And than all you bring up is some technology which is in testing proving OPs argument.
Sure there are ways of reducing highly radioactive waste...at the cost of creating more waste you still have to store...and yeah sure you can dispose some of it in the sea. Also it costs a hell lot of money.
> Fossil fuels release about 33 billion tonnes annually
Nobody questions the bad side of fossils.
The topic is renewables vs. nuclear though.
And we went pretty heavy on Nuclear. Overall, I wouldn't say the problem is insignificant. But it is certainly a small problem, compared to building, maintaining, and renewing all the nuke plants themselves.
Which is surely just the fuel. Which itself is a tiny amount of the whole amount of waste a nuclear reactor is responsible for in his lifetime.
Now there's this thing called "global warming", caused by fossil fuels. That thing is poised to displace billions of people as parts of the planet becomes unfit for human life. That means wars, famine, and disease, whose scale will increase with the warming.
What's the greater risk? Those mid-level nuclear waste, or the continued use of fossil fuel? Sure we could have energy storage to make wind and solar work, but the costs to make that work at scale without a secondary source are enormous (I believe Jancovici once reported it would multiply the costs of renewable by 6 or so).
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There's no such thing as "clean" energy. It's a tradeof all around. Our problem right now is to find the least bad source of energy. Which by the way depends on the geographical and geopolitical situation of each part of the world. Nuke plants make more sense in France than they do in other countries. Iceland for instance has more geothermal opportunities.
No. That's just a proper grid with renewables. It works already within the single market of the EU.
> Now there's this thing called "global warming", caused by fossil fuels.
Yeah we've heard of it. Actually the country which is most ridiculed for turning off their nuclear fleet is the only one with an LAW to phase out coal completely. The only reason it took so long is because of the jobs in the industry. Other countries have other reasons. Some are just ideologically retarded. See states in the USA.
Nothing of all that has anything to do with nuclear. Nuclear isn't part of the calculation anymore. If you start building a reactor now in a civilized country where safety rules are relevant, you won't be finished by the time it's too late to save us from the results of global warming.
The topic "nuclear and global warming" is a straw man. It makes no sense at all.
> Nuke plants make more sense in France than they do in other countries.
You did get the news that it's just another year where France needs to turn off their nuclear fleet because their rivers get too hot? How do you even get the idea? I mean France has a huge coast, hills, whatever. There is ample opportunity for renewables. They just messed up their jump on the train tot the future. This is why they need to buy dirty coal power from Germany and the UK these days...again...
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I assume the fact that you didn't touch waste again is that you agree with me on that issue.
Yeah, in retrospect we should have put more plants around our coastlines.
> The topic "nuclear and global warming" is a straw man. It makes no sense at all.
Okay let's start over. We need to somehow reduce our emissions down to near zero. No oil, no gas, no coal. That leaves renewables (wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, forest wood), and nuclear. And energy savings.
Among all those, what can scale, at what cost, and what can we do with those? Hydro is maxed out in many parts of the world, geothermal doesn't work everywhere, forest wood is probably maxed out already (we can burn more, but it would cease to be renewed). That leaves wind, solar, and nuclear. With current tech, nuclear is the thing that takes the least concrete, the least real estate… and with the exception of regular maintenance and hot rivers delivers its full power at will.
Wind and solar however not only cost way more (per energy unit), they only deliver when the sun shines or the wind blows. In practice this puts a significant strain of the network. There are 3 ways to compensate for that: nuke plants, energy storage, and cutting off non-essential power.
Thing about nuke plants is, they're not less expensive when they run at less than full power. Beyond a certain point, more renewables doesn't need less nuke plants. It means just as many nuke plants, running below capacity. Having any more than that would be pure waste. One huge disadvantage however is that they're very capitalistic: we need a huge investment to make a single plant, and that requires a very stable political environment (a similar argument works for nuclear waste).
Energy storage is currently very expensive. It's nice to have some (like hydro dams), and it does mean that we can reduce the nuke installed based accordingly. But building huge swaths of batteries or flywheels may be much more problematic.
