I don’t know enough about the technology to have strong opinions on this. I was opposed to nuclear because I thought, what would we do with all the nuclear waste?
And then somebody pointed out to me that apparently all the nuclear waste product in the world could fit into the area the size of one football field. Okay, I thought, that doesn’t seem too hard to keep contained.
But then I got to thinking about it and that can’t possibly make any sense. It’s not just the spent nuclear material, it’s miles of radioactive plumbing, tons of hardware, sheet metal, asbestos (still?), etc., all irradiated, all toxic to life. So now I’m on the fence again.
All of the irradiated equipment can’t leach into groundwater though, and it’s never as radioactive as the fuel itself. It’s not safe to dump in a normal landfill obviously, but simply burying it usually fine.
could fit into the area the size of one football field.
The problem with that is that they haven’t even managed to responsibly handle even that.
what good things for the environment happened around chernobyl when the nuclear reactor there overheated? An area of 20 miles in any direction of the power station will be uninhabitable for at least 300 years, and potentially much longer.
This is not a good argument against nuclear power. The Chernobyl exclusion zone is actually doing incredibly well on biodiversity metrics specifically because humans don’t go there at all. The real issues with nuclear power are how long it takes to set up, sourcing the fuel, and the fact that while containing the waste is not really that big a problem it is one that faces enormous political hurdles in many places
deleted by creator
Actually funny you mention that. Initially it was bad, but as time has gone on it’s arguable that the Chernobyl exclusion zone has actually helped the ecosystem in the area because humans aren’t around. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/how-chernobyl-has-become-unexpected-haven-wildlife
Also, nuclear reactors aren’t built that way anymore, and all the RBMK nuclear reactors have been fixed so they aren’t able to experience that again.
Bro this is “Unpopular Opinion” not “Unpopular Opinion and also pretend it’s 1979”
Actual policy experts will tell you that the reason nuclear energy died off in the US in particular and in the world at large is not because of anti-nuclear environmentalist lobbies.
It’s a financial question. What environmentalist opposition exists is neither sufficient nor necessary to explain the lack of nuclear development.
These projects get killed because they are almost hilariously expensive by any standard, including the cost per joule produced. They show NO signs of learning curves. Thorium is vaporware. SMRs have proven to be neither small nor modular. These projects get shitcanned not because oh no newcleer so skaweee. They get shitcanned because no one wants to pay for them when you can just do cheap natural gas and wind or even cheaper solar.
The hunt the nuclear fanboys go on to attack environmentalists is invented. It’s basically false consciousness. The fossil fuel industry benefits from this strife.
For what a nuclear facility costs to build, buying equivalent solar would probably get you an order of magnitude more energy production, even factoring the additional transmission capacity you’d need to buy alongside it. You could almost certainly get at least the same value out of a combination of wind, solar, transmission, and medium-term energy storage. And end up with a far more resilient grid in the process. And also not be blighting a couple square miles of riverside real estate.
tl;dr - If nuclear was actually profitable environmentalists wouldn’t be able to stop it, just like they can’t stop fossil fuels.
Just so we’re clear, it is cheap fossil fuels that made nuclear uneconomical. Solar and wind provide a very different type of power in comparison, and do not really compete against each other. There’s a reason why countries that abandoned nuclear are suddenly thinking about restarting nuclear again (see Germany). Meanwhile, countries that fully adopted nuclear (see France) are seeing no pressure to abandon it.
It’s cheap fossil fuels that first pushed nuclear uneconomical, particularly natural gas.
But today, solar is already making those same fossil fuels increasingly uneconomical. If we transferred the >$20bil/yr that current gets sent to the already-massively-profitably fossil fuel companies instead to grid upgrades, storage, and renewable investment, that’d be pretty fucking neat. We’re already seeing rapid changes to the energy economy because of the reality of these costs. The trillion+ dollars being almost entirely directed to grid enhancements, under-served communities, and renewable energy that is the IRA is causing massive, sweeping changes to the world of energy too. Even if people on forums like these have decided they want to throw out that bill’s swimming pool of babies just because one West Virginian took a dry dump in the corner in exchange for getting it passed.
