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I’m not fundamentally against the idea of nuclear power. I just remain unconvinced that we’ve “solved” the problem of nuclear waste. Nuclear waste remains dang
by avianlyric 5y ago
I’m not fundamentally against the idea of nuclear power. I just remain unconvinced that we’ve “solved” the problem of nuclear waste.
Nuclear waste remains dangerous and harmful on a timescale that can almost be described as tectonic. The earths crust isn’t static or stationary, if you throw waste into the bottom of the ocean its not clear what will happen to that waste in 10 millions years time, or even 300 years time.
I agree that our current climate situation demands drastic actions, and theres a strong argument that solving the real harms today of climate change are worth taking the risk on the theoretical harms of nuclear power. But I don’t agree that nuclear power is currently “sustainable”, it’s almost certainly the best energy source we have today, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will stay that way for long.
- concordDance 5y agoI would advise checking the decay curves for nuclear waste and checking what levels of radiation cause harm. The tldr is that waste that decays slowly is doing so because its releasing less radiation. There's no radioactive stuff that we'd need to worry about on the million year timescale. The 10000 year timescale is the most where human health due to radioactivity might be a concern. And on those timescales your waste at the bottom of the ocean or 100ft below ground is almost certainly going to be still there and unaffected unless we or our successors decide otherwise. Heck I'd say worrying about anything more than the 500 year timescale is absurd as I'd be very surprised if humans were still around in human form by then. We'll either have been genetically engineered, wiped out by those who have, wiped out by rogue AI or something else or been "uploaded" in some fashion.