And you fell for the fossil fuels propaganda claiming nuclear is too expensive to without subsidies. Seriously.. new nuclear is on the drawing board with huge investments in the UK, France and Sweden.
Nuclear will be cheap when the industry grows and reactor designs are standardized.
It's really simply the superior technology any way you look at it and the "nuclear is too expensive" is just a tired and arguably false argument against it. I'm so sick and tired of people saying that it's too expensive to save the planet..
In reality there is a lot of research pointing to nuclear power certainly not being anywhere near as cheap as "too cheap to meter". Claiming this is all "fossil fuel propaganda" is stupid and lazy. So far, there has rarely ever been a nuclear power plant built on budget and on time. Most run way over. And often the costs for cleanup and decommissioning are not priced in properly or even at all. Most industries have to pay insurance for their risks, the - actually uncomputable - risk of nuclear power rests on the whole society, while the profits accumulate with the shareholders of the power company. Ask Japan how that is working out for them currently...
"Drawing board" is the operational term. Nuclear power is always late and it's always more expensive than promised. Why is the nuclear power industry subsidized so much everywhere when it's actually a good investment? Have government agencies suddenly become good at investing or are they just charities for corporate interests?
I'm not even saying it's "too expensive", by the way. I'm not totally against nuclear power, I do see the benefits. It has its place, probably. But I know about fat tail distributions and the unpredictability of the future. You really don't want anybody shooting rockets and artillery shells around a nuclear facility a few hundred miles near you. Today that's Ukraine and much of eastern Europe, who says that in the next fourty or fifty years, the lifespan of a typical plant, that's not you either? In Mossul ISIS hunted around for nuclear material to build a dirty bomb, luckily they didn't find the stuff that actually was there. Who says your country will not have a rogue militia like that in the next fifty years?
And then the nuclear industry is unwieldy. It requires a large and expensive specialized infrastructure. Which can be amortized eventually, yes. But much of that investment is upfront and the recuperation is dependent on a lot of things going exactly right for a very long time. Also it requires a huge labor force that has to be trained for this specific task and then can hardly do anything else. France has the problem of a shortage. In short: It's hard and expensive to get into nuclear technology and it's even harder to get out of it.
And in order to solve the climate crisis using nuclear power there are two major problems: First, it's already too late, because nuclear power is so slow. Secondly, you'd need to nuclearize much of the world, including countries with questionable regulatory regimes to say the least. This makes all the problems we see now a lot worse...
I wasn't saying that nuclear IS "too cheap to meter" I'm saying it could be. And my statement about fossil fuels propaganda was merely a jab back at your snarky comment. Your absolutely right that most of the new reactors that have been built in the west has been delayed and exceeded budget and all I'm saying is that this wouldn't have been the case of the industry had kept growing and evolving back in the 80s. Japan is way overreacting with Fukushima and that plant was old as fuck and was literally built on a fault line without taking proper precautions. Tell me how many died as result of the Fukushima incident and how much radioactive water has polluted the surroundings ? I'd urge you to go look it up, but you probably won't.
Sorry i meant all those countries are planning to invest billions of euros into building new reactors now that the EU has deemed nuclear power green. You are talking like other power generation like wind, solar etc is not subsidized ? Hope is the unique to nuclear? Nuclear is subsidized and tightly controlled/regulated for obvious reasons and honestly imho all energy infrastructure should be tightly tied to government as is the case in most of Europe.
Even if Russia was too hot the nuclear power plant in Ukraine with a cruise missile the damage and contamination would be fairly local and I'd imagine hitting a coal or gas power plant with a cruise missile would be just as bad. Besides that hitting a nuclear power plant with cruise missile would be considered firing a nuke and don't think Russia is ready to do that yet. Taking about dirty bombs is just plain stupid, why the hell would you through all that trouble when there's much much cheaper and simpler ways to do damage?
