Re:Germany is closing half of its reactors before the end of...
by warble on Saturday December 25, 2021 @08:03PM
(#29688660)
It's mostly expensive due to artificial reasons. If we invested the effort we have in renewables into nuclear, the price, availability and reliability would increase in a similar fashion.
https://youtu.be/c1QmB5bW_WQ is aimed at the lay audience.
The issue is that radiation is a silent killer, so it is extremely easy people with vested interests in (say) fossil fuels to exploit our inability to access risk. Coal hurts people every single day, but it doesn't have the same poetic weight as radiation so this is lost on the general public.
Nuclear power is expensive, however. Dealing with the waste is also an issue but firstly, forcing us to deal with the waste seriously is potentially not such a bad thing (assuming we need nuclear in the long run, which unless storage comes a very long way we presumably will), and secondly this is the kind of question where a government with a lot of political capital needs to just find some deserted land to build a long term solution.