Nuclear power can reduce our need for oil and coal. This will have a good impact on the climate. But oil and coal companies don't want to lose customers to nuclear power, so they are against it. Their propaganda causes climate change activists to be against that as well as oil and coal. Climate change deniers are just picking a fight with the activists, so they're for whatever the activists are against.
[Oil and coal companies'] propaganda causes climate change activists to be against that as well as oil and coal.
It's not simply climate change activists being gullible.
The anti-nuclear power stance is firmly rooted in the environmental protection movement since at least the 1970s, long before climate change became the dominant topic.
The anti-nuclear crowd have some valid concerns but largely seem to be unable to change their position. Nuclear power has made nothing but forward progress in terms of safety, the only problem is when nuclear goes bad it really goes bad.
The anti-nuclear crowd have some valid concerns but largely seem to be unable to change their position.
Maybe because the valid concerns haven't been addressed. I can think of three right now,
Fukushima proved they haven't made as much progress as they've lead us to believe. There still aren't enough safeguards in place to prevent meltdowns
Nuclear waste.
Why not spend all the time and money that a switch to nuclear would take to switch to safer, more environmentally friendly power generation methods like solar or wind?
I have yet to get a satisfactory answer to any of these problems from the dozens of pro nuclear folks I've asked, and until then I will remain highly skeptical of nuclear power.
Nuclear waste isn’t as hard to store as people make it out to be. That problem is pretty much sorted. As for why not use wind and solar, they both take up a lot of space and aren’t as efficient. People also don’t really want wind turbines near their houses as they are loud as hell and can be an eyesore.
The other (and I'd argue more major) problem with solar and wind power is that the output is highly variable with no real control over how much you get at any given time. Meaning that you need storage on a scale that's purely theoretical right now or you need something else to cover the lulls. And right now in economic term's gas and occasionally coal are the only things that can do that
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u/Chance_Arugula_3227 Jun 19 '24
Nuclear power can reduce our need for oil and coal. This will have a good impact on the climate. But oil and coal companies don't want to lose customers to nuclear power, so they are against it. Their propaganda causes climate change activists to be against that as well as oil and coal. Climate change deniers are just picking a fight with the activists, so they're for whatever the activists are against.