I think people undereatimate how bleak the short term future (50-100 years) is looking right now. We've forgotten how to properly build many of the things we once touted as the pinnacles of modern civilization and the current societal status quo is too fractured and stressed to ever pursue the kind of learning process needed to reaquire that knowledge. This is but one example among many.
And the risk ? "You cannot blame me for that !"
(especially since this is taxpayer funds, ie. everyone, decided by democratic vote, at least in France and the US. The democratic contract ought to mean that since we collectively decided to do this, we are also collectively responsible for the results, and yes, even if you voted for the other guy)
Nuclear power plants have been safer and more reliable than other forms of power.
In terms of reliability, nuclear has had the highest capacity factor of any source of power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor
In terms of accidents, nuclear has had a much better safety record than any other form of power up this point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents
(They don’t cover ground based solar which I would think would actually be the safest. Why do people keep wanting to subsidize roof top solar?)
Some other links on deaths due to energy production: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener... https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...
Unfortunately anything at all related to nuclear is covered by the media orders of magnitude more than other power sources so people have an understandable perception that it is much more dangerous than other sources of power. What if the Alison Canyon was a nuclear storage site (instead of a natural gas storage site) and 11,000 people had to be evacuated - how much would the media have covered that? Another recent example would be the evacuation at the Oroville dam - almost 200,000 (YES 200 thousand!) people were forcibly evacuated since the worst case failure scenario would have have been a tidal wave of water 30 feet high rushing down stream. This made the news for maybe a day. I can't blame some for being afraid of nuclear power, but there are many who should know better.
Ground-based solar has a cost in terms of the land being unavailable for other purposes, such as agriculture or housing or even just maintaining ecosystems in their natural state.
But roof-top solar is making use of a resource that is otherwise unproductive space anyway. There are also benefits to having energy production right at the point of use, since you avoid grid losses and are offsetting the retail cost of energy rather than selling into the grid at wholesale prices.
True, but I was mostly comparing the safety record. The death rate for rooftop solar is probably at least an order of magnitude worse than ground based solar. Even with subsidies it is also much more expensive.
>...There are also benefits to having energy production right at the point of use, since you avoid grid losses and are offsetting the retail cost of energy rather than selling into the grid at wholesale prices.
Very little of rooftop solar is used on site - it is just added to the grid.
Decommissioning nuclear plants is hugely expensive and a problem all over the world. It’s one of the main reasons why nuclear is now so expensive.
One hope is that it may be cheaper in future with advances in robotics, etc, which can operate safely in contaminated environments.
Reality is that you cut costs, and keep cutting costs more and more as long as that thing doesn't blow up, and if you have problems or minor leakage that you would have to report but can cover up, you do so.
And we didn't even get started with nuclear waste. What could and should be done and what is currently being done is again miles apart in many instances.
ahhhh the marvels of competition...