âSafeâ. Yeah. Letâs talk about Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima. All that was kinda not so safe, donât you think?
You mean the modern reactors who are still not in a commercial productive state? But even if these would be NOW ready to actually be available itâs still so that there are a vast overwhelming majority of the old reactors which are not as safe as the meme was insinuating.
All of those were caused by human mistake. But this does not mean that they must be discarded. Because human mistake happens. If it is with a solar panel, itâs inconsequential. Not with a nuclear reactor. So yes, it is an issue to consider, but in truth all it means is that we have to be VERY careful
Comparatively speaking, itâs safer than coal mining. Wikipedia Nuclear Accidents by Death Toll
This is just so fucking dumb. Yeah coal sucks. We should get rid of coal as quickly as possible. But saying nuclear is safer than coal while ignoring all other forms of energy that are orders of magnitude safer is as disingenuous as it gets.
Nuclear power is actually safer than almost everything, period. Even with the major accidents. Yes, even renewables and other âgreenâ energy.
See this commentâs chart, for example: https://lemmy.ml/comment/11910773
200 years vs. 70 years. IDK if this is comparable. Also it is so that with nuclear accidents theres a lot of additional environmental damage, not just the human casualties.
Not defending coal mining here, coal is no good energy source by all means.
Coal is often radioactive when it comes out of the ground, and thanks to poor regulations, is often radioactive when it goes into the powerplant, leading to radioactive particles coming out of the smokestacks and landing anywhere downwind of the plants.
More people have died from radiation poisoning from coal than from all of the nuclear accidents combined. But, as you said, 200 years vs. 70 years. But, also, nuclear is much more heavily regulated than coal in this regard due to the severity of those accidents. The risk of a dangerous nuclear power plant is nowhere near as large as commonly believed. It doesnât take long to find longlasting environmental disasters due to fossil fuels, from oil spills to powerplant disasters. Theyâre used so heavily that itâs just so much more likely to occur and occur more often.
All this to say that fossil fuels suck all around and we should be looking at all forms of replacement for them, nuclear being just one option we should be pursuing alongside all the others.
Nuclear is by far the safest form of energy production. Even with the big accidents, the impact hasnât been that big.
Chernobyl was by far the biggest, but that was 40 years ago, in a poorly designed plant, with bad procedures and a chain of human errors. Weâve learned so much from that accident and that type of accident couldnât even have happened in the plants we had at the time in the west. Actually if the engineers that saw the issue could contact the control room right away, there would not have been any issue. In 1984 that was a problem, in 2024 not so much, we have more communication tools than ever. The impact of Chernobyl was also terrible, but not as bad as feared back in the time. In contrast to the TV series, not a lot of people died in the accident. With 30 deaths directly and another 30 over time. Total impact on health is hard to say and weâve obviously have had to do a lot to prevent a bigger impact, but the number is in the thousands for total people with health effects. Even the firefighters sent in to fix stuff didnât die, with most of them living full lives with no health effects. And what people might not know, the Chernobyl plant has had a lot of people working there and producing power for decades after the disaster. Itâs far from the nuclear wasteland people imagine.
Fukushima was pretty bad, but the impact on human life and health has been pretty much nonexistent. The circumstances leading up to the disaster were also very unique. A huge earthquake followed by a big tsunami, combined with a design flaw in the backup power system, combined with human error. I still to this day donât understand how this lead to facilities being closed in Germany, where big earthquakes donât happen and there is hardly any coast let alone tsunamis. Itâs a knee jerk reaction that makes no sense. Studies have indicated the forced relocation of the people living near there has been a bigger impact on peopleâs health than anything the power plant did.
Compare this to things we consider to be totally normal. Like driving a car, which kills more people in a week than ever had any negative impacts from nuclear power.
Or say solar is a far more safe form of power, even though yearly hundreds of people die because of accidents related to solar installations. Or for example hydroplants, where accidents can also cause a huge death toll and more accidents happen.
And this is even with the non valid comparison to the current forms of energy where we know itâs a big issue. But because the alternative isnât perfect, we donât change over.
There are two main problems in my opinion, and they are both related to the âfuelâ. First, uranium is rare and you often need to buy it from other countries. For instance, Russia. Not great. Second, it is not renewable energy. We canât rely on nuclear fission in the long run. Then thereâs also the issue of waste, which despite not being as critical as some argue, is still a problem to consider
Uranium is not that rare. Doesnât Canada have quite a bit of it? Portugal used to mine it too, as well as several countries in Africa
A big problem IMO is the generational responsibility of the waste as well. There needs to be decades of planning, monitoring and maintaince to ensure waste sites are safe and secure, this can be done but modern political climates can make it difficult.
