Hessel (66) vraagt: Kost het bouwen van een gewone kerncentrale meer energie dan dat er uiteindelijk uitkomt?

Dr. Paul Behrens, Universitair docent duurzaamheid en milieuverandering aan de Universiteit Leiden gaf het volgende antwoord:

Scientists call the amount an energy generator produces compared the energy needed to build it the Energy Return On Energy Invested or EROEI. For example, the EROEI of hydropower can be over 100 - for every unit of energy you use to build a hydropower station you get 100 units of energy back. Meanwhile biodiesel can be only 1.3 - it takes almost as much energy to make as you get back. For nuclear estimates range between 5 and 20 for EROEI so it generates many more times energy than it takes to make it. This roughly similar to solar panels (some studies think solar panels are higher, others visa versa). The EROEI can change overtime if we find more efficient ways of building energy generation devices or develop new versions of those same energy technologies (for example new nuclear reactor designs or solar panels with different components).
References:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513003856
A popular article about it is available here: https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints