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I can't recommend you spend your time reading this nebulous essay, which doesn't in any way address the time and cost blowouts for the latest generation of reactors, instead choosing to blame woke liberals. Tiresome.
If nuclear power was all that it's boosters claim it is, the objections of woke liberals would be a long forgotten road kill squirrel. Seriously the hippies don't have that much political power.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One point the article could have made but curiously didn't is that even in the case of a catastrophic aftermath like Chernobyl or Fukushima the end result is primarily human moving away from the zone because of cancer risk and nature claiming back control of the exclusion zone. So at one point maybe we should start considering that nuclear is mostly dangerous to human society. As human society is responsible for clim…
Radiation doesn’t only affect humans
Being an animal would you rather unknowingly have you lifespan reduced by an invisible force or being killed by humans or the artificial infrastructures they build by grinding more and more natural space each year?
Unfortunately animals can't advocate for themselves so we'll have to try figure out the best answer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One point the article could have made but curiously didn't is that even in the case of a catastrophic aftermath like Chernobyl or Fukushima the end result is primarily human moving away from the zone because of cancer risk and nature claiming back control of the exclusion zone. So at one point maybe we should start considering that nuclear is mostly dangerous to human society. As human society is responsible for clim…
Radiation doesn’t only affect humans
So even if nuclear power is as bad as hippies say it's still better for the environment than human civilization.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Radiation doesn’t only affect humans
And yet the exclusion zone around Chernobyl has biodiversity higher than anywhere else in Europe. So even if nuclear power is as bad as hippies say it's still better for the environment than human civilization.
I admit that it's not so spectacular, but it works too, and I suspect it's cheaper.
> Whether or not nuclear power costs too much will ultimately be a matter for markets to decide It’s not a market decision, but a government decision, as nuclear power has always been built with state guarantees and/or subsidies. This article also again equates safety with lack of deaths. That’s like saying a neighborhood is safe, because in the robberies there only a few people die. Chernobyl and Fukushima had drama…
Yes, there were a lot of deaths from these nuclear disasters, they were horrible, we should have avoided them. But nuclear energy is still much less deadly than fossil fuels. Air pollution-caused diseases are lung cancer and stroke for example. I think nuclear plants have become much safer and there is more international regulation to maintain their safety. I recommend this excellent video on this topic from Kurzgesa…
https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
I think nuclear definitely has a role to play, at least in the short term. I'm not sure about expanding its usage, but definitely maintain what we have until it can be replaced with renewables, and definitely replace nuclear only after coal/gas/other fossil fuels are no longer being used anywhere. Don't be fooled by disastrous events, nuclear is statistically the safest energy source we have[1], so don't fear it sens…
The fear of operation should not be put forward as the one problematic thing of nuclear energy.
Another big problem is how we deal with the toxic waste for the next millennia? Especially looking at the volatility of sensible politics in the US, how can you be sure that the next Trump will not just suppress information about leaking nuclear waste and straight up not deal with it because it is “fake news”?
The problem with nuclear power plants is that: You have to deal with very dangerous material and guarantee that this waste, which could very well outlive humanity, will not hurt your population. How can you guarantee that? Don’t use the straw-man argument of “Oh ya’ll are just against nuclear because of safety in operation”.
For decades it would have been a reasonable position that governments should override political objections, embark upon mass nuclear power programs, and try to drive costs down through economies of scale and process improvements over time.
20 years ago it was arguably a correct and very strong position to take?
10 years ago, still a reasonable-seeming one?
By 5 years ago, nuclear had probably missed its chance. Most of us had probably not quite grasped that yet.
Today, anyone arguing this just needs to redo their sums with up-to-date numbers and they'll see the impossiblity of their argument. Nuclear is done. Baseload business models are done. The market has chosen a winner, which is mass deployment of wind and solar.
> Whether or not nuclear power costs too much will ultimately be a matter for markets to decide It’s not a market decision, but a government decision, as nuclear power has always been built with state guarantees and/or subsidies. This article also again equates safety with lack of deaths. That’s like saying a neighborhood is safe, because in the robberies there only a few people die. Chernobyl and Fukushima had drama…
Chernobyl yes. Fukushima, you are stretching things a bit. Unless you are talking about mass hysteria related to Nuclear Power.
I think nuclear definitely has a role to play, at least in the short term. I'm not sure about expanding its usage, but definitely maintain what we have until it can be replaced with renewables, and definitely replace nuclear only after coal/gas/other fossil fuels are no longer being used anywhere. Don't be fooled by disastrous events, nuclear is statistically the safest energy source we have[1], so don't fear it sens…
> maintain what we have until it can be replaced with renewables
We cannot be sure renewables will ever be able to replace nuclear/fossil/hydroelectric, thus we should be a bit more conservatives in our plans for the future.