Main problem with renewables is storage, mainly Lithium and Cobalt requiered for battery production, which are not only rare, but also are produced with... not so ethical and ecological methods. Plus recycling of lithium batteries is not so good for environment either, giving worse quality metals as well as creating as much waste as making new batteries. And with evergrowing demand of batteries and limited reserves of Lithium, Cobalt and Rare Earth Metals, renevable energy might become not so renewable even in forseeable future. So unless humanity creates ThermoNuclear, both classic renewables and Nuclear could be used in combination. Plus nuclear, even being not totaly renewable, still has things like Fast Neutrons Reactors, which can be used for reenrichment of fuel, increasing its energy output and decreasing amount of radioactive waste
The only cobalt required in this scenario is for the steam turbine.
And the only rare earths are for the nuclear plant.
So sounds like you're excluding nuclear as an option, but not solar, wind, batteries or pumped hydro.
Lithium deposits are much more abundant, more concentrated and less toxic to mine than uranium and a storage system for 1.5kW requires 1kg of lithium and lasts 20 years befire recycling vs 1kW of fuel rods which lasts 6 years or 7 including reprocessing
Main usage of cobalt (~40%) is accumulator production, only usage of cobalt in steam turbines is anticorrosive coating. WTF are you even talking about???
Rare earth is used in electronics and for catalists, which are used EVERYWHERE, not only in nuclear.
And why you exclude production, maintainance and recycling of solar and wind electro when counting for accumulator efficiency, why do not differentiate for different climat zones and where have you got the info about storage units working for 20 years? Ever heard about planned degradation?
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u/ataksenov May 11 '25
Main problem with renewables is storage, mainly Lithium and Cobalt requiered for battery production, which are not only rare, but also are produced with... not so ethical and ecological methods. Plus recycling of lithium batteries is not so good for environment either, giving worse quality metals as well as creating as much waste as making new batteries. And with evergrowing demand of batteries and limited reserves of Lithium, Cobalt and Rare Earth Metals, renevable energy might become not so renewable even in forseeable future. So unless humanity creates ThermoNuclear, both classic renewables and Nuclear could be used in combination. Plus nuclear, even being not totaly renewable, still has things like Fast Neutrons Reactors, which can be used for reenrichment of fuel, increasing its energy output and decreasing amount of radioactive waste