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Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

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Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#11

Post by scottLobster »

anorphirith wrote: post #8

the only problem is where to get the uranium, I believe russia gets it from kazakhstan. france from niger. does US buys it from kazakhstan as well ?

"In 2011 the United States mined 9% of the uranium consumed by its nuclear power plants.[7] The remainder was imported, principally from Russia and Kazakhstan (38%), Canada, and Australia.[8][9][10] Although uranium production has declined to low levels, the United States has the fourth-largest uranium resource in the world, behind Australia, Canada, and Kazakhstan.[9]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_in_the_United_S...

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#12

Post by xg15 »

Can anyone explain to me why "deaths/tWh" is even a meaningful measure?

Of course nuclear energy has one of the highest Wh outputs, no-one is disputing that. However, what does that have to do with the risk of use? That seems like a measure very skewed to make arguments in favour of nuclear power.

I might as well argue that car drivers are safer than pedestrians because the average deaths/horse power is vastly lower.

Also, why did they leave away hydro, water and wind power in those "deaths per x" charts?

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#13

Post by payne92 »

I believe the politicization of nuclear energy (the resulting lack of investment & innovation) will go down as one of the major blunders in human history.

We'd be in a far, far better situation with greenhouse gasses if we (as a human race) had continued to invest in nuclear energy. There would have been mishaps along the way, but at a much smaller scale than we're experiencing now with deaths from air pollution and looming risk of a warming planet.

We'd have much, much safer systems with modern reactor designs.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#14

Post by cjsuk »

Apart from the waste.

We really don't know what to do about it other than bury it and leave it for a few tens to hundreds of generations in the future to deal with with the hope that they will know what to do.

So it's the safest option. But only for now. We might just be dooming our descendants to deal with the mess and they might be in a worse state than we are now.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#16

Post by c3534l »

cjsuk wrote: post #14

Apart from the waste. We really don't know what to do about it other than bury it and leave it for a few tens to hundreds of generations in the future to deal with with the hope that they will know what to do. So it's the safest option. But only for now. We might just be dooming our descendants to deal with the mess and they might be in a worse state than we are now.

We found it in the ground, we're just putting it back in the ground when we're done with it.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#17

Post by dimillian »

payne92 wrote: post #13

I believe the politicization of nuclear energy (the resulting lack of investment & innovation) will go down as one of the major blunders in human history. We'd be in a far, far better situation with greenhouse gasses if we (as a human race) had continued to invest in nuclear energy. There would have been mishaps along the way, but at a much smaller scale than we're experiencing now with deaths from air pollution and…

Well, they tried that in the Fallout universe, everything was running on nuclear power... it didn't ended well ;)

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#18

Post by pj_mukh »

anorphirith wrote: post #8

the only problem is where to get the uranium, I believe russia gets it from kazakhstan. france from niger. does US buys it from kazakhstan as well ?

Friendly neighbours to the north[1]. We don't like tooting our horn enough, but America gets the bulk of its energy raw materials from us.[2]

[1]https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=2150

[2]https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727&t=6

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#19

Post by canadianwriter »

cjsuk wrote: post #14

Apart from the waste. We really don't know what to do about it other than bury it and leave it for a few tens to hundreds of generations in the future to deal with with the hope that they will know what to do. So it's the safest option. But only for now. We might just be dooming our descendants to deal with the mess and they might be in a worse state than we are now.

That's why a lot of people see it as the lesser evil and a good stop gap before we move to 100% renewable.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#20

Post by gaius »

cjsuk wrote: post #14

Apart from the waste. We really don't know what to do about it other than bury it and leave it for a few tens to hundreds of generations in the future to deal with with the hope that they will know what to do. So it's the safest option. But only for now. We might just be dooming our descendants to deal with the mess and they might be in a worse state than we are now.

We really don't know what to do about it

Another myth. Of course we do: breeder reactors.

Hint: why is nuclear waste dangerous? because there is still loads of energy in it.

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