10 ms·

Most of those costs are because of onerous regulations and lack of competition due to... you guessed it: onerous governmental regulations.

• pydry 4y ago
  If the ~$800 billion cleanup costs of a Fukushima event werent fully borne by taxpayers then maybe the safety regulations wouldnt have to be as onerous. But they are, and Ive never heard of a single pro nuclear advocate ever argue that nuclear power is safe enough that this enormous subsidy should be unwound. They generally pretend it doesnt exist. Meanwhile solar/wind/storage is a lot cheaper even without taking this subsidy into account.
  • nickpp 4y ago
    The cleanup after a nuclear incident is also regulated through the wazoo. Thus it's expensive, deeply corrupted and probably unnecessary. We'd probably be better off simply closing the area for a couple hundred years until the most radioactive (and thus dangerous) stuff half-lifes away. Meanwhile coal plants keep spewing slightly radioactive ash into the air and into our lungs and the cost is paid by us all in life expectancy. And soon by our whole civilization in global warming.
  • panick21_ 4y ago
    Funny how anti-nuclear people never admit that the last 30 years of anti nuclear opposition have lead to 1000s of deaths, 100000s of people less health and more cost then any theoretical nuclear accident. Its totally ok to argue that the government should have shared responsibility for health care. But arguing that government should control the energy production in a sensible way and adopt the risk for that is somehow crazy. And yet they end up doing it anyway as we have seen in the recent crisis. Had the government simply adopted a nuclear strategy from the beginning it would be vastly cheaper, population would be vastly healthier, grid operation would be far easier and energy security for the next 100 years would not even remotely be in question. It wouldn't have forced the German right to make a devils deal with Russia and the Left would have gotten their carbon free grid.
    • largepeepee 4y ago
      "the last 30 years of anti nuclear opposition have lead to 1000s of deaths, 100000s of people less health and more cost then any theoretical nuclear accident." Where are you pulling these numbers from? Your ass? The last 30 years were also one of best times to be alive as an average person on the globe generally. How nuclear idiots can spin everything negatively is pretty funny.
      • kelseyfrog 4y ago
        It's the number of excessive deaths due to coal fired power plants in the US per year(~3000). Anyone can search for that and critique the methodology.
    • locallost 4y ago
      Nuclear has failed for now 70 years to change anything. It's because it plainly doesn't work. Worldwide only one country has managed to produce the vast majority of its electricity from nuclear and even this country is faltering right now. The french electricity company is deeply in debt, was nationalized as a consequence of it and just posted a 20 billion loss for last year. The plants are reaching their end of life, the prototype replacement in Flamanville is a national embarrassment and is now over a decade and over 10 billion over budget. If the world decides to go all in on nuclear it would take decades to decarbonize a tiny percentage of the grid and horrendous costs.
      • nickpp 4y ago
        The world doesn’t have to decide to go "all in" on anything. It can simply lift all the unnecessary burdens it placed on the nuclear industry and let the free market sort out the best solution, like always. If nuclear works for the world's subs, it works on land too. It will probably be a mix of energy sources anyway, each with its own strengths and weaknesses and it’s own place in ecosystem.
        • pydry 4y ago
          >If nuclear works for the world's subs, it works on land too. Kind of like saying that if solar panels work on the ISS then they work on land too. It's surface level true while missing the broader issue.
• Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Cool. We'll start with removing the vienna convention.