Re: How Africa's desert sun can bring Europe power

On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 12:00:26 +0100, "Alessandro" <IO@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Sevenhundred Elves" <sevenhundred@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:fj2hs4$bn7$1@xxxxxxxxxxx
LongmuirG wrote:
Now, remind me why this is preferable to
a set of nuclear power plants on European territory?

Perhaps it is because of this:

http://www.wise-uranium.org/img/uresw.gif


130 $/kg of uranium grossly corresponds to one dollar per oil barrel
equivalent; at higher extraction costs there are much greater uranium
resources with negiglible effects in the nuclear kWh cost. For example,
there are hundreds millions of tonns of uranium ( thousands years of
reserves at current use) at a cost of 350 $/kg (corresponding to about 3 or
4 $ per oil barrel). Even with no breeders or thorium (the latter
exploitable even in current technology reactors) - more than one million
years at world total electricity needs - we have at least thousands years of
low prices uranium in a once through fuel cycle.

Moreover, greatest uranium exporter countries are nowadays Canada and
Australia, which will never do a political use of their energy resources,
like today Russia and Arabian countries for oil and gas

Nice fantasie numbers you got there..
Any and all pricing per anything... is an unstable metric based
on thousands of undisclosed assumptions. EROEI is a more practical
measurement since it's based on known scientific principles.

Whitout breeder types, Nuclear's useful EROEI (5 to 1) drops
significantly as the readily accessible sources of high grade U ore
are depleted. Once ore deletes to the level of ~150ppm the process
consumes more energy than it produces. (Note: Waste heat is not a
useful byproduct.)

Note: Breeder designs are wayyy more dangerous, and have a
propensity to melt down/burn for obvious reasons.. Fermi, Santa
Sussana, Windscale, etc.


Meanwhile both Solar and Wind have (EROEI's) that climb from the
30:1) into the hundreds:1 when long term recycling as factored into
the equation. (I.E. >95% of the original material remains at the end
of it's useful life cycle.)
.

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