Finally we could cut-off non-essential power. I'm not entirely against that, but we need to keep in mind that this is not exactly a painless change (I do like my comfort).
Of course, we could mix the 3.
But takes the most time, cost hilarious amounts of money, creates waste for generations and is just another finite resource energy generation technology from the past.
This is not what we need to reduces our emissions down to near zero now. We need technology which is cheap, deployable before it is too late to reduce our emissions and accessible for every country on this planet. This technologies are renewables and only those.
So please...if you really care about the environment and are not merely one of those people who blindly recite Michael Shellenbergers Astro-Turf campaign, don't mention nuclear on this topic again. It doesn't make any sense.
> Thing about nuke plants is, they're not less expensive when they run at less than full power.
Think about nuke plants is, they're least expensive when they are turned off. Even the grid profits from that since you don't have that expensive nuclear crap clogging up the lines so cheap renewable energy generation has to be turned off.
Time to face it: nuclear is done....at least in the civil sector.
> But [nuclear] takes the most time, cost hilarious amounts of money
Depending exactly what you mean, this is either very true, or dead wrong. It is true that a single nuke plant costs gigantic amounts of time, money, and resources. But it also deliver significant power, typically 1GW (sometimes a bit less, generally more). Windmills are vastly cheaper, but typical ratings are around 1MW, and that’s a maximum, not an average, and if you need to control energy output you’ll need a buffer (batteries, flywheels, dams…).
To replace a single nuke plant, you’ll probably need something like 2000 windmills, and energy storage to match. Or less if you’re okay with temporary power shortages (a harsh but valid political choice).
Now which is cheaper? One nuke plant? Or 1-2K windmills? All those windmills will need a lot of concrete, for which we’re destroying quite a few beaches (desert sand does not work unfortunately). You’ll also need quite a bit more rare earth materials to get that thousand dynamos to work. And eventually you’ll need to transport all that in a world without oil (one reason renewable energy is cheap is because transport is still cheap, thanks to oil).
> We need technology which is cheap, deployable before it is too late to reduce our emissions and accessible for every country on this planet.
Agreed.
> if you really care about the environment and are not merely one of those people who blindly recite Michael Shellenbergers
Here’s my main source: https://jancovici.com/
One thing to note: the guy doesn’t even pretend nuclear power will replace what we have now. He’s just saying that no matter what we do, our energy consumption will inexorably go down, and that will start soon, if it hasn’t already. Since energy is a physical measure of how much we can transform our world, that means we’ll be able to transform it less and less, a.k.a. the economy will shrink, a.k.a. big ass long term recession. And that’s before we make it even worse in the name of staving off global warming.
His thesis is that nuclear power will not be enough to stop the fall. But it might significantly soften it, and we can only hope that it will be enough.
I'm only commenting on a portion of the argument against nuclear based on its waste.
The fact is the waste is negligible. Esspecially so when you consider the return of energy from a nuclear reactor Per square meter of real estate versus most viable renewables
I'm personally of the opinion why not both. So I'm biased of course, but nuclear isn't something to be afraid of. Purely BECAUSE of technology.
It doesn't matter how much energy it "returns". It doesn't make the waste less worse for generations.
> Per square meter of real estate versus most viable renewables
You can literally put solar on roofs of private buildings...if your local fossil/nuclear lobby allows it. I don't even get how this is relevant. Especially because of the issue with constantly running nuclear reactors in an old grid clogging it up so cheap renewable energy needs to be turned off.
> but nuclear isn't something to be afraid of. Purely BECAUSE of technology.
Those jumps you make here from unfunded claims about waste disposal over derailing into fossil, whitewashing of that waste and old school baseload myths make me thing you're the one who's afraid of technology.
What about the 16% of americans living in apartments? that’s just apartments, not counting condos or other units where you don’t have permission to install things on the roof. what do these people do for power?
I didn't say this is supposed to be the only way of getting power. You can put solar everywhere. Not just on roofs and you might have heard about wind. That's a thing too.
> I didn't say this is supposed to be the only way of getting power.
