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Most people support nuclear but I'm 100% behind this book and it's thesis. Done a lot of research, and I wish information about this topic was more widespread.
For real. It’s not a solution, and in the time it would take to nuclearize our grid, we could have fully transitioned to clean energy and long term battery solutions multiple times over, for less money to boot, and with significantly less creation of sacrifice zones like the still currently irradiated lands of the indigenous peoples in the southwest. You cannot cleanly mine nuclear fuel. You cannot cleanly store nuclear waste. I live within 50 miles of a nuclear dump site, and there’s a bar across the street that still to this day has elevated cancer rates, despite it now being “safe” enough that they’ve decided to build houses in the area.
Nuclear requires you to care less about the health of the vulnerable than your own, full stop. I understand that if the choice were between coal and nuclear, nuclear would win. Good thing we don’t have to make that choice.
Oh and the current entire planets known fuel including what is in the ground would power our current use of power for less than 10 years.
what type of long term battery solutions are you thinking about? batteries are not light enough, efficient enough, or environmentally sustainable enough for mass networks like some people talk about for EVs and solar storage. even if nickel hydride is a perfect battery, slapping batteries on everything will not save us from the fact that solar, wind, and wave energy have peaks and valleys unrelated to consumption. nuclear is a competitor in the field of non-scalable power, so it’s not like one solves problems of the other.
nuclear waste can be stored safely, by salt injection at the very least. it’s worth mentioning many of the worst forms of radioactive waste come from reactors that were designed for weapons production and from oil production. the fact that radioactive waste is poorly stored is because of massive regulatory failure in the US. for instance, oil waste legally cannot be hazardous in USamerica, so the workers and sites that handle the waste don’t have to worry about radiation. similarly, a lot of the southwestern contamination you’re talking about is from weapons testing and production. any just society wouldn’t have set off dozens of nuclear weapons anywhere. the bit about running out of fuel is based on humanity never improving reactor designs. pebble bed reactors have been designed to use the byproducts from the military’s depleted uranium. if and when the political will is there for it, there are plans to build a reactor near the plant in kentucky where they have acres and acres of uranium.
i appreciate your concern for the real effects nuclear power and energy have had in the US, but they didnt happen because nuclear power can’t ever be used. they happened because the US has been reckless and evil about it
Long term batteries are not chemical in nature but mechanical.
I don’t have the time to argue, but most of what you’re saying is not anything new, just more nuclear folly, and has been accounted for in my statements.
And no. The contamination I am referring to is specifically from mining, and exclusively so. There is also radiation associated with testing and production, certainly, but that is not what I am talking about. But you can tell my friends who have never been anywhere near a testing or production facility but who grew up near a mine that they’re dying of cancer right now because of it if you want, it would be wrong, and disrespectful and I’d probably pop you in the face if you did it while I was there to be honest, but you can do it.
yes, improperly stored radioactive waste can leak into water and soil. the mining waste that existed historically (and is still being made today by fracking) was damaging to the environment because it was not regulated. you refuse to acknowledge this point, i guess? and why are you randomly wielding people with cancer like a cudgel? i’d love for you to explain what i said that is so offensive you think it’d be worth shooting me for. nuclear policy, like literally any other matter of politics, can not be determined by our personal feelings or by repeated reference to how things have effected people we know.
most of the worst effects that exist today are a matter of regulatory failure, and most uranium mining in USamerica has been shut down. i made a point about how already mined and processed “waste” uranium can be used in a reactor. you didn’t address what i said about almost anything. if you think batteries are a mechanical device, i don’t think there’s hope for you in this conversation. speaking pretentiously about not having time and then saying i should watch my mouth is not a substitute for an actual point
Popping you in the face doesn’t mean shooting you, maybe a difference in dialect, but it means I’d punch you in the face. Haven’t finished reading your comment, but I felt it imperative to point out that I wouldn’t shoot you, I’d punch you.
