It’s a little bit complicated and I don’t want to write a wall of text but:
Waste fuel can be recycled, if your reactor has a breeding ratio higher than 1 then it has net positive production of fissile materials. Potentially all uranium and thorium of the planet could be used.
The argument being, if you consider the word “renewable” in the strictest sense, no energy source is renewable, entropy can only increases: solar depends by the sun burning a finire amount of hydrogen, geothermy depends by earth inner heat which is a finire amount ecc.ecc.
The common usage of renewable is along the line of “immensely big proportional to human consumption” and in this sense there’s a strong argument to consider nuclear renewable.
Calling an LWR renewable because somebody somewhere might run a closed fuel cycle eventually is like calling oil renewable because you can make hydrocarbons by electrolyzing CO2 and water.
With the same argument calling solar and wind renewables just because, hypothetically someone somewhere can fully recycle turbines and panels without having to extract new raw materials is an absurd and ridiculous lie (?)
Otherwise, first fast reactor has been built in 1946, we’re basically done and there’s absolutely no more industrial research needed as it happened at least once /s
You’re now trying to misdirect with an unrelated statistic. The current market saturation of recycling isn’t the amount of a panel that can be recycled.
Breeding some fissile fuel is not closing the fuel cycle. No reactor has ever prodiced the same material it ran on. Closed cycle nuclear is not even proof of concept.
The current market saturation of recycling isn’t the amount of a panel that can be recycled.
The current market for nuclear reprocessing isn’t the amount reprocessable either.
But to adhere to your argument, it’s the probability for a given panel to be recycled; if there isn’t an economic rationale, because recycled materials from panels is more expensive than vergin materials, then it’s called being out of market, not market saturation.
In reality we aren’t recycling solar panels.
No reactor has ever prodiced the same material it ran on
This happen routinely even in non breeder reactors, industrial nuclear nuclear reprocessing is a thing and many reactors in the world run on MOX fuel with plutonium extracted from spent LWR fuel.
You only need a breeding ratio higher than 1 because otherwise fissile content will keep diminishing.
Arguably there’s no more base research needed, both breeding and nuclear reprocessing are time tested process. What we need is industrial scale up, which is a little bit further than a proof of concept
You’ve now switched from closed cycle to using the dregs via reprocessing. Entirely unrelated concepts (and reprocessing is also ecologically awful and uneconomical in addition to not meaningfully reducing mining).
In reality all solar panels in large parts of europe built since 2015 will be recycled.
This happen routinely even in non breeder reactors, industrial nuclear nuclear reprocessing is a thing and many reactors in the world run on MOX fuel with plutonium extracted from spent LWR fuel. You only need a breeding ratio higher than 1 because otherwise fissile content will keep diminishing. Arguably there’s no more base research needed, both breeding and nuclear reprocessing are time tested process. What we need is industrial scale up, which is a little bit further than a proof of concept
A soup of random plutonium isotopes isn’t usable for MOX. MOX-2 has never happened.
You cannot even keep your bizarre straw man tangent straight.
Unfortunately most reactors are not breeders and we are trying our best to lock the waste away forever which ruins any chance of recovery when we finally do migrate to breeder cycles. I like to compare our current reactors to burning just the bark off of logs and then tossing the rest in a smoldering heap, with 95-99% of the energy still retained in the waste.
Breeder reactors would indeed extend the long term viability of nuclear fission immensely, we should be using them exclusively.
I’m sorry what? How do you renew fissile material?!?
It’s a little bit complicated and I don’t want to write a wall of text but: Waste fuel can be recycled, if your reactor has a breeding ratio higher than 1 then it has net positive production of fissile materials. Potentially all uranium and thorium of the planet could be used.
The argument being, if you consider the word “renewable” in the strictest sense, no energy source is renewable, entropy can only increases: solar depends by the sun burning a finire amount of hydrogen, geothermy depends by earth inner heat which is a finire amount ecc.ecc. The common usage of renewable is along the line of “immensely big proportional to human consumption” and in this sense there’s a strong argument to consider nuclear renewable.
Calling an LWR renewable because somebody somewhere might run a closed fuel cycle eventually is like calling oil renewable because you can make hydrocarbons by electrolyzing CO2 and water.
It’s and absurd and ridiculous lie.
With the same argument calling solar and wind renewables just because, hypothetically someone somewhere can fully recycle turbines and panels without having to extract new raw materials is an absurd and ridiculous lie (?)
Except it has happened at least once at >99% yield.
And happens regularly commercially at >70% yield.
So you continue to repeat stupid and absurd lies.
Could you back your claims up?
Because in Europe and US the recycling rate if solar panels is around 10% and that without considering we might being miscalculating their real impact
Otherwise, first fast reactor has been built in 1946, we’re basically done and there’s absolutely no more industrial research needed as it happened at least once /s
You’re now trying to misdirect with an unrelated statistic. The current market saturation of recycling isn’t the amount of a panel that can be recycled.
Breeding some fissile fuel is not closing the fuel cycle. No reactor has ever prodiced the same material it ran on. Closed cycle nuclear is not even proof of concept.
The current market for nuclear reprocessing isn’t the amount reprocessable either. But to adhere to your argument, it’s the probability for a given panel to be recycled; if there isn’t an economic rationale, because recycled materials from panels is more expensive than vergin materials, then it’s called being out of market, not market saturation.
In reality we aren’t recycling solar panels.
This happen routinely even in non breeder reactors, industrial nuclear nuclear reprocessing is a thing and many reactors in the world run on MOX fuel with plutonium extracted from spent LWR fuel. You only need a breeding ratio higher than 1 because otherwise fissile content will keep diminishing. Arguably there’s no more base research needed, both breeding and nuclear reprocessing are time tested process. What we need is industrial scale up, which is a little bit further than a proof of concept
You’ve now switched from closed cycle to using the dregs via reprocessing. Entirely unrelated concepts (and reprocessing is also ecologically awful and uneconomical in addition to not meaningfully reducing mining).
In reality all solar panels in large parts of europe built since 2015 will be recycled.
A soup of random plutonium isotopes isn’t usable for MOX. MOX-2 has never happened.
You cannot even keep your bizarre straw man tangent straight.
Unfortunately most reactors are not breeders and we are trying our best to lock the waste away forever which ruins any chance of recovery when we finally do migrate to breeder cycles. I like to compare our current reactors to burning just the bark off of logs and then tossing the rest in a smoldering heap, with 95-99% of the energy still retained in the waste.
Breeder reactors would indeed extend the long term viability of nuclear fission immensely, we should be using them exclusively.
you do not need a breeder to recycle most of it. also that 95% is still there for future us to use when we are able to.