Agreed, dealing with the waste is a thing. But for me a solvable problem and something that doesnât need to be solved right away. We currently store a lot of nuclear waste in holding locations till we figure out a way to either make it less radioactive or store it for long enough. The alternative however is having coal plants all over the world spew all their dust (including radioactive dust) and CO2 straight into the atmosphere. This to me is a far bigger issue to solve. It isnât contained in one location, but instead ends up all over the world. It ends up in peopleâs homes and bodies, with a huge impact to their health. It ends up in the atmosphere, with climate change causing huge (and expensive) issues.
The amount of money we need to handle nuclear waste would be orders of magnitude lower than what we are going to have to pay to handle climate change. And that isnât even fixing the issue, just dealing with the consequences. I donât know how we are ever going to get all that carbon back out of the atmosphere, but it wonât be cheap.
Itâd be nice to prioritise it at least rather than tucking it away under the oil and gas rug. There is no real competition in energy output to a nuclear power plant. And despite its egregious up front cost, operating it is relatively low cost.
In regards to fuel, uranium is used often but there is options such as thorium that have been used with some success. I do agree it is unfortunate to have to purchase from other countries but I think it beats buying natural gas from wherever it may be sold.
you often need to buy it from other countries. For instance, Russia. Not great.
Yeeeeah, I wouldnât worry about that. Sure we (Australia) are conservative with our fears of mining and exporting uranium, especially with the Cold War and reactor whoopsies around the world. But historically it doesnât take much for us to go down on an ally.
Just let us finish unloading all our coal off to the worst polluting nations first, then weâll crack the top-shelf stuff.
The mining is also usually a really polluting affair for the region, much more than the what power generation might suggest. And overall, in many countries there is a lot of subsidies going on for hidden costs, especially relating to the waste and initial construction. So it is not as cheap as a first look might suggest.
Iâm not against it per se, it is better than fossil fuels, which simply is the more urgent matter, but itâs never been the wonder technology it has been touted as ever since it first appeared.
One thing to remember about the mining issue is that coal mining is just as bad, and coal is often radioactive as well. More people have died from radiation poisoning due to coal power/mining than have died from radiation poisoning due to nuclear power, even when you include disasters like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
Of course, weâve also been mining and using coal a lot longer, but the radioactive coal dust and possibly radioactive particles in the smoke from coal plants is something that many people are unaware of.
But, like you said, the big thing is to move away from fossil fuels entirely, and nuclear power has its own issues. It doesnât so much matter what we go with so long as we do actually go with something, and renewables are getting better and better all the time.
Except that you donât need uranium for nuclear reactors. The reason itâs used traditionally because itâs also used for nuclear weapons. Thorium is a much better fuel thatâs more abundant. China has already started operating these types of reactors. The other advantage of this design is that they use molten salt instead of water for cooling. Molten salt reactors donât need to be built next to large bodies of water, and they are safer because salt becomes solid when it cools limiting the size of contamination in case of an accident.
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Operating-permit-issued-for-Chinese-molten-salt-re
I donât think it will. The large cost of a reactor will probably be shared, but fission plants donât deal with plasma, magnets, hydrogen/helium storage, lasers, or capacitors. And we donât even know the method by which a practical fusion plant will operate!
I am talking in the sense that the same companies are participating in fusion research, and pretty sure the methods you mentioned are utilized somewhat in nuclear plants. Like handling and filtering radioactive materials.
Cost billions and have 10 year lead times?
Weâre reaching the point where discussing cost in regard to the energy crisis makes us look like fucking idiots.
Imagine what kids reading the history books are going to think of these discussions.
And 10 years isnât that long really. If someone said we could use no fossil fuels in energy generation in 10 years time that doesnât sound long at all.
Cost is a proxy for productivity and resources. So while it is stupid to say that the energy transition is too expensive, shouldnât we rather invest our productivity and resources into a faster and cheaper solution? Drawing focus away from renewables is dangerous as others have mentioned, because it is too late to reach our goals with nuclear.
shouldnât we rather invest our productivity and resources into a faster and cheaper solution?
We sure should. Do tell of this this faster, cheaper solution that is also adequate to meet all of our needs.
