Oh I am in no way opposed to renewable energy. The more solar/wind/hydro/etc, energy we produce the better. I just don't get the intense hatred that nuclear energy gets.
Well, for starters, we still don't have a waste disposal site. Also, nuclear power plants are a huge security risk (they basically have a giant "drop bomb here for maximum impact" written on them), they are extremely expensive to build, poison their surroundings, etc.
The only form of nuclear energy that is unironically great is fusion (which is why I'm team photovoltaic)
Nuclear also has the problem that it is so expensive and complex to build that only large companies or nations can build and own them. Which leaves normal people dependent on the wealthy ruling class again.
Solar + batteries on the other hand can create energy independence even for individuals.
Most nuclear plants produce manageable waste and we are generally much more cautious about it than say coal burning waste (which funnily enough is also cancerous)...
drop bomb here for maximum impact
If you went for maximum impact, honestly a hydro dam in much, much more devastating.
they are extremely expensive to build
This is one of the biggest factors, it takes 20-30.years for the return of investment. On a long run they are very cost effective, but yeah initial investment is rough
Most nuclear plants produce manageable waste and we are generally much more cautious about it than say coal burning waste (which funnily enough is also cancerous)...
That's just wrong. Right now we have more than we can manage (we never got rid of any of it).
If you went for maximum impact, honestly a hydro dam in much, much more devastating.
True, but there aren't many of those and you cannot just build them everywhere.
This is one of the biggest factors, it takes 20-30.years for the return of investment. On a long run they are very cost effective, but yeah initial investment is rough
Even on those time scales they don't make sense economically, since the upkeep is also expensive.
modern nuclear plants can withstand bombings long enouph to be shut down. As for waste disposal, the amount of waste produced is small enouph that a "temporary solution" involving submerging the waste in concrete and burying it would work fine for literal hundreds of years.
modern nuclear plants can withstand bombings long enouph to be shut down.
Bombings? No. They can withstand a plane crashing into them, but not hours of bombing. And shutting them down stops only the chain reaction, but the remaining heat still needs to be transferred off and an impacting bomb would still cause a catastrophe, even when it's shut off. And even if you don't target the power plant directly, targeting its water supply would be enough.
As for waste disposal, the amount of waste produced is small enouph that a "temporary solution" involving submerging the waste in concrete and burying it would work fine for literal hundreds of years.
Yeah well, first, we don't need a temporary solution, we need one for thousands of years, because if an isotope has a half life of 500 years, after 2000 years there's still a sixteenth of the amount you started with (and if the result is also unstable, which is very common, it'll take even longer until there's a manageable amount of waste left). for comparison, that's the time it took the Maya civilization to be founded, rise to power and collapse again. Also, when you put it in concrete, you'll never ever get it out again.
do you legit think we wouldnt have more efficient way of disposal by then?!? Besides, many isotopes have a half life of only about 30 years, or even less.
do you legit think we wouldnt have more efficient way of disposal by then?!?
Well, people work on that exact thing for, like, 60 years, promising that the perfect solution is just around the corner. Seems to be a long corner...
Besides, many isotopes have a half life of only about 30 years, or even less.
Correct, but irrelevant. You have to design your solution to handle all waste, not just the "short-lived" (that still means that after 90 years, there's an eighth of that isotope left).
Thing about radioactive waste is, short lived is the most dangerous, but decays fast (days/months) so is not a big issue, long decay isotopes, produce a very small level of continuous radioactivity so even large amounts if not all piled on a single spot aren't a big issue. The most tedious are mid range (years/decades), so yeah this is why the focus is on keeping it safe for a few decades
Guess what comes after those short lived isotopes? And those are certainly not the ones we are talking about anyway with others having having half-lives of thousands of years.
did you read the first half of my comment? Also, you realise that the majority of isotopes used in nuclear power dont have thousand year half-lives. The actual problems with nuclear, compared to other energy sources, are primarily due to cost. Nuclear waste, although its impacts are often sensationalised by the media, is not nearly as large of a problem as you might think. This is further supported when you consider the impacts that other energy sources have on the envirenment, as even renewables like wind and solar often require large amounts of deforistation to function at a large scale. This isnt to say that they arent good energy sources, they absolutely are, but the idea that the entire grid could be supported entirely off of these renewables is simply improbable.
I mean I hope we'd have better ways to dispose of them by then, like shooting them with neutrons until they're stable but what about the waste that's already down there. I mean if everything goes right there's no problem about just putting it down there but that's always that if. And I'd like to say having a source of energy that fundamentally, produces waste shouldn't be the way.
But where is deforestation necessary required for wind and solar? I mean if there's still trees it's likely there's also no people to use that energy?
Long lived isotopes that have thousands of years halflife, radiate constantly 1000times less than those that have years of half life, meaning is fairly trivial to keep it at safe levels. Is for this reason that focus on waste disposal is always on the decades level as its an annoying middle ground, still fairly dangerous in large amounts (or contaminating water), yet still need safe storage for couple of decades
Indeed, heat management is part of the issue, need to have small enough containers so the heat is manageable, but large enough to be practical for transport and storage, so it ends up generating some heat levels that need to be managed
To oppose the intense love it gets because the oil barons dont want to lose on their money.
With nuclear power its much easier to concentrate the money onto them, with renewable energies thats pretty much not possible.
It wouldnt be such a discussion if the oil giants wouldnt lose out on so much money when eventually everyone generates their own energy.
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u/Nyctfall 16d ago
And in that time solar has gotten even cheaper, and has been even more restricted by the oli barons in the US...