The whole “very different type of power” thing I don’t really buy. It is not a profound, cutting observation that the sun isn’t always shining. The duck curve barely even exists when you have a good mix of wind and solar for most of the world since these sources are basically fully-complementary, and we already have lots of short and medium-term energy storage technologies that can be run for profit because of how cheap solar is. The market is already creating these incentives and businesses are moving in to fill the need; the technology exists or else isn’t that hard to figure out. Overbuilding solar to the point of negative energy prices at peak production (& thus curtailment) will create huge incentives for storage. We’re already seeing this; a handful of very serious industrial heat battery firms, for example, are offering products that take advantage of these energy price fluctuations that can be build and run profitably both for them and the firms that buy them. Markets are not a solution for all problems, but they are super goddamn good at wiping out arbitrage.
I’ve seen no evidence of Germany seriously considering spinning back up their reactors. If you have a source from within the last few months implying different, I’d love to read it, but as of last fall their energy ministry was completely dismissing these ideas as baseless rumors. I’d personally prefer it if they did, though; with the things already built, a lot of the cost is already sunk, and beyond that it seems worthwhile to get coal decommissioned.
France is a more complicated story, but it’s impossible to deny they have a lot of successful nuclear capacity. But guess what they’re pursing as their key generation platform for the future? It’s solar. Because it’s way fucking cheaper. Easier for them than most thanks to their massive nuclear base, no doubt.
A lot of this dives deep into wishful thinking territory. We will need to spend trillions of dollars to make a pure renewable energy solution viable. People will find out that nuclear is not magically guaranteed to be more expensive. If it wasn’t the case, why are new nuclear reactors still being built and more are being planned?
Germany is definitely rethinking it’s anti-nuclear position. Ignore the viewpoints of the current political group in charge. They are deeply unpopular. Politicians outside of that group are advocating for a return to nuclear.
France is keeping and building more reactors. This is not a “more complicated story.” It is simple proof that nuclear is viable.
Why is my view of the state of industry with concrete, affordable renewable energy technologies that are already available for purchase and rapidly scaling up just by market forces wishful? Why isn’t your belief that nuclear will suddenly buck it’s 50+ year trend of always being extremely expensive at least as wishful?
Not all production needs to be economic, mind you. It’s fine for the state to pursue an expensive technology because it has some other benefit, and there are concrete benefits of nuclear – specifically how firm it is, to the point where it’s basically irresponsible to ever curtail it or adjust production based on grid demand. But capital isn’t infinite and these tradeoffs need to be considered very seriously. On the flip side, spend five minutes searching for what the Georgia PSC has to say about the two new AP1000s at Vogtle. They are not happy at all about the cost overruns and failures. Would the next reactor cost less? Probably… so long as it starts construction soon before those couple thousand of newly-trained workers all find new jobs and progress is lost, as usually happens. But it won’t, because no one wants to feel like the next sucker.
I’m totally pragmatic about this. It nuclear stops being ludicrously expensive, we definitely ought to pursue it. And if a new technology shows actual evidence and promise of making it more affordable, it’s worth the R&D. But at least so far, it shows no signs of doing so. It’s definitely not going to keep following the nearly Moore’s Law-like learning curve solar has been on. The french are uniquely good at building reactors because of their long history and even still they are clearly signaling in e.g., their NECP plan that renewables are the primary technology of their future. They’re pretty much the best in the world at it and they’re still plainly chasing solar because of its affordability.
Nuclear is really just metal in a big water tank. The cost comes from trying to maximize safety. It can be cheap if we mass produce it. People are pretty much engaging in special pleading every time they declare nuclear to be uneconomical.
If you really believe that, then you’d support nuclear power. It is extremely safe these days and is a much better option than to deal with more climate change. You want more options, not less options, in this fight.
I’m not sure if that’s an unpopular opinion so much as a completely incorrect one.
The simple truth is that nuclear is fucking expensive and takes a long time to build.
Renewables and storage are much cheaper and take way less time to start producing energy.
