A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power
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Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power
#2No. Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind and we have no way of mitigating or eliminating it. Nuclear isn't cost effective on an ongoing operating basis (compared with natural gas). When you add the costs of closing and "cleaning up" a plant site, which run into the billions of dollars for each plant, nuclear just doesn't make sense. Nuclear is far from "carbon neutral." The process of extracting uranium from the earth uses tremendous amounts of heavy equipment, but the carbon outputs from mining (and cleanup) are never mentioned anywhere in order to sustain the "clean power" myth.
Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power
#3I'm writing this from Japan. I do not have the numbers, but as I cross the country in the Shinkansen I see a sea of solar panels.
Fukushima has been a lesson here. Strategically, Japan has to import it's energy, except for solar energy. With a float of trains electricity is already at the core of their transportation system.
Here, at least, nuclear doesn't look like it's the future.
Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power
#4No. Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind and we have no way of mitigating or eliminating it. Nuclear isn't cost effective on an ongoing operating basis (compared with natural gas). When you add the costs of closing and "cleaning up" a plant site, which run into the billions of dollars for each plant, nuclear just doesn't make sense. Nuclear is far from "carbon neutral." The process of extra…
Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind
From what I've been reading, seems CO2 tops that list. One can bury nuclear waste in the Nevada desert, keep everyone a few hundred miles away, and it'll be fine. From what I learned in high school chemistry class, a gas wants to expand to fill its container, so the CO2 produced by Chinese coal-fired plants eventually makes its way to me.
The process of extracting uranium from the earth uses tremendous amounts of heavy equipment
How much compared to, say, coal mining? Mining rare earth metals for solar panels and wind turbines?
Yeah, nuclear power has some downsides. But I'm not hearing the "versus" part in your argument.
Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power
#5This is a ridiculous and fundamentally flawed proposition. The obvious omissions and lack of consideration of other factors threatening the planet belies this author's bias/naivete/stupidity/other motivations.
First, the demand for energy is only a small fraction of numerous ways the planet is being compromised - irrevocably. Satisfying all energy demands worldwide cleanly will not "save the planet".
Second, carbon-free is completely different than being clean energy. The byproducts (generally leaking radioactive waste) are significant, highly toxic, and long-lasting. While the emissions of fossil fuels is considered, other cleaner alternatives are not.
Third, the demand for energy is, for the most part, contrived. We are sold on the ideas of the need for one car for each person, the need for cars to travel in the first place, whole house heating and cooling, electrical solutions to simple manual tasks, etc ad infinitum. We could massively reduce energy needs by using low-power and no-power solutions.
Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power
#6I'm writing this from Japan. I do not have the numbers, but as I cross the country in the Shinkansen I see a sea of solar panels. Fukushima has been a lesson here. Strategically, Japan has to import it's energy, except for solar energy. With a float of trains electricity is already at the core of their transportation system. Here, at least, nuclear doesn't look like it's the future.
The growing share of renewables in the mix doesn't mean there's no place for nuclear in the future – it's a false dilemma fallacy. Also, Japan's solar panels may be visually imposing, but they constitute a tiny amount of total energy generation in Japan.
After Fukushima Daiichi disaster Japan shut down all it's reactors and switched to fossil fuels, not renewables, and this is the most tragic outcome of the disaster.
Neither nuclear nor renewables could entirely replace fossil fuels, we desperately need both. Hopefully Japan is restarting it's nuclear reactors (5 reactors were restarted in 2018) and investing in renewables, but I'm afraid it's still not enough.
Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power
#7No. Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind and we have no way of mitigating or eliminating it. Nuclear isn't cost effective on an ongoing operating basis (compared with natural gas). When you add the costs of closing and "cleaning up" a plant site, which run into the billions of dollars for each plant, nuclear just doesn't make sense. Nuclear is far from "carbon neutral." The process of extra…
Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind From what I've been reading, seems CO2 tops that list. One can bury nuclear waste in the Nevada desert, keep everyone a few hundred miles away, and it'll be fine. From what I learned in high school chemistry class, a gas wants to expand to fill its container, so the CO2 produced by Chinese coal-fired plants eventually makes its way to me. The process of…
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Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power
#8This is a ridiculous and fundamentally flawed proposition. The obvious omissions and lack of consideration of other factors threatening the planet belies this author's bias/naivete/stupidity/other motivations. First, the demand for energy is only a small fraction of numerous ways the planet is being compromised - irrevocably. Satisfying all energy demands worldwide cleanly will not "save the planet". Second, carbon-f…
> The byproducts (generally leaking radioactive waste)
The idea that nuclear waste 'leaks' anything is absurd and defiantly not generally true.
