As for my question for CheezM - I think it still stands. If you're going to link some articles and say "it's relevant..." some commentary is warranted.
I'd be happy to respond. The moderator keeps banning my account, however. Apparently anyone who holds an alternate view is a troll deserving of banishment.
So this will probably be a throwaway account as well, unless the moderator would like to chill out a little bit.
The forum rules are posted
here. Moderators here are very open to alternative views and willing to let discussions continue, but do not tolerate attacks on other posters (ie #2. Attack an argument, not a person).
Creating alternative accounts is another way to get banned, so you might want to PM a moderator first to plea your case if you don't want this to keep happening. Some accounts are banned accidentially (e.g. when IP addresses are shared)
I think what made the first article stand out is the author. Someone who is/was on the front lines of renewables over the last decade. Which is why I shared it. The second article was interesting as well.
Many of us are "on the front lines". As I said, the author has taken a very hostile stance to wind and solar, sits on the board of numerous lobbying groups who's sole purpose is to prevent the closure of specific nuclear plants (and who receive funding from said agencies) and has been called out by a wide swath of people for being counterproductive. His arguments are filled with hyperbole and false equivalence.
As for disposing of nuclear, the author did address this as well - nuclear just doesn't take up all that much space, a basketball court sized area. I wish we could just send it off in to space, but the risk of a rocket failure/explosion creating a nuclear holocaust is probably too big.
The author addressed it **incorrectly**. As I've outlined numerous times, the size of the actual material is not what matters - it's the total area dedicated to its containment. In the case of spent fuel rods, the entire plant remains a no-go zone for decades after power-down, and a typical plant can take up over two square miles. I know this because I've served as an decommissioning analyst for three different nuclear reactors. But don't take my word for it - go look up any decommissioned nuclear plant and do a google-earth flyover. It remains an off-limits, high security zone because we can't let 'bad hombres' dig up some spent fuel. Security (both from meltdown and from terrorist attack) is actually the dominant cost for a plant, and the primary reason why they are so 'effing expensive: you're building a super-max prison in reverse and keeping it open long after you stop generating power.
Your idea of shooting it into space has less to do with risk of rocket explosion and more to do with the infeasibility of the whole idea. Putting a golf-cart sized satellite into low-earth orbit (LEO) costs upwards of $100MM and these orbits will still decay over time. If you want to push a few thousand kilos out of Earth's gravity well the price-tag would be in the billions.
It wasn't just the space required for solar and wind. But compare how much space is needed for solar compared to nuclear? And what do you do to generate electricity when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining? You STILL have to store it somehow.
In case you missed my point earlier - the footprint of a nuclear reactor is the entire plant, which (largely for security reasons) stretches for several square miles. In contrast, you can build economic solar arrays on less than an acre. We are extremely limited on where we can build new nuclear plants based on politics, security and feasibility (eg a large cooling source like a river or lake or ocean).
Again, the various technologies are not diametrically opposed; we can (and probably should) have both constant-generation stations including nuclear, hydro and LNG, in addition to substantial wind and solar.
How renewable is solar when the panels don't last forever? How efficiently can the panels be recycled and reused.
Nuclear reactors have a similar and (IMO) more substantial problem - most reactors are built to last 30-50 years, whereas spent fuel (as discussed above) persists for millennia unless we develop better Gen IV consumer reactors. Disposal of PV panels is certainly a consideration, but it pales in comparison to the issues surrounding nuclear reactors which have reached their end-of-life. My guess is that automated recycling plants will develop to break down the more valuable, rare and toxic elements from spent panels (though see comments about disposal upthread).
Worth noting that while current panels carry a 25-30y 'lifespan', this is based on what's believed to be 80% power efficiency at the 25y mark. Most panels will likely remain in service for far longer, until they are no longer functional. Its too early to tell when exactly that will be from the latest crop of PVs.