Given this, why would you be in favor of nuclear? Please don’t try and tell me about base load (not needed), SMRs (even more expensive) or fusion (not going to happen in our lifetimes)
To be fair, solar and wind are dependent on wind availability and solar availability year-round. Nuclear is buildable nearly anywhere. There are a lot of places other options aren’t as possible or efficient.
Nuclear is buildable nearly anywhere
It’s really not. It needs a reliable water source for a start.
Small scale reactors with stirling generators can power neighborhoods with simple air cooling.
Do you have any examples of them in operation, hooked up to a grid? How much does the energy they produce cost?
Even large scale nuclear plants are not economically viable without huge subsidies. Small scale reactors are even less cost effective. I haven’t really seen any of them “in the wild” except for research reactors or something like that.
Oh, I know. Making a wild claim about SMRs and then running for the hills when asked for evidence is pretty standard around here.
Yeah, unfortunately.
BTW, do you work in the field or something? Cause you sound kinda knowledgeable.
Given this, why would you be in favor of nuclear? Please don’t try and tell me about base load (not needed), SMRs (even more expensive) or fusion (not going to happen in our lifetimes)
Peak-load scaling. The major advantage that fossil fuel generators have is that you can spin them up faster to react to higher demand. You can’t do that with solar or wind, but you can with nuclear.
If we had grid-scale storage solutions, dealing with peak load would be easier but it’s still more cost effective to build pumped hydro storage than large battery arrays. Most electric grids have to produce electricity on-demand which means they have to be highly responsive.
We don’t have good grid-scale storage yet. We need demand-responsive energy production. Fission is better than burning coal.
You can’t do that with solar or wind, but you can with nuclear.
That’s why I said renewables and storage. There are lots of storage technologies such as pumped hydro and various kinds of battery that can react very quickly to increased demand. You categorically cannot do that with nuclear, where did you learn this?
Firstly, nuclear needs to run 24/7 as it’s not economically feasible to do anything else given how much these things cost. Secondly, you’re still heating water to create steam to drive turbines to generate electricity. All of that takes time to ramp up and means that nuclear is not used to generate in response to increased demand.
[…] react very quickly to increased demand. You categorically cannot do that with nuclear, where did you learn this?
This is not correct.
A Brief Survey of Load-Following Capabilities in Modern Nuclear Power Plants
Load-following NPPs in France claim power output ramps as much as 5%/min if necessary, though typical ramps are kept below 1.5%/min.
Certain French NPPs routinely decrease power output 50% at night.
It’s true that load-following is mostly not done with nuclear in the US, but this is policy/common practice/habit, not a technical limitation of nuclear power plants.
Also, I mentioned pumped hydro storage to point out specifically that battery technology really isn’t effective enough yet. It still doesn’t scale well, it’s too expensive for large grids.
This is not correct.
It is, you just proved it yourself:
“typical ramps are kept below 1.5%/min.”
Compare that with batteries or pumped hydro.
That’s plenty fast enough for a power grid.
1.5% of 900MW is 13.5MW. That’s plenty of power output scaling per minute.
I think you’re getting peaker plants, e.g gas fired confused with load following.
Nuclear plants are not used as peaker plants. you incorrectly stated that they are.
It’s a shame that you’re being voted down here, even though your points are actually more on the factual side. Well, that’s probably the fate of those who “dare” to say something against nuclear. Even if everyone else demonstrably doesn’t have a clue about the subject: They’re still bashing it. It’s just good that downvotes on Lemmy don’t really matter.
thanks for sharing this!
hilarious to see the other guy doubling down even after you cited an actual source.
Yes, but your assertion that renewable is cheaper completely ignored the cost of grid scale energy storage suitable to remove fossil fuel generation.
No, it’s cheaper than new nuclear with storage included.
Your statement disagrees with what I could turn up on duckduckgo. Can you provide your sources, I’m not a subject matter expert.
Sure:
“Later this month the LA Board of Water and Power Commissioners is expected to approve a 25-year contract that will serve 7 percent of the city’s electricity demand at 1.997¢/kwh for solar energy and 1.3¢ for power from batteries. … Conventional nuclear often benefits from optimistic estimates in the range of 12¢/kwh.”
