> There is nothing specific preventing nuclear and renewables to be used on the same grid.
Any grid with both has the nuclear plant very expensively acheiving nothing whenever there is a surplus of renewables.
This is about 6-8 hours a day without storage or dispatch. When you can match the EAF of the nuclear plant by overprovisioning slightly and adding a few hours storage at lower cost, there's no way for the plant to be economical as a suppliment, because it can't match the $0 of the otherwise curtailed renewable energy.
They might have a viable niche generating heat + electricity for some uses though.
> That is under very conservative assumptions about the types of reactors and state of ore deposits. Realistically, it's about 100 years, and that's likely overestimating needs because nuclear cannot do everything.
An APR like AP1000 or EPR gets 60MWd thermal per kg at 3.5%. Assuming 0 tails essay (economical enrichment leaves behind about 1/4th to 1/3rd of U235) this is roughly 300GJ electric per kg of Natural Uranium. Roughly in line with a CANDU. Reprocessing repeatedly until all the nuclides are fertile rather than fissile adds <20%, or (using technology that exists) <15% with a single round of SNF.
In the most optimistic scenario. For the ~10 million tonnes of reasonably assured resource assuming no increase in energy use and 8 of 18TW can be reduced or provided with waste heat somehow this lasts around ten years.
Any grid with both has the nuclear plant very expensively acheiving nothing whenever there is a surplus of renewables.
This is about 6-8 hours a day without storage or dispatch. When you can match the EAF of the nuclear plant by overprovisioning slightly and adding a few hours storage at lower cost, there's no way for the plant to be economical as a suppliment, because it can't match the $0 of the otherwise curtailed renewable energy.
They might have a viable niche generating heat + electricity for some uses though.
> That is under very conservative assumptions about the types of reactors and state of ore deposits. Realistically, it's about 100 years, and that's likely overestimating needs because nuclear cannot do everything.
An APR like AP1000 or EPR gets 60MWd thermal per kg at 3.5%. Assuming 0 tails essay (economical enrichment leaves behind about 1/4th to 1/3rd of U235) this is roughly 300GJ electric per kg of Natural Uranium. Roughly in line with a CANDU. Reprocessing repeatedly until all the nuclides are fertile rather than fissile adds <20%, or (using technology that exists) <15% with a single round of SNF.
In the most optimistic scenario. For the ~10 million tonnes of reasonably assured resource assuming no increase in energy use and 8 of 18TW can be reduced or provided with waste heat somehow this lasts around ten years.