Want to fight climate change? Build more nuclear power

Re:Want to fight climate change? Build more nuclear power by graeme on Sunday August 31, 2014 @02:40AM (#8248622)

I think that it was a mistake to shut down nuclear plants, rather than fossil fuel plants.

That said, if we stopped using fossil energy, wouldn't we find nuclear plants become much more expensive to build? They're built using fossil energy.

(Or significantly reduced fossil energy, thereby raising its price)

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Re:Want to fight climate change? Build more nuclear power by pdonis on Sunday August 31, 2014 @02:55PM (#8250051)

> They're built using fossil energy

Only because fossil energy is currently cheaper. If it were more expensive, you would see all kinds of construction starting to use electric-powered equipment that used non-fossil-fuel electricity.

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Re:Want to fight climate change? Build more nuclear power by graeme on Monday September 01, 2014 @09:37AM (#8252734)

But isn't that non-fossil energy built with fossil energy?

EROI is what's motivating my comments. Fossil energy has a higher EROI than other sources, currently.

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Re:Want to fight climate change? Build more nuclear power by pdonis on Monday September 01, 2014 @11:50AM (#8253406)

> But isn't that non-fossil energy built with fossil energy?

Not if you use non-fossil electricity to power all the steps in the build process. I should have clarified that that's what I was envisioning.

> Fossil energy has a higher EROI than other sources, currently.

Actually, I don't think that's currently true for nuclear; the EROEI figures for nuclear that I've seen seem way off, even if breeder reactors are left out of the equation. I don't think a lot of people realize just how much energy there is in a kilogram of uranium, compared to a kilogram of fossil fuel.

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