I mean, it’s speculation. Current estimated completion is November this year, and the battery power price was already raised to 4c in 2020 estimated https://www.capdyn.com/news/capital-dynamics-and-8minute-solar-energy-partner-on-breakthrough-400mwac-eland/
This would still be cheaper than nuclear. But it’s not a true comparison. I am asking the cost to replace fossil generation. Which means some degrees of over provisioning and redundancy. The bank of America paints a very different picture in its 2023 report (https://advisoranalyst.com/2023/05/11/bofa-the-nuclear-necessity.html/) but I hardly trust them.
Either way your evidence from anecdote makes it clear you have as little understanding as I do. So I am still none the wiser if solar + generation is a solution today that makes nuclear irrelevant. If it’s not we can’t just keep burning coal till it is though. People have been saying for 30 years let’s just use renewables. But the world would look very different today if we had transition to nuclear energy back then.
nuclear is fucking expensive and takes a long time to build
So what? Cost is relative to supply, demand, and political willpower. Also, I suspect it’s much cheaper than carbon recapture.
Given this, why would you be in favor of nuclear?
I think you’ve lost the point entirely. The question is “what do we need to effectively generate electricity without fossil fuels?” Nuclear is one such answer. Heaven forbid we encourage the development of more than one thing at a time.
Cost is relative to supply, demand, and political willpower.
Cost is cost and with new nuclear you can add on a fair chunk to whatever amount is quoted because they often go way over budget.
Given renewables and storage is cheaper, why would you want to piss money away?
Heaven forbid we encourage the development of more than one thing at a time.
We’re been developing nuclear for 70 years. In that time it’s not got cheaper, in fact the opposite has happened. Time to let go.
Cost is cost … [in 70 years] it’s not got cheaper, in fact the opposite has happened.
I suppose you must still think a loaf of bread still costs the same it did 70 years ago, too. Prices are malleable thanks to the free market … and government subsidies. Why would anyone be so anti-nuclear when it’s another valuable tool for displacing fossil fuels? Are you shilling for the oil and gas industry?
Are you shilling for the oil and gas industry?
There it is.
If I was a fossil fuel lobbyist I’d be pushing new nuclear hard. I could argue that we should continue to burn coal and gas while we make the leap to nuclear … in 10-15 year’s time. No, let’s make that 20 years of more environmental destruction.
Hey, wait. Are you shilling for the fossil fuel industry?
No, let’s make that 20 years of more environmental destruction.
Okay, hold up. Just take a minute here to breathe. Nobody’s arguing against renewables. They, just like nuclear power, are a part of a healthy, diverse mix of technologies which will help displace fossil fuels. That’s the whole point: get rid of fossil fuels where we can in whatever way we can.
make the leap to nuclear … in 10-15 year’s time
We already did. 70 years ago. Then the fossil fuel industry successfully replaced existing nuclear generators with coal-fired plants.
If I was a fossil fuel lobbyist I’d be pushing new nuclear hard.
Are you seriously arguing that fossil fuel lobbyists do the exact opposite of what fossil fuel lobbyists have been recorded doing? In other words, are you trying to argue for a proven falsehood?
If so, we have a term for that: alternative facts. Go try and deceive someone else.
All your sophistry, ignorance, and rudeness aside, you’ve yet to make a single compelling argument for nuclear.
I think we’re done here.
I think we’re done here.
On that we can agree.
I don’t like it, but I’ll have to go along with it
Presumably you mean “Rufen Sie ein Taxi bitte sonst verpass’ ich meinen Flug”?
Here, let the german Deputy of the Federal Chancellor and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection shut you up. Starts at 24:56.
I don’t speak German. What’s he saying there?
