this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
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The uranium is gonna continue to undergo fission, whether we mine it or not, whether we enrich/refine it or not. At that point it's like collecting energy from our surroundings, really functionally no different than harvesting geothermal, wind, solar, hydro, etc.
Exactly, nuclear is no less renewable than solar. Where does everyone think the solar energy comes from? Nuclear.
We might as well capture the uranium decay, as you said, it will release the energy whether we collect it or not.
That's such a disingenuous presentation of the facts. Of course there is no such thing as truly renewable energy, but there is a difference in kind between a supply of energy that is practically inexhaustible on the timescale of human civilisation (what people mean when they say renewable) and energy produced from a limited fuel supply on earth (non renewable).
Solar (and its byproduct energies wind, hydro, biomass), tidal, geothermal are not in the same category as fission of rare heavy metals.
I say all this as someone pro-nuclear who agrees that we should use it while it is still fissionable.
We are talking about dozens of millennia of uranium supply on Earth. Other fuel types and nuclear technologies look to extend that into billions of years. For all functional purposes, it's infinite. Just as solar energy is functionally infinite.
As I said: Nuclear is Renewable, in the exact same way everyone uses the term.
Fusion and fission are two different processes.
I think the point he's trying to make is that the sun technically has a finite lifetime, albeit in that case one that's long enough to be functionally irrelevant from the perspective of human time scales.
Radioactive decay is not the same as fission. It's not entirely unrelated, but definitely a different process.
Different rates of decay vs the natural state.