319
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2026
319 points (98.5% liked)
History Memes
2565 readers
470 users here now
A place to share history memes!
Rules:
-
No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, assorted bigotry, etc.
-
No fascism (including tankies/red fash), atrocity denial or apologia, etc.
-
Tag NSFW pics as NSFW.
-
Follow all Piefed.social rules.
-
History referenced must be 20+ years old.
Banner courtesy of @setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world
OTHER COMMS IN THE HISTORYVERSE:
- !historyruins@piefed.social
- !historyart@piefed.social
- !historyartifacts@piefed.social
- !historyphotos@piefed.social
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I legitimately hate that the top sentiment in this thread seems to be nuclear bad. What bullshit propaganda.
Wow. Your comment was at the top in my sort and I thought "what kind of smooth brained moron thinks nuclear is bad?" The comment directly below says something like "nuclear bad, we don't need it" what an incredibly stupid take. Nuclear is far safer and less radioactive than many of the energy sources we're using. Full renewables would be awesome but let's not just dismiss nuclear, it's pretty awesome.
While nuclear may have an agreeable amount of safety, the construction of new reactors takes a lot of money and time, and their operation is dependant on the sourcing and disposing of nuclear fuel. One advantage of it might be that it produces a constant amount of electricity, but not a day goes by where solar doesn't make power as well. So why not just go with solar then?
Because we can't make an instant transition to solar and it's far better than fossil fuels and coal. It also alleviates a lot of the storage issues with solar. All solar should be the eventual goal, but nuclear as a stop gap in the decades before we can go full green energy makes sense to me.
Of course we can. Also, building new nuclear plants actually takes the decades you claim solar would take. Not a very good stop gap if it won't be done before the gap you want to stop has stopped by itself now, is it?
Six to eight years isn't decades, gross to just spout misinformation like that to try to prove a point. It will almost certainly take 30-40 years to get most of the planet on solar. That's roughly 24-34 years of providing a stop gap and it doesn't touch on needing to store and transfer solar since it can't be collected at night after solar is the primary power source.
What reactor is operational in 6 to 8 years? Can you point to a recent project that went online in that timeframe? Would be interesting how much nuclear capacity cost in comparison to reweables like solar wind or hydro and long range distribution nets or batteries.
This might serve as source for those 6-8 years. It seems more like a global/historical number as the author also notes that there isn't much recent data for the US or Europe.
Terrapower just broke ground on a new reactor in the US, it's expected to be completed in approx 6 years. Even with significant delays it would be under 8 years and almost certainly under a decade.
While not touching on cost, this link shows how much more power generation you can get with nuclear compared to other sources of low carbon energy over a decade of deployment. If you need to generate a lot of energy relatively quickly and don't have amazing hydro options, nuclear appears the most scalable.
https://scienceforsustainability.org/wiki/How_quickly_can_we_build_clean_energy%3F
I agree. It's really
So here's an example
How many solar panels or wind turbines and batteries can you put on an empty field in 13 years?
That's one reactor btw. Companies that can build those don't grow on trees. If the entire world tried to use nuclear to replace fossil fuels these times would skyrocket.
Anyway, I did not even say that every single reactor takes decades, just that the required amount for the stopgap you propose would.
Now you cherry pick a single example to try and justify your previous statement, that's weak. That would be like me trying to prove my point with one of the mini plants built in 3.5 years when I know the average is at least double that. Also your second statement is incorrect. If there's suddenly demand for nuclear the amount of companies building plants would rise to match demand and existing outfits will scale their operations, just like the rise of solar companies in the past decades.
And of course if we build hundreds of reactors it'll take decades, but until solar meets all our needs it's choosing between lesser evils. We didn't suddenly stop building all the coal plants because solar exists. Nope, in fact China is still breaking ground on new plants and plans to, until renewables meet all their needs. They are the ones extracting the minerals and building the panels and they know they need a stop gap.
You keep acting like it's nuclear vs solar but it's really nuclear vs coal. Humanity is going to keep building non renewable power plants for at least another thirty years, I would prefer them to be nuclear instead of coal.
Oh yeah? What if the sub goes out? ;-)
Not everything that disagrees with you is propaganda, you know?
I don't believe your propaganda ;-)
If you want a more nuanced take: I think nuclear is cool tech, but it's a bad idea for economic reasons and due to the waste issues.
Coal ashn is more dangerous and harder to dispose of.
This sounds so ridiculuous, that I googled this claim. If one can even call it a claim, because you didn't finish that sentence to form a coherent argument.
The thing I found is this: http://large.stanford.edu/publications/coal/references/hvistendahl/
Don't bother reading this piece, because it doesn't even form its general idea very well. Hence the need for a later clarification, the very last paragraph," saying:
Like, yeah, I don't know if even that claim is true, but I don't have a hard time believing it. But even if we accept that, what kind of apples to oranges comparison is that supposed to be?
If you still want to support that claim, feel free to do so. But you better pick a better source, than the one I found...
Unless you do, I have to assume, that you're just regurgitating some propaganda.
By chance have you ever looked into a CANDU reactor?
The current top comment is that renewables have taken over as our best option, so yay for that
It is great in times of peace, there are issues when it gets bombed.
How many times in human history has that occurred (aside from the hole in Chernobyl's sarcophagus, which is not an active plant), please give examples.
How many times have nuclear countries been at war?
It's something that should be planned for when you build them. Saying war is impossible because it hasn't come home isn't a good excuse.
Once again, I am asking for you to provide examples of the WAR CRIME that you are imagining.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporizhzhia_Nuclear_Power_Plant_crisis
Wow, I straight up didn't notice that, reading through it. I'm glad to see it's nowhere near as bad as it could have been.
I don't have an example of it but I can point to examples of energy infrastructure being targeted:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_strikes_against_Ukrainian_infrastructure
https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/energy/articles/list-gulf-energy-infrastructure-damaged-110602813.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/world/europe/russia-oil-refinery-black-rain.html
Why do you think nuclear is immune to it?
Ok, cool. You listed Chernobyl: Is not an active nuclear plant, and as the whole point of the overarching post is that it was caused by gross incompetents, not war. And secondly/third you listed oil refineries being hit, I say good to that, we need to leave fossil fuels behind.
Is this where you got Chernobyl from?
So you understand how replacing oil and gas with nuclear would change the target to nuclear. Correct?
Oh you are right, there's absolutely nothing to do with nuclear power in that fist link, my bad. All of that is just basic power infrastructure.
You just ignored the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant mentioned in that article?