My English isn’t good enough to translate it all in detail, but these are the basics:
Germany shut down all nuclear power plants but 3, which will shut down soon. So we will be nuclear free in the future, no going back from there. Then he talks about the nuclear power plants in France, which are all ailing and will be extremely expensive to repair (at least 1 billion euros per power plant). They are only still working because they belong to the state, otherwise they would have been insolvent long ago. A newly planned nuclear power plant is already so expensive to plan that most investors have backed out. If this power plant is ever built, it will supply the most expensive electricity ever produced in Europe.
But to catch some downvotes as well:
You can’t claim to be an environmentalist and not be vegan at the same time
Thats still unpopular but at least it’s true. :)
So have a few hens out back eating all the ticks in the yard and supplying me with eggs is hurting the environment in a way that is terrible? I’d have to look more into that, but really they surely can’t be as gaseous as cows.
I’ve heard of a spherical cow, but a gaseous cow is new to me :)
I used to have them when I lived in an area that didn’t care. Was hoping to go back to having them when I retire one day. Didn’t expect to hear they were a bad choice. Thanks for the response
deleted by creator
No, it doesn’t.
Nuclear waste won’t change any ecosystem the way that coal/oil waste induced greenhouse effect will drastically harm the planet through climate change, irreparably and irreversible forever.
A coal plant’s chimney gases are several hundred times more radioactive and harmful than a room full of nuclear waste barrels, and we just dump them into the atmosphere.
Nuclear waste doesn’t harm the environment because we store it appropriately.
Of course you can. Because nuclear energy is NOT a solution. Especially not in the long run.
This is accurate, however we can’t sacrifice good enough for the perfect we don’t have yet. I get there is no solution that lasts longer than a temporary one, but environmentally, nuclear absolutely should be implemented.
OK. Are we on the same page, that we need to abolish fossil energy ASAP?
And: How much (in % of global energy production) should be covered by nuclear power in your opinion?
Yep. Fossil fuels need to disappear yesterday.
Your second question is way, way out of my league. All I can toss out there as a guess is enough nuclear power to cover the gaps in demand vs ebb and flow of natural systems like sun and wind, maybe plus a little for contingency.
Your second question is way, way out of my league
Hats off to you for being so honest and admitting this.
enough nuclear power to cover the gaps in demand
OK, please correct me if I haven’t understood you correctly, but you mean: “We should basically utilize natural systems energy (sun, wind, water, …) completely and turn off and on nuclear plants “on demand” to cover the peaks/gaps in demand.” Did I get that right?
Pretty much, yeah; but again, out of my league. I don’t think nuclear can be just “turned off”, but in the context of this discussion whatever the minimum output is to keep them operating, and then power up to cover whatever output is needed to cover low wind, overcast, night, etc.
I’ll offer this also - and again I have no real scientific knowledge to back it up, but possibly this could be sorted out with some digging - that I think batteries should also be used to help buffer power output swings, but I also think that the environmental impact of batteries and their manufacturing need to be balanced against the same for nuclear power. It’s going to take a lot of batteries to buffer an entire power grid vs a relative few nuclear plants.
Pretty much
OK, cool.
What you are describing is called “load following”. Different power plants have different capabilities of doing this. E.g. coal plants (or other thermal plants) are pretty bad at this while e.g. gas turbines can be turned on/off very quickly to buffer out short peaks of fluctuations. Power plants get categorized into different groups: e.g. Base Load plants or Peak Load plants. Base load is basically the load that is “always need to be supplied” and everything else is modulated on top of that.
To do effective load following, you would NOT want base load plants.
To categorize power plants we need to look at 2 different things: the technical capability to do “load following” with a plant - and the economical viability of throttling the power output of a plant.
Nuclear power plants have extremely high investment costs and a greater proportion of fixed costs (e.g. for personnel) while having very low variable costs, as nuclear plants are not really “using up more/less fuel” during their operation. That means: The cost of nuclear power plants is pretty much constant over time - no matter if they are producing more or less power, but you only get an return on invest if you output power.
That is why nuclear power plants are normally used as base load power plants, as their economic viability goes pretty bad when you do (extensive) load following with them. However, they have at least some technical capabilities of being operated in a (slower) load following mode.
