Europe faces €253bn nuclear waste bill | Environment | The Guardian

Renewable energies have great promise and they start delivering, with prices falling down and efficiency increasing. A recent report commissioned by the French government (and hastily shelved before publication) states that France could do away with fossil fuels and nuclear energy within a few decades, by developing a mix of energy sources. The biggest problem with renewables is that the energy flow is not reliable: photovoltaic can deliver lots of energy on sunny days and close to nothing on cloudy ones. Wind power generators will outperform all other sources on windy days – and provide close to nothing on calm ones. And electric energy, even if produced in large amounts on a sunny or windy day, cannot be stored reliably in sufficient amounts at an acceptable cost. However, bio-gas, wave and geothermal energy can be produced independently from the other renewable sources and some of it stored for use when other sources are not delivering. So the solution seems to be a gradual transition to a mix of technologies, delivering energy from different sources to intelligent grids, scaled to serve a continent and, why not, between continents, which can be reconfigured on the fly, as different sources kick in, including user-generated power. Most existing nuclear power generators have enough life left in them to last until we reach self sufficiency with renewables, no need to build new ones. Oh and large, efficient and affordable batteries are round the corner, with some utilities in the USA already employing trailer sized batteries to provide power during peak times, instead of building expensive additional stations just to cover peak time use. As to power use, LED light bulbs use a fraction of the energy to emit the same amount of light as incandescent ones, on average 10%. Modern air conditioners are far more energy efficient… the future is bright (hopefully).

Disposal and decommissioning of plants in EU’s 16 nuclear nations outstrips available funds by €120bn, European commission study reveals

Source: Europe faces €253bn nuclear waste bill | Environment | The Guardian

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