People when they hear nuclear industry propaganda.
People when they hear fossil fuel industry propaganda.
Dont touch my propaganda 😡
indestructible
Yeah, I think I've heard that claim before. It seems like every time that claim was made something came along to prove it wrong.
Indestructible cask underground is for cowards. In the US we don't have a long term storage site, so we just ship it around to different temporary sites.
There is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution
The US highway system, the ideal nuclear waste storage site
Indestructible is a keyword in Magic the Gathering. I do not see it working the same way in engineering.
As a Geologist the idea that there are seismically inactive magic rocks that will sit there and not change shape or be affected by anything for eternity and that we can assume placing radioactive waste in them will be fine for an indefinite amount of time is honestly hilarious.
I'm kind of concerned that somebody who calls himself a geologist doesn't understand radiation. The time scales involved are just not compatible. The rock is geologically inactive over the time scales that you need to store radioactive material which is at most maybe a few thousand years.
I understand your point. But also, not really the point. I'd rather have barrels of waste that I can point to, then to pump it into the air for everyone to breath.
The barrels are very much in our face, we need to pay attention to them. The air.. well that's someone else's problem..
In Australia, all the people who were vehemently against solar and were calling for building of more coal fired power plants have lately shifted to saying, that Australia needs multiple nuclear power plants.
Whilst I don't doubt it probably wasn't a good thing to have around 20 years ago, solar and wind are so much cheaper and I know a good percentage of homes have made the switch to solar in recent years.
The only politicians I'm seeing which are calling out for nuclear seem to be very closely aligned with resources companies.
Mining shills who want to spend $10b on concrete manufacturing and uranium mines.
What makes me laugh is that we could still invest that into mining, get the resources to make solar panels and batteries, then stop because battery recycling is a thing. They can still get rich off it. They just have a set period the mining is necessary while we get the amount required. But by then they could buy the solar farms and generate infinite income from the power generation... Are they all just bad at capitalism or something?
The biggest issue is that people don't understand that the shit that will kill you Chornobyl dead burns itself out relatively fast. Sushi grade polonium is only spicy for a couple of weeks.
The "it's radioactive for zillions of years" stuff is typically a heavy metal hazard far more than a radiation hazard.
If it's decaying for a zillion years a gram might be popping off a few sextillion gamma rays a second, insignificant.
Jimmy Carter, by shutting down the reprocessing industry, fucked the whole thing sideways.
You're right, and it's even less dangerous than you're saying.
If each gram was emitting a few sextillion gamma rays per second you'd be able to harness it as a power source, it would be producing megawatts per gram (I did do the math!). The rate of decay is years /decades per atom. One gram of Plutonium 239 would only give off a few hundred thousand gamma particles per second near the start of its decay.
Sorry if this comes off as me correcting you, I just read your comment and got curious so I did some calculations and wanted to share. If anything, I'm extra-agreeing with you.
Nuclear isn't the best anymore. Batteries, solar and wind are cheaper and take way less time to build
Nuclear waste sounds scary because you can point to it. Fossil fuel waste is just everywhere, quietly speedrunning the atmosphere.
Just the lead in gasoline kills around 5 million people a year. That is just scratching the surface of the problems oil and gas cause.
Plus the millions of people that coal plant's smoke kill…with radiation. Coal has killed more people by radiation in the US alone than nuclear accidents all over the world, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings combined.
Stop framing it as a dichotomy.
I'm quite pro nuclear, I think the mass decomissioning of nuclear plants that's been happening in Europe is the wrong move. But this is an incredibly reductive and dishonest meme.
I'm not pro nuclear but I agree that decommissioning existing nuclear plants to replace them with coal+gas is ridiculous. Totally backwards.
Solar+storage>nuclear>hydrocarbons
First replace the hydrocarbons, then you can think about replacing nuclear.
Solar and storage for the win(d)!
Solar/wind are best. Nuclear has serious practical issues (slow to spin up and down, thus requiring either fossil fuels or batteries) and financial issues (the return on investment just doesn't beat renewables and the batteries they need anymore). It's also extremely slow to build nuclear so by the time you're splitting atoms renewables and batteries will be even better.
Nuclear has one major benefit though, it's a peaceful means to maintain the capacity for nuclear second strikes. Countries like France can't completely abandon it without leaving themselves vulnerable in a way that Ukraine has learned isn't wise.
But nuclear compared to fossil fuel? Yeah split those atoms.
Generally, the economics of nuclear involve a very large upfront cost followed by cheap energy afterwards. Maintaining existing plants usually makes sense but building new ones should only be done with careful consideration of other options in the long term. On demand power can be used to supplement a grid so having a variety of options makes sense.
But it seems like everybody just picks up one thing as their pet solution and tries to promote it in absolute terms, which doesn't really make sense. Different environmental conditions call for different solutions, and imperfect options can still have a use case. There isn't really a "best."
Solar is better in every way
Nuclear is only safe under the constant management of a stable global society. We don’t live in a stable society so I don’t support nuclear.
Nuclear is only safe under the constant management of a stable global society.
Fossil fuels aren't safe even with constant management and a stable global society.
It's very hard to kill millions with solar panels
That feels kind of all-or-nothing. Environmental issues are part of the problem destabilizing societies. Overall, the poisoning of the environment is much worse and much less contained with fossil fuels than with nuclear power. Distant future societies might have no knowledge of nuclear storage sites and a few people might even die before they realize they need to stop breaking into the underground barrels. But a lot more people will die from the environmental havoc that we're causing with fossil fuels. And they can't just stay away from the barrels to avoid that one.
Just to be clear, I think wind and solar (and geothermal where appropriate) are the best ways to get off of fossil fuels. They've gotten a lot cheaper than nuclear so it doesn't make much sense to build new reactors. But it also doesn't make much sense to shut them down if nuclear waste is the only issue.
I agree but also think that we should build both nuclear and renewables. Because we dont have much time left.
...O ...K ... nothing is going to destabilize global society as badly as the collapse of crop growing cycles due to fossil-fuel-induced climate change.
Anything we can do to reduce burning fossil fuels is going to improve global stability.
Not really, no. It is safe pretty much regardless. On-site caskets are bomb proof and contain waste safe enough that it wouldn't make sense for a dirty bomb. Though if you really care then we can just stop considering mountains sacred and instead starting burying the waste as we have planned and fully considered all pros and cons towards 70 years ago.
fossil fuels aren't safe no matter the state of global society
It's spelled BREATHE
Breath is what you TAKE Breathe is what you DO
seismologically inactive
Exxon-Mobil: About that....
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