When we add in the fact, that there was probably not a single nuclear power plant, yet, that was economically viable without huge subsidies and the mere costs of keeping the radioactive waste products safe FOREVER are enormous, investors/plant owners don’t really like the idea of “throttling” their plants as they will be loosing money.
That is why - if you have a great amount of base load power plants in your grid - you tend to turn off the generators that are easy to regulate but hard to calculate: Wind & Solar. That’s why a high percentage of nuclear power in your energy mix will PREVENT the utilization of true renewable energy sources, making them a less viable investment.
This is one of the reasons why I asked about the percentage of “needed nuclear power” in the beginning. Different percentages of these plants will have different effects on the entire energy production system and it’s trajectory.
So I am coming back to my original question. And there is not right or wrong answer, just a gut feeling: How much nuclear do we need to make this work? Our current energy mix (primary energy consumption) consists globally roughly of 75% fossil energy and 4% nuclear. So do you think we will need to replace the 75% fossils with nuclear by 1:1? Or maybe 1:2 and fill the rest with Wind/Solar? Or do we keep the current 4%? Really, it’s about your gut feeling about what you think will be necessary. From that point on, we can then further explore the general viability and consequences of nuclear power in the grid.
It’s going to take a lot of batteries to buffer an entire power grid
The beauty of it is: You wouldn’t really need to do this - but I’m getting ahead of myself. This a different rabbit hole that I don’t think is needed to be explored right now.
But just a short pointers:
- By controlling and deferring energy consumption in a “smart” way, you can match up the demand with the volatile supply (e.g. of Wind/Solar) pretty well.
- In energy systems, we have other types of energy storing systems that are bigger, cheaper and more reliable than the ones we know from “consumer electronics” - e.g. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity
Well I think I just got jumped. You had a well prepared answer, however I’ll offer my unprepared thoughts in return.
You kinda skipped past battery and other storage tech and the negatives associated with them, particularly the environmental issues inherent in battery production and recycling, and sorta handwaved in the general direction of alternative sources like pumped-up hydro. I’m a big believer in working with what we have now, there are far, far too many issues exacerbated by the premise that Science Will Save Us via some future solution or construction. The proverbial can keeps getting kicked down the road to do something about the issues immediately with the excuse that technology will jump in and save the day before it’s too late. People love the ideas behind some solutions, but can never seem to get them sufficiently well built to meet the professed goal. Ideas are great, but if we don’t have it now it’s technically already too late.
And that segues into nuclear. It is not a perfect solution. However it is a known tech, and an effective one. Nuclear waste is at the top of the issues I though of when I mentioned it, however that issue can be somewhat ameliorated if the US gets around to reprocessing the waste which is currently hindered by a non-proliferation treaty. We can argue costs and all that about nuclear operations, but at what point do we say that the enemy of good enough is constantly looking for perfection while sitting on our hands?
Summed up: Yes, there are alternatives. Many are conceptual and have never been implemented, or at least not on a large scale. They need to be implemented yesterday and not just viewed through hopeful rose-tinted glasses. Nuclear may not be the best solution, but it is known, available, and can do the job.
you make a weird assumption that a solution that can’t work forever won’t work as a transition strategy
OK. How much (in % of global energy production) do you think we will need from nuclear power to make it work as a “transition strategy”?
i’m sorry i just don’t think this is a valuable question to ask. a % global nuclear energy production value is purely symbolic and not a goal.
the real percentage i want is 100% clean and safe energy, because the world is already basically ending. we must run headlong at eliminating fossil fuels as soon as possible, and we already have the knowledge and infrastructure to do so way faster by using nuclear as a leg up.
the reality is, market conditions and the state of energy research will determine the actual global distribution of energy. there are probably experts out there who can estimate where those numbers are headed, but i’m content to stick by my layman position that anything that gets us away from pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is better in the short term.
i just don’t think this is a valuable question to ask
But well, it kind of is! When looking at energy systems, each type of plant you put into the system has (often counterintuitive) consequences on the rest of the system. And this is especially true for nuclear power. That is why it IS important to get an idea of how much nuclear energy you want to have in your energy mix, because only then you can determine if your energy system is even sustainable.
