Dear Jim,

Why give the Russians money? It is not how all investors that need the uranium for NPPs think. Also, uranium doesn't come from Russia, although Rosatom owns or controls many uranium mines all over the world. A lot of companies are working or investing in onshore and offshore uranium mining. NPPs are supposed to be built on already unusable inhabitable sites. This is one of the safety standards for nuclear plants in many countries and a guideline by IAEA. The radioactive waste is safely and properly stored in anti-radiation containments. A single container can store the entire nuclear waste of the lifetime of a nuclear plant (around 60 years). Solar panels, or the li-io batteries for example, after 5-15 years of use, their waste become a much bigger problem, they are not recyclable and extremely toxic, yet many countries keep burying the solar energy waste and destroying the soil. Same with wind turbines, they are huge and recycling is very complex.

Let's hope green hydrogen becomes affordable, it will solve a lot of issues.

If i understood correctly, the case of Palo Verde is not how NPPs are handled worldwide. I don't know what regulations manage nuclear power in Arizona.

PV panels life expectancy 25-30 years, not 50, and International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in 2016 estimated there was about 250,000 metric tonnes of solar panel "waste" in the world at the end of that year. IRENA projected that this amount could reach 78 million metric tonnes by 2050. Solar panels often contain lead, cadmium, and other toxic chemicals that cannot be removed without breaking apart the entire panel.

Approximately 90% of most PV modules are made up of glass that often cannot be recycled as float glass due to impurities.

Li-io batteries last only 5-15 years. You can't run a solar power plant without energy storage. Those batteries are not recyclable and extremely toxic. And although they might last for 15 years, in reality they are replaced much sooner due to degradation in efficiency.

I still insist: Hydrogen is the answer.