Salt injection is not safe waste storage, it is putting the waste off into the future to hopefully be dealt with by the future generations, and hopefully never accidentally dug up, and hoping that that land can be maintained permanently in perfect conditions and there’s never a change in state power that results in neglect. It’s literally idealist thinking at its finest. Don’t create waste that relies upon permanent idealism to manage.
Even worse if you’re referring to the injection process in molten salt reprocessing when you’re talking salt injection, which is not an even less reliable source of power than regular nuclear, and costs 5x what solar does per megawatt hour.
The waste stored at the location I speak of is stored in the most safe way according to all regulations, and has no leaked, its mere presence results in higher cancer rates for those nearby, despite being underground. And when we’ve tried to move it, people have (rightfully) blocked the trucks on the highway until it was forced to be returned.
You said the contamination I’m talking about in the southwest comes from production and testing, but it doesn’t, it comes from the mines, which leak into the water table after the radioactive materials have been disturbed. Aerosolization of radiocarbons is inherent part of mining, and results in soil contamination as well. The process is inherently dirty, regardless of any regulations taken. The world isn’t a clean room, you can’t mine in a clean room. You can’t create optimal conditions. We already have to damage the environment for metals, no reason to do so for heavy metals also, and permanently harm generation after generation after generation, as is literally unavoidable in radioactive material mining.
i appreciate the clarification comrade, definitely a dialect mixup there. i think that colored some of the rest of my response.
by salt injection, i mean creating artificial caverns deep inside salt formations and then injecting a waste slurry into them. i do not mean the existing methods used in south carolina or the proposal for yucca mountain. if you’ve seen evidence that creating artificial salt caverns doesn’t work, i’d love to see that.
i feel like the last paragraph is something we’re both saying. the real life and historic use of nuclear energy in USamerica, at every step, has involved the horrible treatment of the workers and the people who lived near the sites. i feel that that is a result of the US government, not the inherent nature of nuclear power. to give an example, my uncle fell off a roof putting up solar and is on disability right now. i can think of a good number of friends, family, and neighbors with long term health issues because of contracting work. i think that that means we ought to have higher safety standards and better working conditions, not that building houses or installing solar is a lost cause
Falling off a roof and multiple generations of people including people born decades after the closure of the mines suffering life threatening cancers are different. We can have a decent government, but we can’t put the cat back in the bag on radiation, no matter who is in the government. I do not believe it is possible to safely mine nuclear components, it has never been done in human history, regardless of what government it was under, or in what country. There are places where it is less bad, certainly, but it is always bad on some level.
You cannot cleanly mine nuclear fuel. You cannot cleanly store nuclear waste.
solar panels and wind turbines famously do not require any colossal amounts of mining of hazardous materials in developing countries
all those rare earth elements that China is processing magically rose up out of the ground in their purified form instead of scarring the landscape and poisoning the water
human existence on this planet necessities environmental destruction until asteroid mining and orbital habitats become viable. you can pretend that X solution has little environmental impact while Y is extremely dangerous and bad but your opinion does not impact a 12 year old Congolese worker digging cobalt out of the earth with his bare hands in the slightest. the green revolution will be paid for in blood and contaminated soil and giant quarries, just as the fossil fuel revolution was paid for in blood and oil spills and carbon dioxide. of course, I think it's worth it, but it's generally not my blood being spilled nor my land being contaminated or quarried
your opinion does not impact a 12 year old Congolese worker digging cobalt out of the earth with his bare hands in the slightest
Which is not even necessary - Australia has tremendous cobalt reserves and the was top global producer in the 80s and early 90s until the industry collapsed because it's cheaper to do horrific colonialism
Good thing we have to continually mine more fuel for those renewables in perpetuity like we do with nuclear, right?
nuclear fuel reprocessing is a thing
and recycling can only take you so far, you will have to keep mining for new metals for renewables regardless
What you are saying goes against decades of industry funded hasbra. How dare you question the narrative and actually use facts and reality in you rhetoric.
Huh?
Ralph Nader
Ok, good bit.