š¹Early to RISA š§Anon finds a plot hole
jaykrownIt takes time to come to the realization that a lot of what we do is inefficient because thatās just what people are used to doing. Some towns survive solely due to coal mining, and they see it as an existential threat if it were shut down. Nuclear power also takes very knowledgeable individuals, years of planning, and many resources to get started. Coal is cheap, dirty, and primitive.
Nuclear also isnāt even a good energy source. Way too expensive and the waste is a problem for millenia. Renewables + hydrogen/battery/mechanical energy conservation is simply superior. Fusion would be cool too
Nuclear is a great energy source. My state (Illinois) generates over half of all its energy from nuclear. France is a great example of a country that maximizes the potential of nuclear energy. The waste is not a problem if itās stored properly. The much bigger problem are carbon/methane emissions which are fucking our climate right now. Also, nuclear waste can be reprocessed to make it less volatile and radiotoxic, but that requires an advanced application of technology.
Batteries and solar absolutely yes, we need to be scaling up battery technology as fast as possible, particularly sodium-ion batteries for static energy storage from solar power. The biggest problems with wind/solar is the actual storage of the energy. No wind? No power. No sun? No power. Thatās why you need batteries, and battery technology has only gotten good enough in the past couple years.
Scaling up hydrogen is very difficult, itās extremely volatile, and can realistically only be used in large scale power plants because transporting hydrogen is extremely expensive. Fusion could be good, but itās still being worked on, and who knows how long itāll really take for us to have a practical implementation.
France only pushed for nuclear, because they need an excuse for the costs of their nukes and nuclear submarines. The disadvantages of high cost and nuclear waste remain.
Franceās 80 years of nuclear waste takes about the space of an Olympic swimming pool and half.
In a millena, itāll be 150 swimming pools, and thatās assuming we havenāt found a way to repair/reuse/recycle it in 1000 years. Or not decided to just yeet it on the nearest inhospitable planet via railcannon or something.
Nuclear waste is a non issue.
If itās such a non issue, how come we still donāt have a single long term storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in the world? After more than 70 years of nuclear energy production.
We do, itās called (really big hole)[en.wikipedia.org/ā¦/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repoā¦]
Which is still not operational, just like the dozens of other potential storages, we started building just to find out last minute that they are not suitable. Or even better, those we started using just to find out they were not suitable to begin with later. Iām curious to read how many billions it will cost to retreive the waste from Onkalo in 30 years when weāve learnt that itās also not safe for the next million years.
ānot operationalā as in āconstruction is not completeā, sure, but they were able to start testing at that facility in 2024, and it will be complete and ready for full operational use in 2026. Just because other storage facilities didnāt work out in the past doesnāt mean new ones are doomed as well. This project has been in development for a few decades now, and theyāre learning from all those previous mistakes.