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I understand what you mean. However I would rather take the uncertain potential damage in the future, rather than the certain quantifiable damage today. There

I understand what you mean. However I would rather take the uncertain potential damage in the future, rather than the certain quantifiable damage today. There are (and have existed since even before the first commercial plants were ever built) plans and designs for reactors which work on different principals than those we have built in the last 70 years (for example liquid salt reactors). Some of these are currently being prototyped further today. There is also the potential for the stored up waste from the last 70 years of nuclear power production to be used in so called breeder reactors. All of these options however are not without flaws, and do produce toxic waste products (just with much shorter and manageable half lives). Nuclear power does though require long term planning by politicians (and a bit of a backbone), which given the current fear of this technology is sadly unlikely to materialize in time. And to address the point about coal being easier to move away from; how exactly would you suggest we do that? While fantastic, wind and solar energy is not as reliably as coal or nuclear. Hydro is very selectively available, and geothermal is relatively in its infancy. Even the giant solar panel project that Malaysia is planning to build in Australia (one of the most solar irradiated place on the planet) and which will be one of the largest in the world, is only expected to supply around 20% of their energy needs. However much one may disslike it, the fact is that there simply is at current no drop in replacement for coal & natural gas burning other than nuclear.

bayesian_horse 5y ago
It will be decades until newer reactor designs are proven and deployable. All the reactors built today will have a lifetime of the old problems - incidents, storage, etc - for decades to come. The uncertainty of wind and solar energy is overblown. There are ways to mitigate those problems. Major polluters are in developing countries and those with poor regulatory regimes. Even ramping up nuclear production in relatively "clean" industrialized democracies is a risking "slippage" in terms of accidents, nuclear material getting in the wrong hands, getting disposed of improperly or being abused. Nuclear material in the ground water anywhere would be a catastrophe. There is currently an iron fist around the nuclear industry to prevent such things, and that is incompatible with replacing all or most of the fossil fuel production in the world...
- MrDresden 5y ago
  Yes, it will take decades to build the new designs. That is not an argument against doing so. No one is saying solar and wind shouldn't be developed, but leaving all nuclear off the table would be short-sighted.

bayesian_horse 5y ago

It will be decades until newer reactor designs are proven and deployable. All the reactors built today will have a lifetime of the old problems - incidents, storage, etc - for decades to come. The uncertainty of wind and solar energy is overblown. There are ways to mitigate those problems. Major polluters are in developing countries and those with poor regulatory regimes. Even ramping up nuclear production in relatively "clean" industrialized democracies is a risking "slippage" in terms of accidents, nuclear material getting in the wrong hands, getting disposed of improperly or being abused. Nuclear material in the ground water anywhere would be a catastrophe. There is currently an iron fist around the nuclear industry to prevent such things, and that is incompatible with replacing all or most of the fossil fuel production in the world...

MrDresden 5y ago
Yes, it will take decades to build the new designs. That is not an argument against doing so. No one is saying solar and wind shouldn't be developed, but leaving all nuclear off the table would be short-sighted.