Ask Lemmy

just don't give it to Ghandi and everything should be fine

It should be managed by international committee and installed/managed anywhere that can afford it and have a proven history of low turmoil.

Giving people access to cheap, clean energy fixes a lot of problems.

Nuclear power is probably good, but my country has decided that we're not using it (Austria)

I'm skeptical, but not against it. It's not an existential threat to humanity as the general populous believes, but it's also not a silver bullet. Assuming we as a society wish to create more electricity (which is a pretty massive assumption, but a story for another time), nuclear power is the most appealing and effective option. Kyle Hill on YouTube has explained this in great depth. However, the wast disposal is still mildly problematic and always will be. What's more, the mining is certainly not a solved problem, and brings with it a reasonably high risk of contamination.

Perhaps if I knew a government agency trustworthier than the DOE (or US government as a whole) was involved, I would feel differently. However, I have seen how they have operated currently and historically first hand, and I don't find their methods satisfactory.

Personally, I think the better method is reduction of energy consumption. When I worked for the DOE, I was told that utilities were bleeding money, and ready to go bankrupt because household appliances had reduced demand that much. So they lobbied for electric vehicles, which has strained the grid in some ways, but that's a complicated story for another time. But as many of you already know, an EV is a highly ineffective means of reducing carbon emissions in the long-term. While more effective than gas, public transit, bicycles, and changes to infrastructure as the more effective means of reducing carbon emissions long-term.

Every country that's able should have some nuclear power if for no other reason than creating radioisotopes used for medicine.

pros:

• High ouput

cons:

• overall extremely expensive (you'll pay the govt. subsidies too, also the cleaning up after 50+ years)
• strategic target
• risk for population with "oversights" (big-money attracts corruption) *
• "fuel":
  • geopolitical dependencies (mainly russia)
  • even getting it is a ecological disaster (and its fans then call it "clean energy")
  • radioactive + toxic waste problem still not solved

All in all, it is a great excuse to have the expensive infrastructure for nukes and submarines (see France).

* the stories i know only from the rather thorough & proper countries Switzerland, Germany, France... it's crazy.

It takes billions and almost a decade to spin up a reactor. Current reactors are a generational risk. One bomb at Diablo Canyon and an area the size of New Jersey becomes uninhabitable for 1000 years.

Had Fukushima gone slightly differently you would have lost Tokyo and the 125 mile stretch of the island nation would be uninhabitable for a generation.

Lessons from a near miss

That’s not even considering the spent fuel concerns…

Meanwhile you could build plenty of solar and wind gen with none of the risk.

It won’t save us from climate collapse.

I think thorium reactors are really strong and safe to use mixed in with solar water and wind only using thorium would be kinda dumb tho

It's the least bad option for generating the base load. Although properly managed wind or hydro can deliver some, it's usually not enough.

That being said, I do think some of the fears are justified. It's about tradeoffs: do you want a low level of constant pollution (coal), or a catastrophic disaster once every 100 years (nuclear). Then there is also the waste, which is "solved" only if you permanently sacrifice some area, and hope geological movements or underground water don't touch it. So it's should definitely be an important part of the mix, but the risks shouldn't be dismissed.

France can serve as a positive example. Imo they are doing energy policy right.

We have some aging reactors from the 1980s.

Generally favourable views. It was a mistake to stop building them.

If you find the cooling water you can build one in my back yard if you like if the town I live in gets a few cents per kWh you produce.

Risky, better than fossil fuels in many ways, awesome scientific and industrial achievement

nuclear power is fine but extremely dangerous in the hands of the wrong person, not because nuclear power plants itself are dangerous but because we're 1 step away from someone making 1 bad joke about how we should use it in "other ways" and that would escalate international conflicts rapidly. and i do not trust the government to be stable enough to not eventually fall into the wrong hands. therefore, no. at least not in the foreseeable future.

Don't want it, don't need it. The nuclear furnace in space provides free fuel. What we need is massive storage. That's the next real battle.

People will argue that we don't have the tech yet. Well, we never have the tech until someone develops it. Do you suppose a chicken laid a nuclear plant? No, it was developed over time. So will energy storage.

Most things have already been said, but here my personal list:

• No way to get properly rid of waste jet
• Quite unreliable (AFAIK one of the French ones only operated half the time it should in 2024)
• Recourses for it are generally supplied by oppositional nations
• If they blow up it's bad, even if they don't by themselves they might through third party influence
• Generally positioned by politicians as an excuse to not build renewables, not replace fossil fuels
• They are a entry point for building nukes, their existence making anti nuke treaties hard to control

Most importantly: they don't make financial sense. Renewables provide the cheapest energy and even the required energy storages can compete on the market. The French Court of Auditors published a statement after one of the more recent power plants were openened that basically just: stop building fucking nuclear power plants they cost way to much