145
Young climate activist tells Greenpeace to drop ‘old-fashioned’ anti-nuclear (www.euractiv.com)
submitted 3 years ago by [M, B] to c/hackernews@derp.foo
49 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 4 points 3 years ago* (3 children)

It is not the "cleanest" it is the most "climate friendly". Commitment to nuclear waste is a thousand year long process of monitoring and processing waste products and our record on a short term commitment of like 50 years to climate change is not a good record. Its not clean and in the long term not likely cheap.

However its certainly not as destructive to the world as gas is right now so relieving climate change before some other catastrophic milestone occurs is probably a good idea. Folks saying "its too late" misunderstand climate change; there's always another level bad we can hit and nuclear provides stable, reliable power.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    It really isn't a thousand year long process though. The containers they have for them are very long lasting. Bury it in a large containment facility deep in the mountains (Norway is making a large underground system specifically for this iirc) and just seal it up. Maintenance will be minimal.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Aren't you able to recycle spent fuel for additional fuel and a lower amount of waste?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    Yes, we could reduces the nuclear waste by recycling it and the technology for that exists since nearly the beginning of nuclear energy.

    But the political pressure and the fearmongering of nuclear, paid by oil money, prevented the necessary longterm investmenst in that area.

    To put the amont of nuclear waste in perspective.

    • Total nuclear high level waste globally since existence: around 400 000 tonnes
    • Yearly produced hazardous waste globally: around 400 000 000 tonnes

    Nuclear waste is merely a dent in comparsion to alle the problematic waste we create. At least are able to contain it, while we are not able to contain a lot of the other stuff.

    Adding a random comparsion for scale. The skyscraper Burj Khalifa in Dubai weights 500 000 tonnes.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent