this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (72 children)

imagine how much farther ahead we would be in safety and efficiency if it was made priority 50 years ago.

we still have whole swathes of people who think that because its not perfect now, it cant be perfected ever.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (69 children)

So uh, turns out the energy companies are not exactly the most moral and rule abiding entities, and they love to pay off politicians and cut corners. How does one prevent that, as in the case of fission it has rather dire consequences?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (49 children)

I mean it's not the companies operating the facilities we put our trust in, but the outside regulators whose job it is to ensure these facilities are safe and meet a certain standard. As well as the engineers and scientists that design these systems.

Nuclear power isn't 100% safe or risk-free, but it's hella effective and leaps and bounds better than fossil fuels. We can embrace nuclear, renewables and fossil free methods, or just continue burning the world.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Don’t push nuclear power like it’s the only option though.

Where I live we entirely provide energy from hydro power plants and nuclear energy is banned. We use no fossil fuels. We have a 35 year plan for future growth and it doesn’t include any fossil fuels. Nuclear power is just one of the options and it has many hurdles to implement, maintain and decommission.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

My country, Sweden, also gets a decent chunk of power from hydro. Back in 2021, about 43% was hydroelectric, and 31% was nuclear.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Honestly, if you can, hydro is brilliant. Not many places can though — both because of geography and politics. Nuclear is better than a lot of the alternatives and shouldn't be discounted.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

And what do YOU know about radioactive waste disposal?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

We can bury it in the ground and it will literally turn into lead. How are you doing with carbon emissions? Got a fix?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I think it's photosynthesis. 'Bury in the ground' is an extreme simplification btw. Also, I am finished with this topic scince long anough. It feels politically biased. If you'd like to reply, I'd hear it gladly. But I m not going to be involved into a discussion.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know it's a damn lot easier than carbon recapture, if we're talking waste products. It's not ideal, but there is no such thing as perfect, and we shouldn't let that be the enemy of good. Nuclear fission power is part of a large group of methods to help us switch off fossil fuels.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Easier"? Are you aware of the fact that radioactive waste tombs are meant to stand for millions of years? It requres a lot of territory, construction and servance charges, and lots of prays for nothing destructive happens with it in its "infinite" lifetime.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you tried capturing gas? As difficult as radioactive waste tombs are, they're easier than containing a specific type of air lol.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Read about breathing if you want to know how to capture gas. Also, about photosynthesis.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you want to buy the land to plant a second Amazon, be my guest. And breathing does the exact opposite of what we want.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

I'd rather fill land with trees than with radioactive wastes.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Launch it into the sun or Florida

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Launching radioactive waste into space is a terrible idea, because rockets on occasion crash. Once that happens it becomes a nuclear disaster.

Instead we can safely store it in depleted mines.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mines fill up with water if they're not constantly pumped out. Even the salt mines which seemed like a solution were found to have this issue

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Dig a hole, anywhere, there's a chance it'll fill with water. Especially with climate change. We're seeing moisture getting dropped in areas at greater frequencies that didn't happen decades ago. There's no guarantee you can dig a hole anywhere on earth that wouldn't become apart of our aquifers as the water travels back to the ocean.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sealing a deep narrow borehole isn't a difficult problem. The Earth has contained oil and gas underground for millions of years.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Its contained it using geological features but once exposed how is it possible to recreate that. Its also not like this material is goo

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is no guarantee of anything.

But if you're storing it hundreds of miles from the ocean, the risk is minimal.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It isn't really minimal since the water cycle on earth is all connected.

Water in the ocean evaporates. It's carries inland by Hadley cells that deposit the moisture inland. It gets dumped on the highest points which all run back the ocean and creating all our aquifers along the way. Those aquifers feed our great lakes and wells.

But you're suggesting we bury toxic material that remains toxic for hundreds or thousands of years somewhere remote that would just be high up in that water cycle. In places where private companies would be out of the eyes of watchdog groups

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