Re:A tale of two particles: Not all radioactivity is risky o...
by Schroedingersat on Wednesday December 07, 2022 @02:53AM
(#33891788)
"What about Gazprom" falls flat when Gazprom was sanctioned and Rosatom was not. No-one is claiming gas is better. I'm claiming we should do the thing which reduces the total amount of gas needed most quickly. Which is wind and solar.
As to China, the barriers to developing a renewable industry are vastly smaller than building a nuclear industry (as evidenced by Europe not sanctioning Rosatom but building new solar production, wind, and battery capacity).
Whether or not it's necessary, it remains true that when some countries try building their own infrastructure, they get it blown up by state sponsored terrorists https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
Regardless, plenty of smaller countries manage to get along with nuclear power just fine. Slovakia, Korea, Canada, the Czech republic, Argentina. Nuclear power has spread to every content, and dozens of countries. Centralizing reprocessing may help with nuclear weapons proliferation, but most countries have a regional hegemon that already have nuclear weapons that they're fine importing from.
How big was the business with Rosatom compared with Germany importing gas from Gazprom because they invested in an intermittent power source? China accounts for nearly 80% of the world's battery supply chain [1]. And over 80% for solar panels [2]. There's a strong case to be made that renewable are more centralized: besides wind it's just one country dominating the whole market. The enriched uranium supply is actually much more diverse: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1147358/leading-enriched...
1. https://www.onecharge.biz/blog/how-china-came-to-dominate-th...
2. https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains/ex...