(March 12, 2022 at 12:37 am)Jehanne Wrote:(March 12, 2022 at 12:23 am)Rev. Rye Wrote: Also worth noting, America’s entire nuclear power program has made about as much waste in 60 years as the average coal plant emits in less than an hour. Yes, you read that correctly, our entire fleet of nuclear power plants creates .0002% of the waste of a single coal plant.
And the kicker is that a lot of that waste (96%, specifically) can still be recycled. and we know this because France has been doing exactly that for decades.
Renewable energy is even safer. You can replace the 200+ coal plants in the US with nuclear; it will only delay the inevitable, even by 1,000 years, but, such will still come, eventually. In the process many tons and tons of nuclear waste will be produced that will need to be safely stored for the next quarter of million years. And, that presupposes that none of that waste will escape back into the environment.
In any case, carbon emissions continue to rise, up 2.5 ppm over last year, and so, nuclear power isn't reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which continue to rise.
You just made an excellent argument in favor of nuclear power. All we need is 50 years at most before it is practical to switch entirely to renewable power. Dealing with relatively low-level radioactive waste produced from nuclear plants during that transition period is considerably less of an issue than dealing with the fallout of continuing to rely on fossil fuels for the same period.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein


