Is nuclear energy renewable or non-renewable?

Answer 1

The uranium used by power reactors is uranium-235, which makes up less than 1% of all uranium. The remaining 99% can be converted to fissionable fuel plutionium-239 and used for reactors. Also, the naturally occurring thorium-232 can be converted to fissionable uranium-233 and used for reactors. Both of these processes have been technologically proven to work. We just don't do it for a variety of reasons: politics and economics.

True, we can't make more U-235, but we can convert a non-fuel into a fuel and greatly extend the "lifetime" of the fission fuel repository.

Answer 2

Nuclear energy is considered non-renewable because the fuel source, uranium, is finite and will eventually be depleted. However, it is often classified separately from other non-renewable sources like fossil fuels due to its low carbon emissions and high energy output.

Answer 3

It can certainly last a long, long, time - especially in the case of nuclear fusion (which is not ready for the market yet).Note that in a very technical sense, NO type of energy is "renewable"; the term "renewable" - once energy gets wasted, it doesn't come back. The term simply means it can last a long time.

Answer 4

Renewable energy is defined as energy generated from Natural Resources that are renewable or constantly and naturally replenished. Examples of these resources are sunlight, wind, rain, tide, hydro power, tides, ocean/sea waves, geothermal heat, etc.

As for nuclear energy, It is based on the uranium natural resources that comes from mining. These resources are not naturally renewable or replenished.

That is why, by definition, nuclear energy is a nonrenewable energy source.

However, in my own view, nuclear energy could be considered almost renewable energy source because of two reasons:

• The tremendous available uranium resources (assured resources and additional reasonably assured resources)
  
• Some nuclear reactor types (Breeder reactors) are capable of producing other nuclear fuel (Plutonium or uranium-233) that compensates for the consumption of the original uranium fuel.
  

Answer 5

Some scientists consider nuclear energy as renewable energy source because of the use of nuclear breeders that can produce more nuclear fuel than what is consumed. In addition there are a plenty of uranium resources from mining, as secondary product from phosphate and gold industries, and from dismantling nuclear weapons. Uranium could also be produced from water but currently not economic.

Answer 6

Technically, the thorium breeder form uranium-233 as its fissionable daughter. Uranium-239 can absorb a neutron and decay eventually to Pu-239 as the fissionable breeder product. Both processes have been shown to produce more fuel than they consume in actual power producing reactors. (go research the Shippingport nuclear power station).

Answer 7

Nuclear energy is nonrenewable, as it depends on limited supplies of the fissionable isotope Uranium-235. Uranium is dug out of the ground. Some day there will be none left. Fissionable fuels (and other elements that can be used in reactors to make them) are "stellar fossil fuels" made more than 6 billion years ago by exploding supernovas and when they run out like the chemical fossil fuels made millions of years ago will be all gone and will never replenish while the human species exists.

The supplies of fissionable isotopes can be extended (but not renewed) by breeding more in reactors. It involves making plutonium from non-fissile uranium in breeder reactors: Uranium-233 from Thorium-232 and Plutonium-239 from Uranium-238. This will extend the amount of reactor fuels by roughly a factor of 100, but beyond that no more fissionable isotopes can be produced. When we run out we run out. Also, plutonium is a key ingredient for nuclear bombs. While this is a known way to produce a longer lived supply of nuclear energy, the dangers of making this fuel are such that the international community frowns strongly upon the use of breeder reactors because of their proliferation issues. Bernard Cohen argues that breeder reactors, using fuel dissolved in the oceans, can supply all of Earth's energy needs for billions of years, even after the sun explodes, which should categorize them as "renewable".

Traditional nuclear fission power plants use only a tiny fraction of the uranium in the fuel rods before actinides build up, poisoning the reaction. However, the nuclear fuel rods can be reprocessed into new fuel rods. The actinide components each have various uses in industry and for medical purposes. In some types of reactors called "breeder reactors", casing of thorium or depleted uranium is built around the nuclear reactor, causing the thorium or depleted uranium to capture a neutron and become uranium or plutonium respectively. When reprocessed, the uranium or plutonium can be extracted and used to power additional reactors.

The US does not use breeder reactors. France has some, but the majority of nuclear reactors in the world are not of this type. So in that sense we're back to non-renewable.