Therefore, my question stands unchanged. Or maybe we can make it a little broader: How do you think that the energy system would need to look like?
I’m content to stick by my layman position that anything that gets us away from pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is better in the short term.
And I fully agree with you on that. I just want to discuss with you if nuclear is really the solution you think it is. (Because it probably isn’t.)
We already have the knowledge and infrastructure to do so way faster by using nuclear as a leg up
Are you aware of how little nuclear power there is currently in the energy-mix, what time it takes to build new ones and how much (usable) uranium exists on the planet? (I can tell you if you don’t want to look it up - just ask.) Because you might have wrong expectations of the technical potential of this energy source.
you are asking me to be an expert on topics i have already admitted to being not studied in. that’s not fair because i came into this conversation to defend my position that being anti-nuclear is not well suited to the environmentalist agenda. and nothing else.
i know that france has successfully achieved like 70% nuclear power production, while renewables are slowly ticking up. and i am not against that. that is good. because they aren’t using fossil fuel to get that electricity. if they had waited around for renewables research to catch up they’d still be reliant on coal and oil like the rest of us. if they were forced to shut down all nuclear plants, fossil fuels would spike to take up the slack.
that’s my position. that’s all i’m expressing. you are trying to drag the discussion somewhere else, and that’s not a winning move.
You can claim anything you want.
Also, nuclear power has a huge environmental impact, it just offsets that impact by generating a fuckton of electricity.
In an idea world, we would look to make existing devices more efficient, and use them more responsibly rather than just generate more power to offset those losses.
Well, I’d say that this argument is just as simplistic and binary. I’m in no way an expert, but from what I’ve gathered, nuclear power is nowhere near the clean power with long term storage as the only issue that many people seem to think. Mining is extremely dirty and nobody wants an uranium mine in their backyard. Yeah, next gen nuclear reactors that run on depleted uranium sound great in theory. Too bad they are just one corner closer from cold fusion. I am too for nuclear power because of pragmatic reasons so we can shelve fossil fuels until we have better, but pretending it is unproblematic is ridiculous and plain stupid.
Edit: It seems I have the unpopular opinion around here for saying that nuclear power is not entirely unproblematic. Gasp, my pearls!
Well, we’re certainly not getting away from mining with solar and wind.
In fact, the amount of uranium used is so low that the amount mined per megawatt-hour is probably way less than for building solar and wind.
It seems I have the unpopular opinion around here for saying that nuclear power is not entirely unproblematic.
There are a lot of people who, for reasons I can’t fathom, have convinced themselves without evidence that nuclear is the future.
Sadly to be pro-nuclear you must ignore the corrupting influence of money and assume short term profit isn’t more important than People’s health and safety. It has been proven over and over that the Gov. won’t protect the People from Corporate greed. But please do tell how this time it’ll be different.
Environmental and Health Consequences of Uranium Mining
Tailing deposits can cause landslides, air contamination, and wildlife exposure. Uranium tailings contain small particles that are picked up and transported by the wind. The radioactive particulates in the air can be concentrated enough to cause health issues including lung cancer and kidney disease. [6] These particles also contaminate soil and water. Furthermore, growing piles of mining debris become unstable and can result in fatal landslides, such as the 1966 landslide of Aberfan, which resulted in the death of 144 people. [7] Tailing ponds pose serious hazards to the environment as well through leaks, in which underground water becomes contaminated with heavy metals. [5] This can lead to the pollution of lakes and rivers. Local ecosystems, too, are harmed and destroyed by waste piles and ponds. Rain can interact with tailings and introduce sulfuric acid in aquatic ecosystems, similar to in-situ leaching. Wildlife exposure can also occur directly through interaction with tailing ponds. In particular, waterfowl often land and use tailing ponds, resulting in dire consequences. In 2008, 1600 ducks flew into a tailing pond and died in Alberta, Canada. [8] Evidently, the repercussions of uranium mining are far-reaching. Certain groups of people, however, are at greater risk of exposure to associated hazards.
