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So why has nuclear waste become a thing that's not mentioned anymore? It was a pretty big thing in the 90's, now it seems to get brushed under the rug for all this 'safe' nuclear power marketing. It's mot just meltdowns and containment breaches that are a problem with nuclear power. None of the renewable alternatives produce radioactive waste that needs to be stored and dealt with. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rad…
So why has nuclear waste become a thing that's not mentioned anymore? It was a pretty big thing in the 90's, now it seems to get brushed under the rug for all this 'safe' nuclear power marketing. It's mot just meltdowns and containment breaches that are a problem with nuclear power. None of the renewable alternatives produce radioactive waste that needs to be stored and dealt with. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rad…
They at least didn't try to hide it and in fact did mention it.
So why has nuclear waste become a thing that's not mentioned anymore? It was a pretty big thing in the 90's, now it seems to get brushed under the rug for all this 'safe' nuclear power marketing. It's mot just meltdowns and containment breaches that are a problem with nuclear power. None of the renewable alternatives produce radioactive waste that needs to be stored and dealt with. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rad…
I've harped on about this many times before, but the levelized cost of energy[1] for renewables like solar and wind power is substantially cheaper than nuclear power nowadays.
That, combined with the problems of long construction times, population unease with nuclear, and nuclear waste as you mention, seem like they should limit nuclear power in the near-term, and perhaps eliminate it in the mid-to-long-term.
There seems to be a valid question around how to store energy from renewable sources given that they have a tendency to fluctuate in terms of generation output - but it seems to me that storage is a safer, more tractable problem to solve than the issues surrounding nuclear (fission) energy.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_energy
I'm all for the concept, but so far, everything I've seen has been nothing but concept.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reacto...
Safety is no longer the reason Nuclear is not worth it. The sun is a giant, free nuclear fusion plant in the sky. We can capture 1/5th of its output per square meter. For free! The wind -- caused by solar heating -- also generates free power. The cost of harvesting it is now so low, and will always continue to decline as any technology will, that any fuel-based generation mechanism is going to be rendered uneconomic…
except you know, the solar panels. by the same logic you can you can capture fission power for free, all you need is set up the reactor.
So why has nuclear waste become a thing that's not mentioned anymore? It was a pretty big thing in the 90's, now it seems to get brushed under the rug for all this 'safe' nuclear power marketing. It's mot just meltdowns and containment breaches that are a problem with nuclear power. None of the renewable alternatives produce radioactive waste that needs to be stored and dealt with. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rad…
- read about CIGEO
- nuclear waste, once it has decayed, becomes metal in glass
- nuclear waste is _small_, see [1], the nuclear fuel waste is the tiny red cube.
- wind turbines have a 20 years lifespan, after which the blades are buried and forgotten, and will stay there forever [2]
- renewables are more CO2 intensive than nuclear, fuel cycle included, see IPCC reports (there is a debate for nuclear vs wind depending on where nuclear is deployed. in France nuclear is 6gCO2eq/kWh, vs 12 for wind)
- mercury however, will be buried in Germany, and will stay there until the end of times (unlike nuclear, which will disapear), and that doesn't seem to bother anybody
1. https://twitter.com/laydgeur/status/1184788641303937025?s=20
2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turb...
Safety is no longer the reason Nuclear is not worth it. The sun is a giant, free nuclear fusion plant in the sky. We can capture 1/5th of its output per square meter. For free! The wind -- caused by solar heating -- also generates free power. The cost of harvesting it is now so low, and will always continue to decline as any technology will, that any fuel-based generation mechanism is going to be rendered uneconomic…