals in the currently reported global reserves to build just one generation of batteries for all EV’s and stationary power storage, in the global industrial ecosystem as it is today."
Also moving pulling back this debate to more general topics:
1.We don't need to replace all cars, many older gas powered cars will still be on the road for a long time which buys time for points 2-4
2. There are other types of batteries, like NiMH, which don't contain lithium. Although these aren't as efficient many hybrids use them, I think the new Mavrick hybrid does (or some truck hybrid)
3. There could be new battery technology that will be invented
4.New technology has helped Tesla make more energy dense batteries and have them last longer
A 2016 model s with the 70kwh battery pack has a 200 miles of range
A 2022 Model s performance with a 98kwh battery pack has a range of 326 miles (this is a touch comparison because the new performance has much more power)
sources: https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15104936/tesla-model-... https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/breakdown-raw-materials-tesla...
For every 0.6 kg of Uranium it produces, it produces 20kg of copper and 4.5g of silver.
Monosilicon PV is made of sand, copper, silver and aluminum.
A kg of uranium going through a pwr produces about 500GJ (with 3-10% of that being required for milling and enrichment). The 7.5g of silver in the ore that produced that kg of Uranium will produce about 200GJ in its lifetime with technologies in the pipeling that will push this to 400GJ. This silver usage is going down faster than production is increasing. There will be a huge surplus of copper from this source.
The silver is recyclable.
The uranium will require special storage for millenia or reprocessing at a cost not even massively subsidized programs are willing to bear.
The solar energy can be stored in a battery made from sodium, carbon, iron and aluminum. This is basically the composition of dirt. These are being mass produced now and full industrialisation of the supply chain is expected by 2024.
The nuclear reactor requires large quantities of zirconium, molybdenum, chromium, silver, cadmium and many other rare metals. Much of this is radioactive waste at eol.
The nuclear reactor requires more steel than the solar panel requires silicon, and more concrete than the solar panel requires glass and concrete.
A uranium mine can provide nearly as much energy from PV as it does via fission, and will soon produce more. Let that sink in for a bit.
It suffices that readers know they are being trolled.
I'm glad it's getting cheaper, and I'm all for supplementing baseline load with solar, wind, and hydro, but I'm less confident with strategies that ultimately boil down to placing trust in improvements that we may or may not reach.
That's not an assertion that reaching, say, $10/kWh for storage won't be possible, but I think it would be wise to have a plan B in case we're unable to get it lower than, say, $100/kWh.
Not having a Plan B and placing almost all of our eggs in one basket (fossil fuels) is how we got to this point in the first.
Storage is the only compatible solution to renewables (that is not fossil fuels). As far as I know renewables+storage are cheaper than 100% nuclear and much faster to build.
The energy demands in the market right now are very different than what they were even 20 years ago (I mean, who would have imagined crypto mining or large model training in the state it’s in?)
We’re heavily constrained as a society in our use of energy. For example, you don’t just leave the heat/AC on all day when weather conditions demand it, do you?
Similarly, we don’t have massive desalination capacity on the west coast in spite of years of drought with the Pacific right on the coast.
Energy is one of those things that society has no choice but to live within its means on. We can build all the nuclear capacity we want to and yet, may still see future demand in intensive areas such as carbon capture, desalination, supercomputing clusters come up that are great candidates for any buffer capacity we may have, should we be so lucky.
This all goes without mentioning the huge surge of lower income populations that will slowly be increasing consumption over the next few decades. Hundreds of millions(perhaps billions) of people in India, Africa, Asia and South America (The global south) consume very, very little energy today because of financial constraints and development. A lot of these people may not have access to transmission infrastructure for a long time and solar, wind and the like certainly find their use in many such places today.
In short, this is not a zero sum game.
Not only can it be a great source of baseload power, but it can also be turned on and off very rapidly to provide peeking capacity.
Pairs very nicely with Wind and Solar if your country has the right terrain for it (which Sweden does, hydro provides 45% of their current capacity).
Take the hydro which is currently doing baseload, convert as much capacity as possible to peak loads. And replace the lost baseload with new Nuclear.
That way you can unlock even more capacity for more solar and wind (well... that far north, it will be mostly wind)