this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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There have been many studies about how long nuclear would last, and the end answer is, no one knows. There have been results that say 80 years, 200 years, 500 years, and even 200,000 years.
Further, this does not take into account nuclear advancements in recycling or even fission itself.
Also who says you can’t mix nuclear and renewables? It’s just that renewables by themselves is itself extremely unsustainable. How long will the materials that make solar panels last? We need mixes.
I agree, we don’t know how technology will advance and it can help us shift from fossil fuels. It’s true that some people think it’s a silver bullet though, and it’s important to rebuke them.
Why? I mean of course those who are educated on the issue recognize nuclear as a medium term transition solution. But why would we need to dissuade the average layperson from thinking that nuclear is the solution here and now? Surely the more people think that nuclear is the answer the sooner we can get away from fossil fuels. Once we have made that step then we can worry about the next step and explaining that nuclear fission is not an ideal forever solution either. But it is bad propaganda practice to complicate our messaging with unnecessary nuance and caveats. That just causes confusion and uncertainty among the general public which is then exploited by the fossil fuel lobby to halt any transition away from fossil fuel.
You underestimate the wrongness of some nuclear advocates. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/02/14/the-real-reason-they-hate-nuclear-is-because-it-means-we-dont-need-renewables/?sh=e936c6a128f7
Yeah, ok, that's a very silly take by a very silly person. Of course we should keep developing renewables in parallel. It's become a conservative kneejerk impulse to be against renewables because they perceive liberals as being pro renewables, in many cases it's just dumb contrarianism. But even that contrarian impulse can be redirected in a positive direction if it means more people become pro-nuclear as a pushback against parties like the Greens in Germany who are generally extremely disliked and fanatically anti-nuclear. The response to bad takes like the one you linked is not to start pointing out the downsides of nuclear power but instead to convince people that we can and should do both nuclear and renewables, that this is not an either-or proposition.