5 ms·

You don't know if that place on earth will still be there or in the middle of an ocean in the time the waste is till toxic. We have solutions right now to get

You don't know if that place on earth will still be there or in the middle of an ocean in the time the waste is till toxic. We have solutions right now to get rid of coal, atom etc completely in a couple of years, new inventions take too much time to be ready for the market when we need them by 2030.

qwytw 5y ago
Maybe you don't, but I would expect the people designing the sites know the half life of the materials they are storing. Plutonium-239 for example has a halflife of 24,000 years which is not that much in geological terms..
- Asmod4n 5y ago
  Do you honestly belive we can build something to keep radioactive and toxic stuff sealed for tenthousand years? By the time it's still bad for carbon based lifeforms it's as old as todays archaeology!
  - qwytw 5y ago
    Sure why not, the great pyramid is close to 5000 years old, I'm sure with modern knowledge humans can build something that will last much longer. In any case the damage it can do is fairly limited compared to burning coal.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    It doesn’t need to be perfectly safe to be the correct choice, it only needs to be safer than fossil fuels, which is really, really easy to achieve. We’re fussing over the absolute safest way to store it, but even managing it as we have been has proven to be far, far, far safer than fossil fuel.
throwaway894345 5y ago
> We have solutions right now to get rid of coal, atom etc completely in a couple of years, No we do not. Renewable energy is unreliable and unsuitable for base load generation. Until we can figure out how to store weeks worth of energy, nuclear is the only clean option for base load. > You don't know if that place on earth will still be there or in the middle of an ocean in the time the waste is till toxic. We do have a pretty good idea, and to the extent that we don't, it's climate change. Pretty ironic to use climate change as a reason to forestall nuclear considering it's our best shot at mitigating climate change pending a renewable energy storage miracle.
- Asmod4n 5y ago
  Renewables are the only energy source we can afford to use in the next few years, there is no alternative to that. We tried to make nuclear energy a thing for over 50 years, it only shows we aren't able to a) make safe use of it and b) get a solution for the waste.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    > We tried to make nuclear energy a thing for over 50 years, No, we didn't. Nuclear was and is unpopular for reasons that aren't justified by the evidence. > we aren't able to make safe use of it This is entirely untrue. Nuclear is the safest energy source by far, even more so than wind or solar: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... > we couldn't get a solution for the waste. We know the solution for the waste, we just have to act on it. And anyway, we have to solve for the existing waste and once you have to dig a big hole for a little bit of waste you can use that existing hole for a whole lot of waste with virtually no economic impact.
  - shakow 5y ago
    > we aren't able to a) make safe use of it Nuclear power was one of the safest energy source in the last century. Even hydroelectrical power, which is quite safe, has been much deadlier than nuclear accidents, and don't get me started on the consequences of carbon-heavy production methods. > b) get a solution for the waste. There is a solution for the waste: deep burial in stable geological conditions. The only people saying there are no solution do not have any other argument better “dangerous green-glowing slime makes me afraid, Greenpeace plz help”.
- 35fbe7d3d5b9 5y ago
  > Pretty ironic to use climate change as a reason to forestall nuclear considering it's our best shot at mitigating climate change pending a renewable energy storage miracle. I think you're looking at this the right way. We aren't "on the verge" of climate catastrophe, or "at the edge": we are already over the cliff, and the rocks are getting closer by the second. Our only chance is to de-carbonize energy now, and the only technology that gets us there is nuclear.

qwytw 5y ago

Maybe you don't, but I would expect the people designing the sites know the half life of the materials they are storing. Plutonium-239 for example has a halflife of 24,000 years which is not that much in geological terms..

Asmod4n 5y ago
Do you honestly belive we can build something to keep radioactive and toxic stuff sealed for tenthousand years? By the time it's still bad for carbon based lifeforms it's as old as todays archaeology!
- qwytw 5y ago
  Sure why not, the great pyramid is close to 5000 years old, I'm sure with modern knowledge humans can build something that will last much longer. In any case the damage it can do is fairly limited compared to burning coal.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  It doesn’t need to be perfectly safe to be the correct choice, it only needs to be safer than fossil fuels, which is really, really easy to achieve. We’re fussing over the absolute safest way to store it, but even managing it as we have been has proven to be far, far, far safer than fossil fuel.

throwaway894345 5y ago

> We have solutions right now to get rid of coal, atom etc completely in a couple of years, No we do not. Renewable energy is unreliable and unsuitable for base load generation. Until we can figure out how to store weeks worth of energy, nuclear is the only clean option for base load. > You don't know if that place on earth will still be there or in the middle of an ocean in the time the waste is till toxic. We do have a pretty good idea, and to the extent that we don't, it's climate change. Pretty ironic to use climate change as a reason to forestall nuclear considering it's our best shot at mitigating climate change pending a renewable energy storage miracle.

Asmod4n 5y ago
Renewables are the only energy source we can afford to use in the next few years, there is no alternative to that. We tried to make nuclear energy a thing for over 50 years, it only shows we aren't able to a) make safe use of it and b) get a solution for the waste.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  > We tried to make nuclear energy a thing for over 50 years, No, we didn't. Nuclear was and is unpopular for reasons that aren't justified by the evidence. > we aren't able to make safe use of it This is entirely untrue. Nuclear is the safest energy source by far, even more so than wind or solar: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... > we couldn't get a solution for the waste. We know the solution for the waste, we just have to act on it. And anyway, we have to solve for the existing waste and once you have to dig a big hole for a little bit of waste you can use that existing hole for a whole lot of waste with virtually no economic impact.
- shakow 5y ago
  > we aren't able to a) make safe use of it Nuclear power was one of the safest energy source in the last century. Even hydroelectrical power, which is quite safe, has been much deadlier than nuclear accidents, and don't get me started on the consequences of carbon-heavy production methods. > b) get a solution for the waste. There is a solution for the waste: deep burial in stable geological conditions. The only people saying there are no solution do not have any other argument better “dangerous green-glowing slime makes me afraid, Greenpeace plz help”.
35fbe7d3d5b9 5y ago
> Pretty ironic to use climate change as a reason to forestall nuclear considering it's our best shot at mitigating climate change pending a renewable energy storage miracle. I think you're looking at this the right way. We aren't "on the verge" of climate catastrophe, or "at the edge": we are already over the cliff, and the rocks are getting closer by the second. Our only chance is to de-carbonize energy now, and the only technology that gets us there is nuclear.