If we someday make workable fusion reactors, we will have an effectively unlimited supply of nuclear energy, because there is far more hydrogen available to use as fuel than there is uranium and thorium. However this is still nonrenewable as the amount of hydrogen on earth will not increase significantly (tiny amounts arrive on meteorites).

A good source for information about energy the International Energy Agency. They define renewable energy as being derived from natural processes that are replenished constantly. However both fission and fusion will be able to supply our energy needs for SO long it's crazy.

Answer 8

The amount of nuclear fuel available for reactors can expanded greatly by the use of breeding. Breeding is a process by which non-fuel forms of uranium and thorium are altered inside a nuclear reactor to produce nuclear fuel. Uranium-238 (non-fuel) can be converted to plutonium-239 (fuel). Thorium-232 (non-fuel) can be converted to uranium-233 (fuel).

The main reasons this isn't being done are 1) plutonium-239 could be diverted to make weapons 2) it is currently much cheaper to process natural uranium to get uranium-235 (fuel) than it is to breed fuel and refine it for reactor use.

Answer 9

Nuclear fusion is nonrenewable, because it relies on uranium being found and extracted from ores, and there is no way to replace this once it is used up. It is true you can make fissile material from nonfissile U-238, but then eventually all the U-238 would be used up, so that breeding process just enables more energy to be obtained from the uranium source, it does not make any more.

If fusion power becomes a reality this will make a huge energy resource available, namely the water in the oceans, and this would never be used up in millions of years, but strictly speaking it would still not be renewable. It requires hydrogen nuclei as an energy source, and once these have been used in fusion they are not naturally replenished. In fact, fusion power has a very high energy change, rendering it near impossible to reverse the process. A star, for example, is powered by nuclear fusion, and will eventually die out due to a lack of hydrogen.

Nuclear Fission is a non-renewable energy source, but it depends on your perspective. Uranium-235, the primary fuel for nuclear power, has an abundance of 0.7 percent in the Earth. An enrichment of 4% to 5% is required in order to achieve an effective fission reaction, and the half-life of uranium-235 is about 70 million years, with uranium-238 (with an abundance of 99.3%) having a half-life of about 447 billion years. As a result, it is unlikely that we will run out of uranium-235 in the near, mid, and distant future.

In addition, Plutonium-239, an effective alternate source of nuclear power, which can be formed from uranium-238, has a half-life of about 24,000 years.
Because there is no way of making more uranium, once it is used up it will not be replaced. If nuclear fusion becomes possible, using hydrogen isotopes, then there will be a vast new source of energy from the earth's water, but again it is using a fixed resource.

In my view the only truly renewable sources of energy are those which are provided by the sun on a daily basis.

Answer 10

A renewable energy source is usually defined as a source of fuel or energy that is continually being replenished by the environment at a rate that keeps up with demand for that substance. No energy source can run forever. Nuclear energy is limited by the finite amount of uranium in the Earth, just as solar power is limited by the finite amount of hydrogen in the Sun. Coal and oil are considered non-renewable because there is a set amount buried in the ground and once it's gone, it's gone. Since the uranium dissolved in seawater is continually renewed from within the earth by natural processes, and there's enough in the Earth to power the entire lifetime of civilization, some consider it to be a renewable resource.

Nuclear fission is generally considered an alternative fuel, and, like renewables, is essentially inexhaustible. Currently, our global use of Uranium outpaces our global extraction rate, and estimates say that we have 20 to 1500 years of conventional U-235 uranium fuel when considering our reserves and current usage. However, with nuclear breeder reactor technology, the feedstock is U-238, which is converted to fissile plutonium. There is enough U-238 on our planet to power all of civilization for 5 billion years. The Earth's oceans will evaporate and all natural life will be extinct before we run out of this U-238 fuel. This is the main argument used by Bernard Cohen to argue that nuclear breeder reactors are a renewable form of energy.

Nuclear fusion most easily consumes isotopes of hydrogen, which are also found in seawater, so the fuel is similarly inexhaustible, and some consider it renewable.

The states of Utah and Arizona have passed laws defining nuclear energy as a renewable resource, and the World Commission on Environment and Development defines both nuclear fission and nuclear fusion as renewables.