3 ms·
Not an american here, so it's more of a general comment. I'm all for investing in and investigating nuclear power -- after all, the humanity needed several dec
by pronik 6y ago
Not an american here, so it's more of a general comment.
I'm all for investing in and investigating nuclear power -- after all, the humanity needed several decades to make electricity itself safe at all; if we manage to make nuclear safer and indeed manageable, that's a fine thing, scientifically speaking. It's good to have options.
However, we should be keeping an eye on the costs. Nuclear energy is cheap, but disposing of its waste is anything but. In Europe, energy companies have essentially socialised waste disposal so that they can advertise for "cheap" nuclear energy. If the disposal costs had been placed on them, nuclear would be the most expensive energy source by far.
We are probably better off future-wise looking elsewhere for a clean and cheap energy source. Fossil and nuclear are neither.
- class4behavior 6y agoThe lack of transparency and the concentration of power is one of the biggest points against the nuclear energy sector. It affects their safety investments, oversight, subsidies, insurance contracts, responsibilities, and so on.
- namuol 6y agoI'm not in the energy field, but I do have hopes that we can find a way to make nuclear fuel use more efficient, thereby reducing the amount of waste: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-waste-lethal-trash-or-renewable-energy-source/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-waste-let... But as long as we have this kind of rhetoric there will be no incentive to solve the current problems with nuclear power.
- missedthecue 6y agoWhat if we shot it in to space? Doesn't Space X think they can get cargo down to $100/kg? That would be a few hundred million in costs for all of the worlds nuclear waste annually.
- fomine3 6y agoThe problem is failed shot causes catastrophic result.