Your previous comments do sign you up very much in favour of anything other than nuclear.
> . Not just on roofs and you might have heard about wind. That's a thing too.
It certainly is, but to my previous point of 'per square meter return' .. Are you planning to organise a turbine with the local people of each apartment block ?
I sound facetious, but actually I'm not sure you know how energy is delivered.
Renewable's are amazing, the more the merrier. But discarding nuclear over it's waste isn't a genuine argument.
We've gotten better than the 60s/70/80 when old plants were built - granted through horrific experiences. That shouldn't stop us from pursuing cheap energy.
Thanks to technology we know how to even automate where humans fail. We know how to distribute more efficiently.
We also know how to use solar, wind and aqua. It will never be as efficient as splitting the atom though.
Again I reiterate - Why not both ?
How isn't it when it actually is in Germany?
> We've gotten better than the 60s/70/80 when old plants were built
How so when the waste from those reactors is still stored next to those reactors?
> That shouldn't stop us from pursuing cheap energy.
Nuclear is not cheap.
> We also know how to use solar, wind and aqua. It will never be as efficient as splitting the atom though.
It doesn't have to be as "efficient" as your steam engine with generations-waste-extra. It's cheap as hell and it's getting cheaper and better fast. Something you can't say about nuclear. A technology from the past.
> Again I reiterate - Why not both ?
Because:
a) you didn't offer any solution for the waste
b) you can spend every dollar only once
c) we're right on the path to the new cold war....you should get rid of those rotting vulnerabilities and opt in for decentralised independence.
It’s getting cheaper. The primary reason it’s not cheap currently is every reactor built is site specific. This will soon change with smaller reactors being built in factories then installed.
> Something you can't say about nuclear. A technology from the past.
This seems like an attack again on nuclear. Stars use nuclear reactions for energy, you’re alive because of a nuclear reaction. Why are you so quick to throw it out?
And you still haven’t answered my question. What do these people do for power? I can’t put a wind turbine on the roof of my apartment anymore than a solar panel. And as your parent stated, there’s transmission and physical surface area concerns.
Once we solve the energy problem, population growth is our next one. We can’t make anymore land, and people advocating for taking large swaths of land, or even ocean, are setting us up for future land use issues. Think beyond the immediate next step.
I'm looking forward to those sources on that bold claim.
> This will soon change
...and I hope that claim was not based upon that wishful thinking but on actual facts which are valid today.
> Stars use nuclear reactions for energy, you’re alive because of a nuclear reaction. Why are you so quick to throw it out?
Nobody wants to turn off stars. This is a unnecessary derailment.
And we're quick to throw it out because the money needs to go into renewable technology which can be deployed fast and cheap to face the current global crisis.
> What do these people do for power? I can’t put a wind turbine on the roof of my apartment anymore than a solar panel
What do these people do if they want to eat a hamburger? Do they all have a cow in their basement? I mean seriously...what is this?
> Once we solve the energy problem, population growth is our next one....
I don't even...
https://www.ien.com/operations/news/21107432/nextgen-factory...
> Nobody wants to turn off stars. This is a unnecessary derailment.
I don’t see it that way, what I see is someone ignoring science because they’re scared.
> What do these people do if they want to eat a hamburger? Do they all have a cow in their basement? I mean seriously...what is this?
Actually if you go back in history, yes before food storage and transport was a thing people did have to have a cow in their basement, or close by. I can go lay eyes on the reactors close to me, and other coal fired plants. Where will we put the massive panels and wind turbines? You’re still avoiding the question.
> I don't even...
So ignore the housing crisis? Again only think one step ahead? Do you think our population numbers are decreasing? How much land are the land factories putting out these days? Think ahead, taking large swaths of land is going to come back to bite us.
Plasma disposal is also feasable for reducing the waste even further. RE : https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/...
Fossil fuels release about 33 billion tonnes annually in co2 release. And that's not even possible to contain. https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and...
So the `~5k cubic meters of nuclear waste a year` mentioned elsewhere really is a grain of sand in comparison.