Well, I’d say that this argument is just as simplistic and binary. I’m in no way an expert, but from what I’ve gathered, nuclear power is nowhere near the clean power with long term storage as the only issue that many people seem to think. Mining is extremely dirty and nobody wants an uranium mine in their backyard. Yeah, next gen nuclear reactors that run on depleted uranium sound great in theory. Too bad they are just one corner closer from cold fusion. I am too for nuclear power because of pragmatic reasons so we can shelve fossil fuels until we have better, but pretending it is unproblematic is ridiculous and plain stupid.
Edit: It seems I have the unpopular opinion around here for saying that nuclear power is not entirely unproblematic. Gasp, my pearls!
It seems I have the unpopular opinion around here for saying that nuclear power is not entirely unproblematic.
There are a lot of people who, for reasons I can’t fathom, have convinced themselves without evidence that nuclear is the future.
Logical fallacy: “you can’t claim to support $GENERAL_AREA and be anti-$MY_SPECIFIC_THING at the same time “? I’m sure there’s a name for that type of fallacy
No True Scotsman: defending an ingroup by excluding members that don’t agree with a particular stance. A subset of the Appeal to Purity fallacy, which argues that someone doesn’t do enough or have enough of some attribute to be included in a group. Other examples (deliberately inflammatory to cause a knee-jerk reaction to show how easy it is to fall into these things) would be “You can’t be a good person and support Donald Trump for Persident” or “You can’t support Palestine and still vote for Biden.”
I don’t agree with OPs statement, but I do agree with their sentiment. Nuclear energy is one of the best options available from an environmental standpoint to meet our baseline energy needs and supplement grids using non-persistant renewable loke wind and solar.
Thanks. I like to think I’m an advocate for the environment but disagree with both the statement and the intent.
Nuclear fission has some nice properties we could use, but as an ideal. However the industry has also demonstrated it to be expensive and too long to build. It’s not practical
Renewables have some weaknesses we don’t entirely know how to fill yet. Storage is in infancy: great for stabilization but still trying to grow. However we’re not at the point where those weaknesses matter yet. The fastest and cheapest approach is to build out renewables and storage as much as possible, while continuing to develop more scalable storage or Fusion, or figure out how to make fission practical again, or simply how to minimize use of gas peaker plants
How high a percentage of renewables can we get, with current storage technology and still have a reliable grid? Let’s find out, plus that’s the amount of time where we need to decide on a more complete answer. We’re (US) not even close to that point, and easily have more than a decade at current rates before we do.
Edit: another answer is we no longer have time for nuclear. Given the history of how long it takes to build nuclear power plants, and our current emissions/climate change, we can’t afford to wait the decades it would take to build those out. Renewables can make an impact immediately
I mostly agree but it’s also important to look at updating the grid so power can be moved around using high voltage DC transmission.
We’ve got reliable solar in the Southern US, and massive potential for wind offshore and in the prairie states. If we can route power to where it’s needed that decreases the need to store it.
Bullshit, nuclear waste is incredibly toxic.
Yeah it’s a good thing we have clean burning gas and coal
It’s not as toxic as coal. It is only that you are used to those effects. It’s also a safer industry to work in. Technically safer even than wind and solar last I looked. I wouldn’t treat it as a permanent solution. But it could keep the lights on while we pivot to renewables.
I’m not sure if that’s an unpopular opinion so much as a completely incorrect one.
The simple truth is that nuclear is fucking expensive and takes a long time to build.
Renewables and storage are much cheaper and take way less time to start producing energy.
Given this, why would you be in favor of nuclear? Please don’t try and tell me about base load (not needed), SMRs (even more expensive) or fusion (not going to happen in our lifetimes)
nuclear is fucking expensive and takes a long time to build
So what? Cost is relative to supply, demand, and political willpower. Also, I suspect it’s much cheaper than carbon recapture.
Given this, why would you be in favor of nuclear?
I think you’ve lost the point entirely. The question is “what do we need to effectively generate electricity without fossil fuels?” Nuclear is one such answer. Heaven forbid we encourage the development of more than one thing at a time.
Cost is relative to supply, demand, and political willpower.
Cost is cost and with new nuclear you can add on a fair chunk to whatever amount is quoted because they often go way over budget.
Given renewables and storage is cheaper, why would you want to piss money away?
Heaven forbid we encourage the development of more than one thing at a time.
We’re been developing nuclear for 70 years. In that time it’s not got cheaper, in fact the opposite has happened. Time to let go.
Cost is cost … [in 70 years] it’s not got cheaper, in fact the opposite has happened.
I suppose you must still think a loaf of bread still costs the same it did 70 years ago, too. Prices are malleable thanks to the free market … and government subsidies. Why would anyone be so anti-nuclear when it’s another valuable tool for displacing fossil fuels? Are you shilling for the oil and gas industry?
Are you shilling for the oil and gas industry?
There it is.
If I was a fossil fuel lobbyist I’d be pushing new nuclear hard. I could argue that we should continue to burn coal and gas while we make the leap to nuclear … in 10-15 year’s time. No, let’s make that 20 years of more environmental destruction.
Hey, wait. Are you shilling for the fossil fuel industry?
No, let’s make that 20 years of more environmental destruction.
Okay, hold up. Just take a minute here to breathe. Nobody’s arguing against renewables. They, just like nuclear power, are a part of a healthy, diverse mix of technologies which will help displace fossil fuels. That’s the whole point: get rid of fossil fuels where we can in whatever way we can.
make the leap to nuclear … in 10-15 year’s time
We already did. 70 years ago. Then the fossil fuel industry successfully replaced existing nuclear generators with coal-fired plants.
If I was a fossil fuel lobbyist I’d be pushing new nuclear hard.
Are you seriously arguing that fossil fuel lobbyists do the exact opposite of what fossil fuel lobbyists have been recorded doing? In other words, are you trying to argue for a proven falsehood?
If so, we have a term for that: alternative facts. Go try and deceive someone else.
All your sophistry, ignorance, and rudeness aside, you’ve yet to make a single compelling argument for nuclear.
I think we’re done here.
To be fair, solar and wind are dependent on wind availability and solar availability year-round. Nuclear is buildable nearly anywhere. There are a lot of places other options aren’t as possible or efficient.
Nuclear is buildable nearly anywhere
It’s really not. It needs a reliable water source for a start.
There are plenty of environmentalists with binary thought patterns. If they can’t have the perfect system now, they’d rather let it all burn.
I don’t know enough about the technology to have strong opinions on this. I was opposed to nuclear because I thought, what would we do with all the nuclear waste?
And then somebody pointed out to me that apparently all the nuclear waste product in the world could fit into the area the size of one football field. Okay, I thought, that doesn’t seem too hard to keep contained.
But then I got to thinking about it and that can’t possibly make any sense. It’s not just the spent nuclear material, it’s miles of radioactive plumbing, tons of hardware, sheet metal, asbestos (still?), etc., all irradiated, all toxic to life. So now I’m on the fence again.
