Re:All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected
by doomleika on Tuesday November 02, 2021 @12:48PM
(#29083808)
The real reason is two fold:
1. Developed countries want to keep the developing country poor, by setting the narrative and keep nuclear: the cheapest/most efficient energy out of competitor's hand so they can stay poor.
2. Nuclear bomb ready country want to shut out every possibility for others to get a hands on them. Most nuclear warhead program started by using nuclear powerplant as disguise.
The environment problem is unsolvable because no one with the power want to solve them
Ostensibly the reason why bad actors (“terrorists” etc [0]) don’t have nukes today is because it’s hard to enrich the fuel.
Because small reactors with safer designs often have a side effect of creating enriched fuel as intermediary product. (Meaning such designs would make it easier to enrich fuel than building thousands of centrifuges.)
So, we decide not to build them.
But, what’s stopping the bad actors from building the smaller reactors themselves, as an “easier than building thousands of centrifuges” method of enriching fuel?
In other words, why would preventing the bad guys from using such tech, be a reason for the good guys to avoid building such tech? If it really does make enriching fuel easier, couldn’t the bad guys just build the reactors themselves?
If we were serious about non-proliferation, and the breeder/thorium/molten-salt/etc designs make enriching fuel easier… wouldn’t the idea of a reactors be the thing we want to protect? Rather than just the physical reactors themselves?
[0] Substitute “bad guys” and “good guys” with whatever group you want, the point is the same.