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While nuclear has different pollution than fossil fuels, one can hardly call it green with the everlasting poison it produces.
by mtsr 5y ago
While nuclear has different pollution than fossil fuels, one can hardly call it green with the everlasting poison it produces.
- adrianN 5y agoAt least the poison is very concentrated and easy to store. CO2 in the atmosphere is "forever" too, and much harder to deal with.
- mtsr 5y agoNot really, the most abundant life forms on earth consume CO2 to grow. Of course not at the rate we would like (especially with current coverage and that we’re still freeing more carbon daily by chopping down more forests).
- hnhg 5y agoGreen is an unhelpful umbrella term IMO. We need to be specific. Even "low carbon" is vague and prone to abuse.
- mtsr 5y agoAbsolutely. But it is also helpful to for example subsidize low carbon energy, rather than solar and hydro specifically, because it allows for innovations outside of those specific options.
- pfdietz 5y agoI was amused by other color coding for hydrogen, especially "turquoise hydrogen": hydrogen that is produced by pyrolysis of methane to hydrogen and carbon. This requires considerably less energy than conversion of water to hydrogen and oxygen. The carbon can then be buried so it doesn't oxidize. The name comes from the combination of "green hydrogen" (electrolysis using non-fossil electricity) and "blue hydrogen" (methane reforming that avoids CO2 emission by capture and sequestration of the CO2).
- fuoqi 5y agoWith a proper breeder system we would not only significantly reduce amount of required Uranium mining (and thus its environmental impact), but also amount of produced waste and time at which it will be radioactively dangerous (from several hundred thousand years to several hundred). But, unfortunately, only the Russian government currently seriously invests into development of this area. Everyone else is fine with simply storing nuclear waste (with varying levels of finality and recycling), especially considering that it takes a minuscule amount of space as far as industrial processes go.
- emn13 5y agoAs far as I know - but please correct me if I'm wrong - the amount of waste is small enough that this is irrelevant. Additionally, having radioactive isotopes around is the natural state of affairs; after all, that's the input too. Is the scale of the nuclear pollution really different from the scale of infrastructure-construction pollution for e.g. solar or wind? Because AFAIK either option is much, much cleaner than fossil fuel. Finally, part of this teeth-gnashing seems to be centered on old fears. For instance, we have international treaties banning nuclear waste dumping in the ocean, but that's kind of absurd, considering that the amount is so low, and the ocean is so much larger than land, that water is quite good at absorbing and diluting residual radiation, and that any specific spot on the oceanic plate appears to be some of the least valuable ecosystem habitat on the planet. Why not just dump it in small containers somewhere in the middle of nowhere? I believe valid concerns surrounding nuclear are primarily those of cost and delay. But this isn't some competition with e.g. wind and solar; it's a potential addition to replace e.g. coal, which is still a major power source all over the world. Comparing nuclear to solar is a distraction - if we manage to replace nuclear with e.g. solar+storage many decades down the line, that's great - but decarbonizing is extremely urgent, and we should therefore not be shutting down any routes to do so without extremely solid reasons.