Nuclear Energy is (can be) Renewable

Nuclear energy is not renewable if we discard nuclear fuel after one use. This uses, and wastes much of, the only fissile nuclear energy source, uranium-235. The U-235 is just 0.7% of natural uranium.

But nuclear energy is renewable if we recycle the fuel. The U-235 can then convert the billions of tons of uranium-238 (99.3% of natural uranium) into more fuel. (There are 4.5 billion tons of uranium recoverable just from the oceans.)

The world also has four times more thorium than uranium; which we can then also convert to U-233 as fuel.

Therefore, our nuclear fuel supplies can be ever-increasing; to be renewed for billions of years. This defines “renewable energy.”

-Jim Muckerheide

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