Oh boy, another hot take from a well educated and informed source, I’m sure.
80% of what you think about nuclear is fossil fuel propaganda, 10% is because the soviets are dipshits, and the last 10% are reasonable concerns that redundant safety system upon redundant safety systems address.
Every safety system makes it more expensive to run and they’re already not profitable, do you really think they’ll just keep throwing money into it without cutting corners? One little economic downturn and we start getting problems…
Why even risk it when we could have far better systems from the start? Nuclear is nice in science fiction but when you actually have to plug the numbers into the real world it doesn’t look good at all, especially not compared to wind, solar and tidal
I think the risks with Fossil fuels are a lot higher:
instead of putting nuclear waste in the ground, we pump it in the air (fossil fuel waste is radioactive)
instead of nuclear proliferation, we support barbarist states such as saudi arabia
So, the question between fossil and nuclear was never there. It was always nuclear and people that lobbied against it should go to jail for the rest of their lives for murder.
Waste management and environmental concerns are already bad with coal power (even worse than nuclear power, in the sense that nuclear doesn’t launch waste into the air as far as I know, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong)
Although, yes, security has to be higher for nuclear power, but nuclear is not as bad as most people think
There is no solution for nuclear waste. It’s buried underground it takes millennia to disperse the radiation. Don’t think there is anything worse environmentally.
New nuclear reactors are fully or nearly fully automated I think. If humans disapeared overnight, they can fully shut down by themselves. Also newer reactors are made so that you need to actively monitor the reaction to even keep it going unlike old reactors (that are not in use anymore I think) that had you monitoring it to prevent it blowing up.
Automated systems are not maintenance or error free and the costs of mistakes are vast.
It may have been designed to detect problems and shut itself down; but has it been maintained well enough to successfully do so? Maybe, maybe not.
Given how well maintained most public infrastructure is, I’m not very confident.
I wouldn’t say that’s true for gas. Without the right maintenance and/or shutdown procedures, refinery systems can reach dangerous pressures and literally explode.
Even shutting down a refinery is a very calculated process. If the refinery teams decided to walk away doing nothing, people would be in danger. The sheer amount of toxins released could kill quite a few, let alone explosions or fire.
I’m not a big fan of gas power, but it’s surely deadly in the wrong hands.
My first second… paragraph was a bit of a simplification.
While that is true, a refinery explosion is far less impactful than a nuclear meltdown.
Don’t get me wrong, both are really bad; but a refinery gone wrong doesn’t leave huge amounts of land entirely unusable for decades.
Honestly I’d rather avoid both and go for energy sources like wind, solar, hydro, even geothermal. I think we could go a long way if the majority of homes had panels on the roof and some local storage for night time use.
I’ve said elsewhere; I like the concept of Nuclear energy, I just struggle to trust those that run it, particularly given how neglected much of our existing infrastructure is already.
Nobody wants to maintain anything.
When you fail to maintain coal, gas, wind, or solar, it just stops working for the time being.
When you fail to maintain nuclear systems (be that poor understanding, lack of training, negligence, whatever), things go very bad very quickly.
This is before you get into wider issue’s like waste management and environmental concerns.
Oh boy, another hot take from a well educated and informed source, I’m sure.
80% of what you think about nuclear is fossil fuel propaganda, 10% is because the soviets are dipshits, and the last 10% are reasonable concerns that redundant safety system upon redundant safety systems address.
While we’re criticizing sources, do you have a source on those percentages?
This is the internet, where 90% of percentages are made up. Including this one.
Every safety system makes it more expensive to run and they’re already not profitable, do you really think they’ll just keep throwing money into it without cutting corners? One little economic downturn and we start getting problems…
Why even risk it when we could have far better systems from the start? Nuclear is nice in science fiction but when you actually have to plug the numbers into the real world it doesn’t look good at all, especially not compared to wind, solar and tidal
Insulting people you disagree with is a rather poor way to win them over and/or create productive discourse.
We tend to forget the negligence humans are capable of.
But to be fair, abolishing nuclear was a trick to expand oil, gas and coal afaik. At least the funding came from there iirc.
True, but there were also concerns about the proliferation of nuclear technology and the risks of nuclear war.
If we could power the earth without nuclear or fossil fuels, that would be objectively better. But it just doesn’t seem possible.
And trying to achieve an impossible goal while simultaneously burning even more carbon is irresponsible.
So we need to quickly build out the required nuclear capacity.
Yes, I agree that there are risks involved.
I think the risks with Fossil fuels are a lot higher:
So, the question between fossil and nuclear was never there. It was always nuclear and people that lobbied against it should go to jail for the rest of their lives for murder.
Now, I have no clue how far along we are. This (site)[https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/renewable-energy-by-country/] says we‘re at 17% global coverage and some people argue that rn we should invest every dollar/euro in renewables instead of nuclear.
I can understand that argument. Not sure which makes more sence though.
Waste management and environmental concerns are already bad with coal power (even worse than nuclear power, in the sense that nuclear doesn’t launch waste into the air as far as I know, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong)
Although, yes, security has to be higher for nuclear power, but nuclear is not as bad as most people think
There is no solution for nuclear waste. It’s buried underground it takes millennia to disperse the radiation. Don’t think there is anything worse environmentally.
New nuclear reactors are fully or nearly fully automated I think. If humans disapeared overnight, they can fully shut down by themselves. Also newer reactors are made so that you need to actively monitor the reaction to even keep it going unlike old reactors (that are not in use anymore I think) that had you monitoring it to prevent it blowing up.
Playing devils advocate here:
Automated systems are not maintenance or error free and the costs of mistakes are vast. It may have been designed to detect problems and shut itself down; but has it been maintained well enough to successfully do so? Maybe, maybe not.
Given how well maintained most public infrastructure is, I’m not very confident.
Seriously. A finicky system which requires constant monitoring is a bad idea. People have problems maintaining their cars.
Simple, robust, and capable of absorbing neglect is better.
I wouldn’t say that’s true for gas. Without the right maintenance and/or shutdown procedures, refinery systems can reach dangerous pressures and literally explode.
Even shutting down a refinery is a very calculated process. If the refinery teams decided to walk away doing nothing, people would be in danger. The sheer amount of toxins released could kill quite a few, let alone explosions or fire.
I’m not a big fan of gas power, but it’s surely deadly in the wrong hands.
My
firstsecond… paragraph was a bit of a simplification.While that is true, a refinery explosion is far less impactful than a nuclear meltdown.
Don’t get me wrong, both are really bad; but a refinery gone wrong doesn’t leave huge amounts of land entirely unusable for decades.
Honestly I’d rather avoid both and go for energy sources like wind, solar, hydro, even geothermal. I think we could go a long way if the majority of homes had panels on the roof and some local storage for night time use.
I’ve said elsewhere; I like the concept of Nuclear energy, I just struggle to trust those that run it, particularly given how neglected much of our existing infrastructure is already.