591–600 of 1001 posts
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> The technology is so unbelievably safe and efficient these days I think you mean unbelievably expensive and takes an eternity to build outside of China and Korea.
These are not opposites. Both can be true.
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Waste management has been solved problem. "A number of mercury, cyanide and arsenic waste repositories are operating worldwide including Canada (Giant Mine) and Germany (potash mines in Herfa-Neurode and Zielitz). Radioactive waste storage sites are under construction with the Onkalo in Finland being the most advanced." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository "The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP…
Every time someone mentions a year where nuclear started being "safe," I find an incident after that year where radioactive or otherwise toxic materials were leaked into the surrounding environment, plus plenty of near misses. Broader than waste though. Maybe focus on how the likely alternatives are worse. The world isn't going to run completely on renewables, and coal puts surefire poison AND radioactive isotopes in…
That is what safe looks like, nobody said perfect. It's like how cars are death traps but people can still reasonably call them "safe". You could do the same thing for solar panels but for the fact it isn't newsworthy if there is some toxic sludge in some dump somewhere is associated with solar panels.
There might not be any material that we produce on an industrial scale that doesn't leak hazardous or toxic chemicals. I looked up concrete [0] to find out what it's problem was, and it turns out concrete leaks toxic and radioactive materials into the environment because turns out natural rock is sometimes radioactive. Concrete is nonetheless pretty safe stuff.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concre...
I'm amazed that the main debate on how clean or dangerous nuclear energy is still circles around the plants themselves and storage of spent energy. I believe that glaring oversight here is that enriched nuclear fuel doesn't grow on trees. Somehow no one ever seems to talk about how efficient and clean the mining of these rare earths is and in which countries that happens. Nuclear being a clean energy is a myth as far…
Keep in mind that the energy density of nuclear fuel is astronomically higher than that of coal, so even if the processes were equivalently wasteful (and I'm fairly certain they are not) coal would still cause significantly more damage. The process also differ significantly: Uranium is often pumped out of the ground after being chemically extracted. Coal is almost always carted out after being blasted.
Look into things like lithium mining (for batteries; yes, I am aware that other options exist, but lithium is still a very common one). That one is straight up nasty.
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Every time someone mentions a year where nuclear started being "safe," I find an incident after that year where radioactive or otherwise toxic materials were leaked into the surrounding environment, plus plenty of near misses. Broader than waste though. Maybe focus on how the likely alternatives are worse. The world isn't going to run completely on renewables, and coal puts surefire poison AND radioactive isotopes in…
> find an incident after that year where radioactive or otherwise toxic materials were leaked into the surrounding environment That is what safe looks like, nobody said perfect. It's like how cars are death traps but people can still reasonably call them "safe". You could do the same thing for solar panels but for the fact it isn't newsworthy if there is some toxic sludge in some dump somewhere is associated with sol…
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Neither concrete nor steel have the lifespans we're discussing thousands, or tens of thousands of years. And. Bacteria.
When sealed several hundred meters underground in nonporous rock they do have such long lifespans. It's like observing that corn doesn't have a 10 year lifespan when left out on the counter and then objecting to canning it on that basis.
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This has to be snark - Waste is never safe to store - the containment has to prevent leeching - over a lifespan of thousand, or tens of thousands of years And it only takes one earthquake, or animal digging to completely upend that strategy
And yet we had a natural nuclear reactor that's been self contained for 2 billion years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...
Dangerous the whole time.
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> find an incident after that year where radioactive or otherwise toxic materials were leaked into the surrounding environment That is what safe looks like, nobody said perfect. It's like how cars are death traps but people can still reasonably call them "safe". You could do the same thing for solar panels but for the fact it isn't newsworthy if there is some toxic sludge in some dump somewhere is associated with sol…
They're not really comparable because one is a slow and certain leak, the other is all or nothing. Different people are taking on the risk in each scenario too. Despite this, I'd be fine with a reactor next to my city if I got something like cheap power in return.
Would "they" rather we just dumped the nuclear waste off in some corner somewhere? Then it'd be a slow and certain leak too. If they want slow and certain rather than probably-nothing then that can be arranged. It'd still be less damaging than business as usual.
I mean, I get that people are scared but they are scared of their own imaginations as opposed to anything that can be engineered. I still think I'd be much better off having lived through a Class 7 nuclear disaster rather than my actual experience of spending years near a coal mine. Policy made for and by people who just live in fear for no obvious reason is never going to work. They're still going to be scared whatever the actual policy is and the rest of us are going to be forced to do stupid things in the real world.
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They're not really comparable because one is a slow and certain leak, the other is all or nothing. Different people are taking on the risk in each scenario too. Despite this, I'd be fine with a reactor next to my city if I got something like cheap power in return.
> They're not really comparable because one is a slow and certain leak, the other is all or nothing. Would "they" rather we just dumped the nuclear waste off in some corner somewhere? Then it'd be a slow and certain leak too. If they want slow and certain rather than probably-nothing then that can be arranged. It'd still be less damaging than business as usual. I mean, I get that people are scared but they are scared…
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"For Europe I don't see a reason why each country needs a nuclear waste repository." Because apparently no country wants to be the dumpster for the radioactive waste of the others? I wonder why that is, when it is a solved problem.
Because it’s not a solved problem and people saying so are repeating propaganda
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Waste management has been solved problem. "A number of mercury, cyanide and arsenic waste repositories are operating worldwide including Canada (Giant Mine) and Germany (potash mines in Herfa-Neurode and Zielitz). Radioactive waste storage sites are under construction with the Onkalo in Finland being the most advanced." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository "The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP…
Every time someone mentions a year where nuclear started being "safe," I find an incident after that year where radioactive or otherwise toxic materials were leaked into the surrounding environment, plus plenty of near misses. Broader than waste though. Maybe focus on how the likely alternatives are worse. The world isn't going to run completely on renewables, and coal puts surefire poison AND radioactive isotopes in…