While of course the output is toxic, its also highly controlled and does not come into contact with anything.
Its long lasting but it also contains lots of useful stuff that, if we continue to use nuclear power and other nuclear byproducts will turn very valuable.
> Third, the demand for energy is, for the most part, contrived. We are sold on the ideas of the need for one car for each person, the need for cars to travel in the first place, whole house heating and cooling, electrical solutions to simple manual tasks, etc ad infinitum. We could massively reduce energy needs by using low-power and no-power solutions.
Sure if you forced everybody how you would like to live then we could do a lot. The idea that we should artificially restrict peoples energy needs as a way to save the plant just so we can avoid the very minor issue of nuclear waste is absurd.
Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power
#9I'm writing this from Japan. I do not have the numbers, but as I cross the country in the Shinkansen I see a sea of solar panels. Fukushima has been a lesson here. Strategically, Japan has to import it's energy, except for solar energy. With a float of trains electricity is already at the core of their transportation system. Here, at least, nuclear doesn't look like it's the future.
People live in a fantasy world when thinking about solar. Solar is nicely visible and gives people a worm heard.
The reality is that solar is a tiny part of global energy and even in countries like Japan it did not even come close to replacing nuclear.
Japan will have nuclear future because they simply have to much capacity already. However the poplar nature of nuclear politics makes it a problem, they will continue to be import depended and fossil fuel for many years to come.
Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power
#10No. Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind and we have no way of mitigating or eliminating it. Nuclear isn't cost effective on an ongoing operating basis (compared with natural gas). When you add the costs of closing and "cleaning up" a plant site, which run into the billions of dollars for each plant, nuclear just doesn't make sense. Nuclear is far from "carbon neutral." The process of extra…
This is mostly wrong.
> No. Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind and we have no way of mitigating or eliminating it.
Nuclear waste is incredibly well controlled, unlike waste from solar, wind or fossil. Most Western countries didn't have contamination from civil nuclear waste at all and specially not in the last 30 years. Civilian Nuclear waste has basically killed nobody.
Calling it the 'most dangerous' is nonsense.
> Nuclear isn't cost effective on an ongoing operating basis (compared with natural gas).
Nothing is as cheap as natural gas in the US. Specially don't just look at creation but also the grid, the end to end price.
Nuclear on mass scale is very competitive and has been proven to be able to replace fossil fuels on large scales. South Korea and China can produce very competitive nuclear reactors and we could do the same in the West. France did it in the 70/80 with 1960s tech.
Nuclear has the massive advantage of being able to replace coal plants directly without redesigning the countries or even continents grid. These cost (and others) are always ignored when solar advocates claim of low dispatch cost.
> When you add the costs of closing and "cleaning up" a plant site, which run into the billions of dollars for each plant, nuclear just doesn't make sense.
Cleanup for any modern plants in the West are already part of the dispatch price. It takes a while to clean up, but the overall land use of nuclear is still 100/1000x smaller then anything else.
> Nuclear is far from "carbon neutral." The process of extracting uranium from the earth uses tremendous amounts of heavy equipment, but the carbon outputs from mining (and cleanup) are never mentioned anywhere in order to sustain the "clean power" myth.
This is another failure in understanding scale. Uranium mining is not very heavy in terms of equipment compared other mining. Furthermore Uranium has a far higher energy density then anything else we could mine for energy. Solar, Wind and literally everything else involves far more mining and far more 'gray CO2' in the production.
Nothing is zero carbon but nuclear is easily the closest thing we have. No other form of energy has a lower land use, lower resource use and produces less CO2. These are well established facts, however much anti-nuclear advocates want to ignore it.
One hand full of uranium is enough for a whole human live inclusive transportation heating and so on. Now compare this to the literal mountain of solar panels that would have to be produced (and the resource mined).