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rural americans will drive past a coal-fired power plant, in their five mpg ford truck, to go to a small town city council meeting and complain about how environmentally destructive solar panels are (slrpnk.net)
submitted 5 months ago* by to c/memes@slrpnk.net
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And their vote counts more than yours because they live in rural districts with lower populations. Smh at "democracy."

A meme with two panels. The first panel is a scene of agrovoltaics - farmers growing crops underneath solar panels in a field - with the caption "solar panels waste our fertile soil and destroy our beautiful rural landscapes". In quotes to imply the meme is quoting someone else's objections to solar power. The second panel is an image of a coal power plant with smoke billowing from its smokestacks looming behind a field of crops. The caption reads "but this is cool?'
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[–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I'm not saying its not harmful, but it does drop in risk over time, and it is concentrated. In comparison, one waste rock dump I'm dealing with is about 237 ha in size, and contains 21 million tonnes of ML/ARD generating waste rock. Another mine I know will contain 3 billion m^3^ of tailings in their tailings storage facility.

Dealing with any waste is not cheap, though the level of effort is smaller with nuclear than traditional mining wastes. If you store the waste in engineered drums/cells etc. which are water tight and stick them underground, after siting the storage location well, you're in pretty good shape.

I won't contest nuclear plant upkeep.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    How long are those drums good for? I wouldn't count on anything staying leakproof for a hundred years, let alone thousands.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    That's a valid concern, but they use dry cask storage. If you inter these casks underground, you can redirect any water that may seep into the storage chamber or use an impermeable cover over the casks. We do this a lot with mining wastes.

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