Yes it requires some new infrastructure but in many cases you can switch coal, gas and oil plants almost 1:1 with nuclear. What's wrong with having lots of highly educated people working with supplying the world with energy ? And how is it different from solar, wind etc? France has problems because they still have a huge anti nuclear movement making it very hard to invest properly in maintenance and new plants, besides that France's shortage is because Germany suddenly requires allot more electricity because of stupid investments.
It's never too late.. sure we can also build what is the fastest solution but nuclear is the best bet long term.
Ah yes, "it could be". An unrefutable and unprovable statement without proof. It's purely wishful thinking that nuclear power will become any easier in the future. Japan is not "overreacting", it has to clean up the damn mess not just to one day use that area again, but also to avoid spreading the contamination. Just because nobody dies immediately from the exposure doesn't mean the ground is safe to handle or live on. Case in point: The Russian soldiers in Tschernobyl digging in contaminated ground and spreading it further. Your point about a low immediate death count after Fukushima is just as dishonest, stupid and lazy: People would have had their lifes cut shorter by the radiation exposure, if they hadn't been evacuated at great cost.
Most of your arguments are entire bullshit and I really don't have the time to waste. No, if one of the nuclear plants in Ukraine blows up, the effects are not "very local" and I suspect the locals do care. So should you when a nuclear plant near where you live goes online. Also the biggest nuclear plant in Europe is hurting Ukraine's defense just by sitting there and doing its job perfectly: The Russians discovered that they can shoot artillery from there without anyone shooting back. Nuclear plants are defensive weak points under any circumstance.
A dirty bomb is a viable terror weapon. You can spread radioactive material quite far with an amount of explosives that wouldn't be able to cause near as much death and terror. Good deal, especially when you got the Plutonium and what not for free...
People like you are lying through your teeth by saying the only alternative to nuclear is fossil fuels. I don't even know anyone who believes this.
And no, we can't wait for nuclear power. A world full of nuclear power plants is unsafe. Maybe in Norway or Finland with the most honest and least corrupt governments (at presents) and no immediate threats from the outside it seems safe. But really, betting on nuclear power means betting on a perfect world during the next few decades at least.
You just continue to profess to a profound ignorance on how radiation exposure work, what happened and is happening right now in Tschernobyl and Fukushima, and make hand wavy arguments "Such accidents are never going to happen and aren't actually that bad, for real this time, pinky promise with cherry on top".
And you can just continue fear mongering trying to hold the world back further. The world is going nuclear wether you like it or not, America's biggest enemies Russia and China already have it big time and there's a very big limit to what countries America can hold back line they've tried to do with Iran. If anyone is had bullshit arguments it's you; you clearly haven't done any research into Tjernobyl and Fukushima and fear mongering about dirty bombs is just beyond stupid. Så thank you for ending the conversation. Glad the world has started moving on and had started seeing through bullshit like what you have presented in this argument. Write me back in 10 years and let's see what technology won.
There's no evidence or reality to "nuclear is coming back". Some politicians talk a big talk, that's all. Nor did or do I say it's not going to happen, but in most of the developed/semi-developed world except China it's currently definitely not happening. Just another nuclear fanboy fantasy ignoring reality.
You know who cares about dirty bombs? Every intelligence agency and counter terrorism unit in the world. So far it hasn't happened, but if nuclear power is scaled up, this stuff will be way more accessible. A lot like the gun violence problem in the US, but I guess the denialism around those topics is similar.
I personally care most about the closest nuclear facilities, not so much those in China. And in reality, neither Tschernobyl nor Fukushima have been cleaned up yet and continue to be a problem to be felt financially at the very least. I know quite a bit about it, but some people apparently think it's only bad if you die instantly... But it certainly makes some weak arguments easier, doesn't it? Who cares about people losing decades of their life...
Nuclear will be cheap when the industry grows and reactor designs are standardized.
It's really simply the superior technology any way you look at it and the "nuclear is too expensive" is just a tired and arguably false argument against it. I'm so sick and tired of people saying that it's too expensive to save the planet..