Nuclear power

[AFTT47]

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.

[Jehanne]

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.

It's not happening though, is it?  And, how long has nuclear power been around?  We'll continue to burn coal, no matter how many nuclear power plants are built.  If the coal is not burned here in the United States, it will simply be shipped elsewhere.

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

Jehanne?

You realize you're possibly engaging in a sort of fallacy, right?

Greenhouse emissions Vs nuke power are complicated economic, social and political issues.

If your feelings were to be followed there would be NO nuclear power generation EVER/AT ALL.

Thus, since the economic investment in renewables that is barely in (Or out of) its infancy it will take hundreds if not possibly thousands of years to catch up to and thence surpass the already five or so centuries humanity has been industrialy burning things.

The energy density of the power of the atom simply dwarfs that of fossil or renewable. For evey kilowatt of power generated by nuclear per tonn. How much investment in renewables is potentially needed to match it?

Some figures have already been posted that show nuclear's 'Bounce per ounce' compared to fossil fuels.

Cheers.

[vulcanlogician]

The actual amount of highly radioactive material is quite low. And the lower level stuff is less dangerous overall than a lot of the stuff emitted by conventional plants.
People tend to freak out about radioactivity, but you get more from a stone wall than you would get from most man-made sources. And definitely more if you ever fly in an airplane.

Allow me to play devil's advocate a bit here. (For rhetorical purposes.)

First, we can acknowledge that, with climate change on our plate, the benefits outweigh the risks of nuclear power. But there are still risks. Chernobyl. Fukushima nuclear disaster.

And isn't solar activity a concern? (I'm asking. Because I don't really know the science involved.) Isn't it bad if we install mini nuclear plants all over the place and then get hit with a barrage of solar activity? Couldn't that lead to potential meltdowns all over the place?

Again. I'm just being rhetorical here, and maybe hoping to learn something.

[Fake Messiah]

Allow me to play devil's advocate a bit here. (For rhetorical purposes.)

First, we can acknowledge that, with climate change on our plate, the benefits outweigh the risks of nuclear power. But there are still risks. Chernobyl. Fukushima nuclear disaster.

And isn't solar activity a concern? (I'm asking. Because I don't really know the science involved.) Isn't it bad if we install mini nuclear plants all over the place and then get hit with a barrage of solar activity? Couldn't that lead to potential meltdowns all over the place?

Again. I'm just being rhetorical here, and maybe hoping to learn something.

The thing with Chernobyl and Fukushima is that they were built over 50 years ago by different standards and levels of technology. Newer nuclear power plants are much safer, and the new ones are even supposed to eat existing nuclear waste instead of creating it - but that one is still in the development stage.

I guess the real problem with renewables (at least today) is that they still need an oil economy to be made. You can't make wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, green cars, and nuclear power plants without burning the oil, so you can't really shun it.

Another problem is that trucks and ships can not be electric. The battery for the truck would be too heavy and it would take too long to charge it - but maybe they could go on hydrogen.

[The Grand Nudger]

Fukushima probably isn't a great example of the risks of nuclear, as it wasn't built to it's own design and that was precisely why it failed. There was a chance to rectify that mistake after it had been made, years worth of chances, too.

It's a great example of the risks of human avarice, ever present in any endeavor, ofc.

Put more politely

In the final analysis, the Fukushima accident does not reveal a previously unknown fatal flaw associated with nuclear power. Rather, it underscores the importance of periodically reevaluating plant safety in light of dynamic external threats and of evolving best practices, as well as the need for an effective regulator to oversee this process.

https://carnegieendowment.org/2012/03/06...-pub-47361

..and where to begin with chernobyl. The failure of chernobyl is why the world turned against nuclear. Not because it failed, mind you, but because the soviets could not accept the pr nightmare of their specific failure and so created a vast disinformation campaign with a door into the budding us environmental movement. If we can't do it safely, no one can..said the soviets..and just look at these bastard americans trying to kill us all with their nuclear toys. If there was some alternate reality where we did manage to kill ourselves off by building too many (or too many shoddy) nuclear plants..ironically, a cynical attempt to make political chips in the light of a personal failure will account for some significant portion of our having avoided that fate.

The short version of a long story, is that even if we zero out malfeasance and incompetence and just roll those things into the risks of nuclear, it's still cleaner and safer than fossil fuel. Has been from the beginning. The reason we didn't go for it is entirely political.

[Rev. Rye]

And it's also worth noting that Chernobyl failed because they decided to do an extremely risky test that could only work well under some very specific circumstances and they did everything so wrong that if HBO hadn't done their Chernobyl miniseries and on the off-chance that FOX ever decides to end The Simpsons, they could have done the Chernobyl .

The fact that the reactor was out-of-date and that the plant didn't actually have a proper containment structure (something that most Western nuclear reactors tend to take for granted) didn't help things. And that's to say nothing of the incompetence of the people who worked there, something the miniseries exaggerated only slightly.





The problem, on several levels, seems to be rooted more in the flaws in the Soviet system than anything inherent in nuclear power, from the RBMK design that was specifically created to cut corners (for instance, instead of the standard steel-reinforced concrete containers, all that separated the core from the outside world was a single lid that could be and was blown off by a sufficiently large explosion) to staffing them with people who valued their place in the party far more than, y'know, making sure the damn reactor doesn't explode, and when it does explode, caring more about how bad it would be for them if it were true than trying to contain the fucking radiation before it's too late.

[The Grand Nudger]

Same thing going on when people hear about nuclear containment not comprehending the fact that the waste is already being stored, and not stored as well or as safely. More worried about their place in society than containing the radiation. Same thing going on when people reject windmill developments. More worried about their place in society than containing the damage to our climate.

For them that looked like party position, for us it looks like property value - they amount to the same thing in practice.

[Jehanne]

Another problem is that trucks and ships can not be electric. The battery for the truck would be too heavy and it would take too long to charge it - but maybe they could go on hydrogen.

Ford’s Electric F-150 Lightning Could Far Exceed 300-Mile Range

[Fake Messiah]

Another problem is that trucks and ships can not be electric. The battery for the truck would be too heavy and it would take too long to charge it - but maybe they could go on hydrogen.

Ford’s Electric F-150 Lightning Could Far Exceed 300-Mile Range

Come on, I meant trucks and not pick-ups. But that said, there are already some trucks in Europe that drive on electricity but they don't have a battery, instead, they connect to the cables above the road - like streetcars and electric trains.