EU now says Nuclear is "green".

[dialtone]

you 2 are talking past one another for what it's worth. I doubt either of you really disagrees with the points you are making actually.

[CMSMJ1]

It's an interesting one for sure. The waste needs to be addressed surely, but other than that....(massive thing)....then nuclear ticks a lot of boxes doesn't it?

Maybe it's robbing the CO2/Greenhouse Peter to pay Paul/waste disposal and long term management of it?

Got to be worth a look

[_cerber1]

Nuclear is emissions free, wich is the main goal now as we´re simply ruining the planet with emissions. But nuclear waste is there, and that cannot be considered green by anyone with a working brain.

Russia has developed the technology of the Closed Nuclear Fuel Cycle, which allows you to restore spent fuel assemblies, which can then be reused, the most interesting thing is that in the process of this, they will also generate energy, only this is already happening at a nuclear power plant operating on fast neutrons, which significantly reduces nuclear waste.

[Tommy Cookers]

... which significantly reduces nuclear waste.

making a slower-growing nuclear waste mountain (much of it imported by the good old UK)
(yes it's possible to process that but nobody does)

there is no such thing as nuclear power stations - they are nuclear space heaters
(afaik) all waste most of their energy as heat dumped to the environment

or we can have small nukes and live close so we can use the waste heat as domestic (or industrial) heating
or use them to make hydrogen etc (this handily using electricity and heat)
such green hydrogen also enables decarbonisation of industry eg iron smelting ie steel

if nukes are now good so is hydrogen as fuel for domestic heating ....
or fuel for cars

[Juzh]

so why exactly is this topic under "formula 1 general chat" ?

[chrisc90]

Just need them to wake up about these electric cars being 'green' now.

Can you developp please ?

How long is battery life on these cars? Certainly not brilliant at the minute. Once the battery is removed it can’t be recycled so has to go to waste. Then you have the HUGE mining process of getting lithium out the ground to begin with.
The cars are likely to be charged off non green methods.

If you trace the carbon footprint back of all these electric cars, I’ll bet it’s worse than a combustion engine which will run for many many times longer than a electric car

[Spoutnik]

Just need them to wake up about these electric cars being 'green' now.

Can you developp please ?

How long is battery life on these cars? Certainly not brilliant at the minute. Once the battery is removed it can’t be recycled so has to go to waste. Then you have the HUGE mining process of getting lithium out the ground to begin with.
The cars are likely to be charged off non green methods.

If you trace the carbon footprint back of all these electric cars, I’ll bet it’s worse than a combustion engine which will run for many many times longer than a electric car

I pretty much agree with this analysis...
But then why is the electric vehicle so much hyped and there's so much incentive to buy it ?

[DChemTech]

Just need them to wake up about these electric cars being 'green' now.

Can you developp please ?

How long is battery life on these cars? Certainly not brilliant at the minute. Once the battery is removed it can’t be recycled so has to go to waste. Then you have the HUGE mining process of getting lithium out the ground to begin with.
The cars are likely to be charged off non green methods.

If you trace the carbon footprint back of all these electric cars, I’ll bet it’s worse than a combustion engine which will run for many many times longer than a electric car

And do you have studies that back that up? Because the life cycle analysis that are done don't support your feeling. Anyway, not the place to discuss this, there is another thread on that.

[bauc]

so why exactly is this topic under "formula 1 general chat" ?

Possible Nuclear powered PU's for the next concord agreement?

[cirrusflyer]

You all might read this.
There is r&d happening for using nuke waste as the long lasting battery for cars and houses.

https://ndb.technology/

[Quantum]

How long is battery life on these cars? Certainly not brilliant at the minute.

300k mile Tesla on same batteries are getting more and more common. All while retaining 80%+ their charge.

Once the battery is removed it can’t be recycled so has to go to waste.

Not quite true, newer techniques of recycling are being tested with higher degrees of efficiency. The problem isn't we cannot, it is that we can at a cost that's higher than just disposing of it.

Then you have the HUGE mining process of getting lithium out the ground to begin with.

A large used battery storage facility in Oklahoma is hedging that by the time the costs fall down, we will have a bunch of used batteries to tap into taking most the slack of Cobalt and Lithium mining.

The cars are likely to be charged off non green methods.

I don't believe that's universally true or remotely accurate. Some will yes. But in countries like Portugal, Spain, Certain states in the US etc large portions of their energy comes from green renewables.

If you trace the carbon footprint back of all these electric cars, I’ll bet it’s worse than a combustion engine which will run for many many times longer than a electric car

This is perplexing to me. The science literally indicates the opposite. Do you have a source for that or was it just your view?

And even if the source where to come from non green methods, it would still be 60% minimum more efficient than a combustion powered car.
And that's before we take into account that around 60% of Sydney and hunters Valley owners have solar panels which generate and store enough to not tap into the Grid.
This figure will be replicated over time bringing the efficiency as is happening across the world with demand for Solar panels going parabolic.

Or that most cars in Europe never see more than 250K kms, which is already easily attainable by an EV with the same battery pack.

[ME4ME]

Green or not, I'm happy that nuclear energy has been gaining more acceptance lately. It's clearly noticable, at least where i live.

Imo nuclear is the least bad alternative we have. The coal and oil burning needs to stop now. We can permanently deal with the nuclear waste later.

Solar and wind are great, but not dependable enough yet. It needs to scale, and it some cases it needs to be combined with some sort of electrical/chemical or mechanical energy storage.

The financial aspects of it are of less importance than the transition or expension actually happening. Also the war or natural disaster scenarios are acute catastrophies of what will follow anyway if a transition away from coal and oil doesn't happen. Ever intensivying heat waves, drought, rain, cold etc in years to come is just as bad just less local and acute.

[johnny comelately]

This thread has become quite the snapshot of the human psyche

[cheeRS]

Once the battery is removed it can’t be recycled so has to go to waste.

Not quite true, newer techniques of recycling are being tested with higher degrees of efficiency. The problem isn't we cannot, it is that we can at a cost that's higher than just disposing of it.

In that case, nuclear is completely 100% recyclable; it's just that it costs less to just dispose of it rather than recycle it into a volcano to be re-mined at a much later date.

[DChemTech]

Once the battery is removed it can’t be recycled so has to go to waste.

Not quite true, newer techniques of recycling are being tested with higher degrees of efficiency. The problem isn't we cannot, it is that we can at a cost that's higher than just disposing of it.

In that case, nuclear is completely 100% recyclable; it's just that it costs less to just dispose of it rather than recycle it into a volcano to be re-mined at a much later date.

Well, yes, recyclability is in any case a cost aspect - anything is recyclable if you are willing to pay. (Nuclear is perhaps the exception there in that it really takes great lengths to recycle)

And lack of recyclability is not really an issue, unless you end up with a waste stream that is toxic/threatening to nature or anything like that (e.g. plastics, CO2), or if there is a lack of sufficiently accessible raw material (but in that case, if the material is valuable enough, people are willing to pay the price for recycling once accessible greenfield sources run out. Problem may be that accessing the greenfield sources that are there comes with environmental damages, though).

In terms of lithium batteries, lack of recyclability is not an enormous issue (yet) in that respect - contrary to plastics, discarded li-ion car batteries don't tend to end up littering the roadside as much. Mining of fresh Lithium is somewhat of an issue - but there are a lot of developments regarding re-use, and it may just be a matter of what we are willing to pay for that, too. If mining damages are properly factored in to costs, recycling may be a lot more attractive.

It's the same for windmills: lack of recyclability of windmill blades is often brought up as a 'killer argument' against windmills. Reality is that honestly, discarded windmill blades are not so much of an issue. They are inert and can easily be landfilled without inducing substantial damages. Besides that, the volume of the wastestream pales in comparison to other composites (automotive, aviation, etc.) about which there are no complaints. And the generated solid waste in kg/kWh for windmills is much, much lower than the amount of solid waste in kg/kWh for coal-fired power plants: and whereas windmill blades are big, inert pieces, ashes are not... So 'non-recyclability' is a very selective issue which depends very much on the material at hand.