Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel

The fact that their system cost is prohibitive in the real world? The fact that we don’t fucking have the slightest idea of how to deal with recycling that stuff on their EOL? Or would be the fact that mining cobalt and lithium in the required quantities to indulge on the fantasy of a solar/wind based grid would poison an inordinate portion of our environment? Or would it be the fact that every single fucking country that went all in on the siren’s song of the renewable industry scammer is now plagued with absurdly high energy costs and are slipping into becoming impoverished third world de-industrialized economies like the UK and Germany?

You provide excellent examples of the bogosity of the arguments. Let me demolish them in turn.

1) System cost

Sure, it's high. That's because we spend huge amounts of money on energy. ANY system to replace fossil fuels will be expensive, in the trillions of dollars.

But if this is an argument against renewables, it's an even bigger argument against nuclear. Because nuclear is much more expensive than renewables.

2) Recycling

At worst, we can bury the stuff. Recycling it is not necessary. After all, the amount of material is small compared to everything else we do in society, and it's not some special kind of waste (like high level nuclear waste) that requires some particularly unique handling.

3) Lithium and cobalt

Lithium is abundant. If you hadn't been paying attention, the price has been crashing, as it pretty much always does after a price spike of a mineral resource, when the price spike encourages investment to increase the amount available. As for cobalt: probably the same is true, but why do you think cobalt is needed?

4) poison the environment

This is just emotional bullshit. No, renewables would not "poison the environment". You beclown yourself with this nonsense.

5) absurdly high energy cost

As opposed to those still burning fossil fuels where they are foisting off the cost of the externalities on others? Ignoring those external costs doesn't make them go away.

In any case, the place that's normally pointed to is Germany, where they made a large investment in renewables from 2009-2012. Solar was much more expensive then, and they are still paying that down. But the costs of renewables crash with time, so pointing to past expenditures is grossly misleading. Going forward renewables will be much cheaper. That's why we're seeing so much investment in them now globally.

One can tell the intellectual barrenness of the pro-nuclear position when you have to resort to this sort of deplorable nonsense.

The anti-nuclear movement succeeded in Germany and they’re reaping the crops now. Nobody will go back to 1800s quality of life willingly if they can help it, be it by burning coal, trash, plastics, tires or paint cans for heat or electricity.

The difference is the cost coming from handling it. The latest figure on the cost to handle Fukushima is $190B from 2016.

The great thing today is that we don't need to accept radioactive releases from either nuclear power or coal. Simply build the cheap scalable option instead: renewables.

The "super duper radioactive material" you're so afraid of is what's left of the fuel. It's full of energy.

The precious fuel is so full of energy that it gets hot ("decay heat"). Without cooling, it melts. Cooling was lost during the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, the fourth most powerful earthquake ever recorded anywhere.

The "Great East Japan Earthquake" and its tsunami killed 19,759 people. The earthquake was a terrible tragedy. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_an...

Meanwhile, the precious fuel remained safely entombed within the concrete and steel vessel that was designed to contain it. Without cooling, the fuel got hot ("decay heat") and melted, always safely enclosed within the vessel.

Unfortunately, during attempts to cool the fuel in the aftermath of the earthquake, some radioactive fission products were released into the environment: caesium, iodine, xenon, etc. These fission products have been diluted and are harmless. See the section "Radionuclide release" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident

How much harm did the radioactive fuel cause? Quoting Wikipedia:

  No adverse health effects among non-worker Fukushima
  residents have been documented that are directly
  attributable to radiation exposure from the accident,
  according to the United Nations Scientific Committee on
  the Effects of Atomic Radiation.

  Insurance compensation was paid for one death from lung
  cancer (4 years later), but this does not prove a causal
  relationship between radiation and the cancer.

  Six other persons have been reported as having developed 
  cancer or leukemia. Two workers were hospitalized because
  of radiation burns, and several other people sustained 
  physical injuries as a consequence of the accident.

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