The United States has a history of environmental inequity in which people of color and low-income communities are disproportionately subjected to environmental risks and consequent health hazards. Uranium mining is no different. Navajo Nation land, for example, is littered with tailing piles, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency has mapped 521 abandoned uranium mines on the reservation. [5,9] In this regard, uranium mining serves as an avenue for continued environmental racism, and the issue demands close examination and public awareness.
Source: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2021/ph241/radzyminski2/
thank you for this, but keep in mind if you cite half of the data and you get half of an answer. nuclear power has FAR more energy per mass unit, which means FAR less mining than coal to get equivalent output.
nuclear is not perfect but is a wayy better option than most in the transition to renewables.
keep in mind if you cite half of the data and you get half of an answer
What half is missing in your opinion?
nuclear is not perfect but is a wayy better option than most in the transition to renewables.
I oppose both though, fossil and nuclear, because both are harmful. The world has enough energy as it is now, so why invest huge sums in transition technologies like nuclear instead of going fully renewable plus storage right away?
What half is missing in your opinion?
The part that I wrote immediately after that. You don’t need as much mining to get an equivalent amount of nuclear energy, by several orders of magnitude.
I oppose both though.
Yeah I just wasn’t aware of your position since your top comment was just a big quote. I’m with you, sorry for coming in harder than was necessary.
I’d just say, when I say I “oppose both” I oppose nuclear in a very minor sense in comparison to my vehement opposition to fossil fuel. In a situation where a region or country finds it more cost effective to build nuclear plants in order to replace coal in the short term? I’d never describe myself as “anti-nuclear” in that case.
I think a lot of comments here are equivocating being “anti-nuclear” (NIMBY style, which is what OP actually wrote) with being concious of nuclear’s downsides. The reality is is that current gen renewables cannot keep up with certain demands, such as peak loads, in the same way nuclear can. Which means that *for now, in some cases and areas*, going full nuclear energy is a very healthy option in comparison to waiting it out on coal fumes until one day renewables hopefully get better.
tldr, Do both at once. Ditch fossils always. Renewable > nuclear, except when experts find that it is more cost effective in the short term.
I agree with that as long as nuclear is used as transition tech and phased out asap.
New Zealand says you can.
It’s sad to see the number of comments here that still seem to be stuck in the misguided 80’s/90’s/00’s mindset of ‘nuclear power in real life is just as depicted in The Simpsons.’
In the mind of the pro-nuclear advocate, they imagine oil and coal plants being decommissioned and beautiful, brand new super perfect never failing nuclear plants taking their place. In these dreams these nuclear plants are never made by the lowest bidder, are never under staffed or inadequately maintained, are never involved in war, are never targeted by terrorists, and are never struck by acts of God. These plants have perfect supply chains whose materials are exactly as durable as described and never less. They are run by people that will, quarter after quarter, year after year, never take shortcuts for profit or make decisions that will negatively affect the plant or the people working there. You see, even the capitalists are perfect little angels in this perfect plan that makes perfect sense.
Because what they’re selling is a perfect version of a perfect nuclear plant. All inputs and outputs are perfect with the very small exception of the nuclear waste of course, which they have a perfect answer for as well. You see, we will perfectly store and perfectly wait for a perfect answer to our perfectly nightmarish waste product from our perfect energy source.
hey bro its cleaner than oil hey bro we could get rid of coal hey bro it’s super safe that’s why my plan calls for it to be built in South Dakota
No thanks. We don’t need to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire to prove our environmentalism. Renewables are here. Let’s make the great leap forward of this generation be the deployment of renewables on an unimaginable scale.
Even the baseline assumption that oil producing countries and corporations would just sit there and let it happen is so patently absurd that it’s hard to take the conversation seriously at all. Sure buddy, Exxon and Saudi Arabia aren’t going to deploy their armies of lobbyists and use their cartel to undermine the wholesale transition away from their product.
Sure buddy. Environmentalists against nuclear are binary thinkers but our idea of using nuclear isn’t just naive magical thinking. Sure.
the strawman is burning and somehow you are shocked
