Nuclear waste is still an unsolved problem that absolutely no one wants to touch with a ten foot pole. Also nuclear power is a pretty expensive method of power generation and can't be insured, leaving all risk of disaster on the shoulders of society. To be clear: society will be pretty fucked when a nuclear disaster happens anyway.
It's a lot better than coal, though.
Storage of nuclear waste is solved. It's unbelievable that people say it's not.
Edit here https://youtu.be/lhHHbgIy9jU
Nuclear waste is a much smaller problem than most people think. The waste is very little and can be stored underground for eons without much risk.
Yes it exist for a long time, but one kilo of uranium produces as much energy as 16 ton coal, and leaves behind 47 grams of nuclear waste.
It's unsafe, not renewable, not independent from natural resources (which might not be present in your country, so you need to buy from dictators) and last but not least crazy expensive.
It's not renewable, but known reserves will power the world for a century, based solely on current average efficiency and not modern improvements
Need to buy from dictators?
I didn't realize Australia and Canada who has highest uranium reserves are dictators. Canada also used to be highest uranium producer until relatively recently.
There is no need. Though Kazakhstan and Russia may be cheapest if you're near there.
AFAIK in the USA, nuclear energy is the safest per unit energy generated. Solar is more "dangerous" simply because you can fall off a roof.
Nuclear energy has huge risks and potential for safety issues, yes. But sticking to the numbers, it is extremely safe.
If you're interested in energy solutions and haven't read the RethinkX report on the feasibility of a 100% solar, wind and battery solution, it's definitely worth taking a look.
Whilst I agree that we need to decarbonise asap with whatever we can, any new nuclear that begins planning today is likely to be a stranded asset by the time it finishes construction. That money could be better spent leaning into a renewable solution in my view.
The materials needed to produce batteries and wind turbines and maintain them over time is the issue. Did your 62 page report discuss this?
Exactly this. I am "in favor" of nuclear energy, but only in the sense that I'd like fossil power to be phased out first, then nuclear. Any money that could be spent on new nuclear power plants is better spent on solar and wind.
The good safety of nuclear in developed countries goes hand in hand with its costly regulatory environment, the risk for catastrophic breakdown of nuclear facilities is managed not by technically proficient design but by oversight and rules, which are expensive yes , but they also need to be because the people running the plant are it's weakest link in terms of safety.
Now we are entering potentially decades of conflict and natural disaster and the proposition is to build energy infrastructure that is very centralized, relies on fuel that must be acquired, and is in the hands of a relatively small amount of people, especially if their societal controll/ oversight structure breaks down. It just doesn't seem particularly reasonable to me, especially considering lead times on these things, but nice meme I guess.
Meme propaganda? In my Lemmy feed?
It’s more likely than you think
If the goal of this meme was to start a discussion pointing out all of the shortcomings or nuclear or was very successful.
Plenty of benefits, but pretty far from problem free.
When can we start talking about fusion again?
Solar and wind will always need batteries for times of low output, until we get more resilient and larger capacity batteries we will need a backbone to support the electricity grid to avoid having to overbuild battery capacity.
As of right now natural gas is that backbone but that could change and very well be nuclear energy until we figure out something like mass produced solid state batteries.
Aww I thought the back was going to say Steam Power.
Because that's what it is.