Nuclear fission is not "renewable" in that it relies on the finite availability of fissionable materials. The real question is how long would the fuel we have last if we had a nuclear solution (by nuclear solution I mean let's imagine for simplicity that the whole world is nuclear powered). The question really has two significant components to it:
How much fuel is there? (we can get it in different ways with different levels of cost and difficulty and futureness)
How do we use the fuel? (we can use it in different ways, recycle it, etc)
The back of an envelope calculations, based on the assumption that we only have access to uranium that is already mined or can be reasonably easily (and cheaply mined) look like this:
Current fuel cycle (LWR, once-through): 827,000 TWh (5.9 years)
Light water and fast reactor mixed with recycling: 1,240,000 TWh (8.85 years)
Pure fast reactor fuel cycle with recycling: 26,000,000 TWh (185.71 years)
Advanced thorium/uranium fuel cycle with recycling: 43,200,000 TWh (308.57 years)
So essentially (assuming we don't manage to easily get uranium out of the sea all of a sudden or something), using existing technology we would need to persuade the world to use pure fast reactors with recycling, and then we'd have about 200 years to come up with something better (e.g. nuclear fusion). This is all very feasible and implementable now with existing technology. The problems that exist are essentially political, not technical (which is not to say they're not real problems).
More information over here (http://robhu.livejournal.com/613237.html?nc=6).
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- How much fuel is there? (we can get it in different ways with different levels of cost and difficulty and futureness)
- How do we use the fuel? (we can use it in different ways, recycle it, etc)
The back of an envelope calculations, based on the assumption that we only have access to uranium that is already mined or can be reasonably easily (and cheaply mined) look like this:- Current fuel cycle (LWR, once-through): 827,000 TWh (5.9 years)
- Recycling fuel cycle (Pu only, one recycle): 930,000 TWh (6.64 years)
- Light water and fast reactor mixed with recycling: 1,240,000 TWh (8.85 years)
- Pure fast reactor fuel cycle with recycling: 26,000,000 TWh (185.71 years)
- Advanced thorium/uranium fuel cycle with recycling: 43,200,000 TWh (308.57 years)
So essentially (assuming we don't manage to easily get uranium out of the sea all of a sudden or something), using existing technology we would need to persuade the world to use pure fast reactors with recycling, and then we'd have about 200 years to come up with something better (e.g. nuclear fusion). This is all very feasible and implementable now with existing technology. The problems that exist are essentially political, not technical (which is not to say they're not real problems).More information over here (http://robhu.livejournal.com/613237.html?nc=6).