Is nuclear power renewable? If so, how?

Answer 1

The answer is yes, but it's very tricky.

It's possible to make a "breeder reactor" that uses radiation inside the reactor to make more nuclear fuel. It can make more fuel than it uses. One problem is that this is the kind of reactor that can also make bombs. Another is that the process of recovering/purifying the new fuel is environmentally dangerous.

We have enough natural uranium to run nuclear power for a very long time. By the time it runs out we'll have better answers, maybe fusion power.

So it's probably best to run nuclear power in a non-renewable way. For fossil fuels, their non-renewable nature is going to give us big problems in just a little while. For nuclear power, non-renewable is OK.

Answer 2

It is not in the sense that producing power this ways does more harm to the environment than good. The waste product is extremely harmful to everything on earth, and accidents can leave vast areas of land not just uninhabitable but areas that have to be completely avoided at all cost. Areas around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are still dangerously radioactive and ecologically dead since the melt down in 1986 that made vast areas of Europe as far as North Wales radioactive for years.

That doesn't include the harm a so-called healthy plant does. They need vast amounts of water to coo the reactors, which often get poured back to to streams and rivers, artificially raising water temps above the level many creatures can tolerate; so effecting the delicate balance of the food chain. etc etc I could go on.

It is not worth the risk and by now far better renewable forms of power should have been developed that do not harm the environment.

Answer 3

It's not exactly renewable, but maybe very cheap.
The method is so: This chem. elements from the last row has a lot of electrons and their outer shell is hard to be fully filled, which makes them really unstable. When such atom is atacked by an object it explodes and blows a lot of other objects (electrons, neutrons..), which atack other atoms wich again explode so that gives the chain. When the atom explodes it drops a lot of energy (heat), and with this heat they warm water wich rotates tourbines wich produce electricity. So the material that is used never come back. But it's cheap.

Answer 4

the world can run on nuclear power alone for a few decades, if you used only natural enrichement fuel.

like the poster above said, breeder reactors are a renewable way of using nuclear power for the next few milllenia. You use Uranium 235 (a thermal fuel) and when its expended, you extract the Uranium 238 and Plutonium, process it and run it in a reactor, which you can then reclaim more Uranium for use in a thermal reactor again. There is enough Uranium on earth to produce 1e8 quads of energy using this method (the world uses roughly 600 quads of energy per year at its current population size).

As far as other sources of energy... you would need roughly 200 square miles of solar cells, collecting sunlight almost 24/7 365 days/year to equal the current 600 quads of consumption. Of course, its not sunlight 24/7, and winter makes for shorter days, and then there is weather considerations (rain, snow, fog, etc) that hinder or stop production, and also portions of the grid that would have to be repaired, replaced, or have periodic scheduled maintenance done. That considered, you would probably need 3 or 4x that size of solar generating capability, assuming population size and energy demands dont increase (which demand will as 3rd world nations modernize, and population continues to rise). NOW think of the habitat that would be destroyed by that kind of infrastructure, hundreds of miles of solar cells (or less efficient mirror collection facilities) and the power transmission lines, the roads to maintain access for repair, the mining required to produce those quanities of silicon based semi-conductor and solar cell material. It's not all sugar and spice...

next is wind energy... nothing like being at the mercy of nature even more than with solar energy, and you have the same massive infrastructure of wind generators spamming the landscape, radar interferance with aircraft, habitat destroyed, migratory birds killed by wind turbines, and so on and so forth... and the amount of areas that could reliable produce power from wind year round are remote and isolated, so even if you avoided radar interferance, lack of wind in most developed areas, you now have huge transmission issues, from remote point a, to usable point b. There isn't enough usable, reliable wind areas on earth to come close to 600 quads of generation annualy.

Nuclear is still the number one most viable alternative. It's not necessarily user friendly like wind or solar, but you can control where its at, access to it, and have it available whenever you want it. It is safe (if you dont bypass every safety system you own, to run unapproved tests, violate procedure, on an inherently unstable design not used by any modern country anymore, like what happened at chernobyl). It would be awesome if the energy fairy waved her greenpeace magic wand to make happy power for everyone, but this is reality, and in this world we are addicted to energy, and nuclear is the answer until fusion is worked out.

Answer 5

No and if the world ran on nuclear power their would only be enough fuel to last 10 years.

Answer 6

No, it isn't. There is only so much radioactive material in the Earth. However, it's certainly a lot closer to renewable than coal and oil power are.

Answer 7

no,but it more effective cause-1-there still lot of resources
2 it said that it less polluted than fosill energy
3 it can be a weapon(in other way)....so it is multi-function resources...