No I donât think so. Nuclear is super effective and consistent, especially for large setups.
Using renewables while we get our nuclear up makes complete sense. And subsidising nuclear with renewables after that also makes sense.
But the technology to rely entirely on renewables isnât really there either.
Yes. Should have started more 10years ago, but doesnât mean donât start now.
If you start building a new nuclear plant today, itâll start generating power around the year 2045, by which time renewables with storage will have gotten even cheaper.
Bet you the public will be on the hook to pay for that white elephant because utility companies privatize profits and socialize losses.
Totally. Tinpot dictators getting nukes is nothing to worry about. And the waste can just be handwaved away. After all, they have a storage facility in Finland that will probably come online in a couple of years. Problem solved.
The waste is a fair point - storage isnât a long term solution but then I suppose it can be managed in the interim, not like the effects of climate change.
Iâm not seeing your point of ânukesâ though?
More nuclear plants means more capacity and diversification in supply chains, i.e. itâs easier to acquire technology and supplies through dark channels. That will lead to more proliferation. Where do you think North Korea got its nukes? The answer is Pakistan, by the way.
Safe, sure. Efficient? Not even close.
Itâs far, far more expensive than renewable energy. It also takes far, far longer to build a plant. Too long to meet 2030 targets even if you started building today. And in most western democracies you wouldnât even be able to get anything done by 2040 if you also add in political processes, consultation, and design of the plant.
Thereâs a reason the current biggest proponents of nuclear energy are people and parties who previously were open climate change deniers. Deciding to go to nuclear will give fossil fuel companies maximum time to keep doing their thing. Companies which made their existence on the back of fossil fuels, like mining companies and plant operators also love it, because it doesnât require much of a change from their current business model.
Agreed, building a nuclear facility takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money. However⊠This doesnât need to be the case at all.
A lot of the costs go into design, planning and legal work. The amount of red tape to build a nuclear plant is huge. Plus all of the parties that fight any plans to build, with a heavy not in my backyard component.
If however a country would be prepared to cut through the red tape and have a standard design developed for say 10 plants at the same time, the price and construction time would be decreased greatly. Back in the day we could build them faster and cheaper. And these days we build far more complex installations quicker and cheaper than nuclear power plants.
The anti-nuclear movement has done so much to hold humanity back on this front. And the weird part is most people do think nuclear fusion plants are a good thing and can solve stuff. But they have almost all of the downsides nuclear fission plants have in terms of red tape, complexity and cost.
You canât cut the red tape. The red tape is why weâre able to say nuclear is safe.
the weird part is most people do think nuclear fusion plants are a good thing and can solve stuff. But they have almost all of the downsides nuclear fission plants have in terms of red tape, complexity and cost
Huh? Nuclear fusion doesnât have any downsides or upsides. Because it doesnât exist. Weâve never been able to generate net power with fusion. (No, not even that story from a couple of years ago, which only counted as âinputâ a small fraction of the total energy used overall. It was a good development, but just one small step on the long journey to it being practical.)
Being anti-nuclear was a poor stance to have 20, 30 years ago. At that time, renewables werenât cost effective enough to be a big portion of our energy generation mix, and we should have been building alternatives to fossil fuels since back then if not earlier. But today, all the analysis tells us that renewables are far cheaper and more effective than nuclear. Today, being pro-nuclear is the wrong stance to take. Itâs the anti-science stance, which is why it has seen a recent rise among right-wing political parties and media organisations.
I have never heard being pro-nuclear is the anti science stance and it being on the rise among right wing political parties. All the right wing is talking about it more coal and less things to be done about the climate.
The people who I talk to who are pro nuclear seem very well informed and not anti science at all.
I believe nuclear can help us get to the future we want and we should have done it a lot sooner. Nuclear doesnât mean anti-renewable, both can exist.
If however a country would be prepared to cut through the red tape and have a standard design developed for say 10 plants at the same time, the price and construction time would be decreased greatly.
Thatâs a pretty big ask for a democratic government where half of the politicians are actively sabotaging climate initiativesâŠ
The only countries where this is really feasible are places where federal powers can supersede the authority of local governments. A nuclear based power grid in America would require a complete reorganization of state and federal authority.
The only way anyone thinks nuclear energy is a viable option in the states is if they completely ignore the political realities of American government.
For example, is it physically possible for us to build a proper deep storage facility for nuclear waste? Yes, of course. Have we attempted to build said deep storage facility? Yes, since 1987. Are we any closer to finishing the site after +30 yearsâŠno.
