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I think Fission would be great if we had somewhere to put the waste, if it didn't cost $10 billion dollars to set up a plant and people weren't phobic of it. O

I think Fission would be great if we had somewhere to put the waste, if it didn't cost $10 billion dollars to set up a plant and people weren't phobic of it. Overall Nuclear makes more sense than coal and arguably more sense than wind and solar. But then there's the risk of the meltdown. No politician, no utility CEO, no corporation commission is going to take the risk of a meltdown when the political cost of pumping just a little more CO2 into the air is very small.

mdavis6890 8y ago
Your point about political risk is very valid, but your points about the waste and cost need to be reconsidered. A big part of the cost is artificial, not inherent: regulation. A person may or may not think the regulations are a good thing, but it's not an inherent cost. The waste is not much problem. The amount of waste to power the lives of a whole family for their entire lives would easily fit in a shoebox and be easily contained in water. And most of that radioactivity dissipates very quickly.
- pitaj 8y ago
  Don't forget to mention that old waste can even be consumed in modern reactors.
  - Fjolsvith 8y ago
    Perhaps one day we'll put the waste in cars, a la "Back To The Future ".
fromMars 8y ago
This thread on reddit had an excellent discussion on nuclear power. There was some especially interesting discussion around thorium based nuclear power which has the potential to be much less dangerous. https://www.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/a1c7kt/why_do_people_dislike_nuclear_energy_dont_people/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/a1c7kt/why_do_peop...
earthboundkid 8y ago
I can believe that human beings can run one nuclear fission plant successfully for one hundred years without a serious accident. I cannot believe that we can run thousands of plants for hundreds of years without a serious accident. There is too much complexity to prevent a black swan event, and in the case of nuclear fission, a black swan renders the surrounding area uninhabitable for an immensely long time. Nuclear fission is a fine bridge technology, but we cannot build systems that rely on it and expect them to be sustainable.

mdavis6890 8y ago

Your point about political risk is very valid, but your points about the waste and cost need to be reconsidered. A big part of the cost is artificial, not inherent: regulation. A person may or may not think the regulations are a good thing, but it's not an inherent cost. The waste is not much problem. The amount of waste to power the lives of a whole family for their entire lives would easily fit in a shoebox and be easily contained in water. And most of that radioactivity dissipates very quickly.

pitaj 8y ago
Don't forget to mention that old waste can even be consumed in modern reactors.
- Fjolsvith 8y ago
  Perhaps one day we'll put the waste in cars, a la "Back To The Future ".

fromMars 8y ago

This thread on reddit had an excellent discussion on nuclear power. There was some especially interesting discussion around thorium based nuclear power which has the potential to be much less dangerous. https://www.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/a1c7kt/why_do_people_dislike_nuclear_energy_dont_people/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/a1c7kt/why_do_peop...

earthboundkid 8y ago

I can believe that human beings can run one nuclear fission plant successfully for one hundred years without a serious accident. I cannot believe that we can run thousands of plants for hundreds of years without a serious accident. There is too much complexity to prevent a black swan event, and in the case of nuclear fission, a black swan renders the surrounding area uninhabitable for an immensely long time. Nuclear fission is a fine bridge technology, but we cannot build systems that rely on it and expect them to be sustainable.