2 ms·
> Why is nuclear the silver bullet that will save us? Because you can generate power without adding CO2 to the air, or other pollutants. It works 24/7/365 and
by ChuckMcM 5y ago
> Why is nuclear the silver bullet that will save us?
Because you can generate power without adding CO2 to the air, or other pollutants. It works 24/7/365 and it requires no new "science" to produce.
However, the root of your question appears to me to be founded in some misconceptions you have about nuclear power. It isn't uncommon because the information in most popular press articles about nuclear power is over 50 years old.
To put that in perspective, imagine arguing the utility of an electric car when your data point is gas at 30 cents a gallon (the price in 1965[1])?
But to talk about nuclear power with current data about how you would design a power plant (and these are the new designs we're talking about), the risks of them leaking any radioactivity, and the risk to people should that radio activity leak and it makes our decision to keep building fossil fuel plants look pretty stupid. It really does turn the whole question on its head.
Nuclear is demonstrably cleaner, safer, lower risk, and potentially lower cost (although how do you price the cost of destroying the planet right?) than any other baseload technology. It even surpasses hydroelectric in terms of externalized costs of habitat destruction.
But I recognize that if you base your analysis on an idea that any new nuclear plant would be identical to the ones at Fukishima (built in 1967) or Chernoybl (built in 1972) it does seem odd that we would want more of that.
[1] https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-888-august-31-2015-historical-gas-prices https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-888-august-31-2015...
- lwhi 5y agoI think it's foolish to think we have things 'right' now. In 1967, I'm pretty certain the engineers responsible thought they had it everything in order. I take the view we will always fuck up. With nuclear, the fuck up will always have larger, longer lasting consequences. -- Edit: > Nuclear is demonstrably cleaner, safer, lower risk, and potentially lower cost (although how do you price the cost of destroying the planet right?) than any other baseload technology. I'd agree it's cleaner if we didn't have the waste problem. You're making a false equivalence. It's not a case of nuclear or fosil fuels. We have other options.
- ChuckMcM 5y agoWhat I hear you saying is that you have no confidence that we can learn from experience, and that our understanding of the process of radio active decay, and the effect of radiation on humans is incomplete. If that is correct, then I'd Do you fly on airplanes? Have you compared the risks of flying in 1967 and the risks of flying today?
- lwhi 5y agoI have a belief that human ingenuity will be able to generate truly clean power. If you believe that too, then this period of nuclear usage, is a transitory period. If this transitory period has the ability to create substances that will potentially cause bother to generations living in thousands of years time, I think that's a problem. Quite simply there are alternatives.
- 2trill2spill 5y ago> I have a belief that human ingenuity will be able to generate truly clean power. There's no such thing as truly clean power. Even renewables have huge environmental consequences. Hydro floods huge areas of land[1]. Renewables and batteries require huge sums of metals to be mined[2]. Solar and wind also take up huge sums of land that could otherwise be left alone. Everything has trades offs, there's no reason nuclear cant be one more tool in the tool shed. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/09/canada-site-c-hydroelectric-dam-indigenous-rights https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/09/canada-site-c-... [2]: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/electric-vehicles-drive-up-metals-demand/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/electric-vehicles-drive-up-...
- lwhi 5y ago> There's no such thing as truly clean power. Yet