Huh. So those of us that have always advocated for a nuclear baseline with wind/solar topping off until we have adequate storage solutions are climate change deniers? Thatâs new.
First, no, thatâs not what I said. If youâre only going to be arguing in bad faith like that this will be the last time I engage with you.
Second, baseload power is in fact a myth. And it becomes even worse when you consider the fact that nuclear doesnât scale up and down in response to demand very well. In places with large amounts of rooftop solar and other distributed renewables, nuclear is especially bad, because you canât just tell everyone who has their own generation to stop doing that, but you also donât want to be generating more than is used.
Third, even if you did consider it necessary to have baseload âuntil we have adequate storageâ, the extremely long timelines it takes to get from today to using renewables in places that donât already have it, spending money designing and building nuclear would just delay the building of that storage, and it would still end up coming online too late.
I used to be a fan of nuclear. In 2010 Iâd have said yeah, we should do it. But every time Iâve looked into it over the last 10 years especially, Iâve had to reckon with the simple fact that all the data tells us we shouldnât be building nuclear; itâs just an inferior option to renewables.
Aaaw, someone doesnât like the tone used? Well thatâs unfortunate. How about you start with leaving dem bad faith arguments?
Renewables will not cover your usage. Period. You will need something to cover what renewables wonât be able to deliver. Your options are limited. Nuclear is the only sustainable option for many places. Sure you got hydro (ecological disasters) or geothermal in some places, but most do not have those options.
Itâs not an XOR problem.
Australian politicians have been arguing about nuclear energy for decades, and with whats going on now, petty distracting squabbling while state governments are gutting public infrastructure
The most frustrating thing is the antinuclear party is obviously fine with nuclear power, and nuclear armaments, just look at the aukus submarines
labors cries about the dangers to our communities and the environment are obviously disingenuous, or they wouldnt be setting a green light for the billionaire robber barons to continue tearing oil and minerals out of the ground (they promise to restore the land for real-sies this time)
Anyway, a nuclear power plant runs a steam turbine and will never be more than what, 30% efficient?
Photovoltaic cells are even less efficient, I think theyâre somewhere between 10-20% efficient. I think the way to go would be a solar collector, like the Archimedes death ray, but much much bigger.
That is already a thing and itâs called concentrated solar power. Basically aim a shit load of mirrors at a target to heat it, run some working fluid through the target and use that to make steam to turn a turbine. There are a few power plants that use it but in general it has been more finicky and disruptive to the local environment than traditional PV panels would be.
The fantastic thing about renewables is how much they lend themselves to a less centralised model. Solar collector? Sure, why not✠Rooftop solar on peopleâs houses? You bet! Geothermal? If local conditions are favourable to it, absolutely!
Instead of a small number of massive power plants that only governments or really large corporations can operate individuals can generate the power for themselves, or companies can offset their costs by generating a little power, or cities can operate a smaller plant to power what operations in their city arenât handled by other means. Itâs not a one-size-fits-all approach.
This contrasts with nuclear. SMRs could theoretically do the same thing, but havenât yet proven viable. And traditional plants just put out way too much power. Theyâre one-size-fits-all by definition, and only have the ability to operate alongside other modes with the other modes filling in a small amount around the edges.
Pumped hydro? Or one of the many other non battery storage options, or just over production
How viable is pumped hydro? It would be good if feasible, but last I checked, there were not enough places where you can install them.
Pumped hydro requires a specific sort of place and not sure thereâs enough of them for most countries to rely on.
Redox flow, sodium ion, iron air, etc.
There are some 600+ current chemical-based battery technologies out there.
Hell for me, once sodium is cracked, that shit is so abundant that production wouldnât have many bottlenecks to get started.
Will Li-ion battery companies let that happen? They want profit, which means they want to keep the high battery cost.
Fuck I wish the politicians would give this to us straight like that.
Why is Alboâs party spreading memes about three eyed fish instead of saying âyeah Duttonâs nuclear plan is safe, but it maximises fossil fuel use in the short term and weâd prefer to focus on renewablesâ
Weâre not gonna make any of those targets. Make peace with that and prepare accordingly. Pick a shitty future. Mad Max at worst, Elysium at best.
AMOC collapse, Carbon Sinks failing. Weâre boned. Cooked. Soon to be roasted. If our Govtâs ever react at all, itâll be far too little far too late by the time they do.
