Also the issue of mining the uranium, which is horrible for the areas mined. Nuclear isn’t an option because of financial reasons anyways and probably never will be, and that’s as a person who loves nuclear and used to be a budding nuclear power plant operator.

> Nuclear isn’t an option because of financial reasons anyways

Can you say more? This is probably the first time I hear that nuclear energy is not financially viable.

Not op, but he is probably referring to the costs of building a nuclear power plant in the US which requires a lot of safety systems, concrete, approval process, etc.... the key is that a coal or gas fired power plant would have the same costs of the steam turbine system but the reactor part of the power plant is vastly more complex in terms of controls and safety compared to a gas or coal fired plant.

Long story short, because of the reduced complexity in powerplants using fossil fuels, they are inherently cheaper per kilowatt. And therefore the more complex nuclear power plant costs more to setup and takes longer... Thus increasing the overhead and therefore rate at which one must charge for the power to be economical

It’s too expensive. Every other option is several times cheaper. It’ll never get less expensive because the inherent risks necessitate the expense. These expenses are mostly related to having to plan, construct, and operate a plant with perfection, which costs more than other power generation which don’t have as catastrophic a risk profile. Unfortunately, even with modern reactor designs, the risk remains high, so the cost remains high.

Almost but not quite.

The rules that require perfection are not there because of actual risk. We're past the point where things are already so safe, and releasing so much less radiation than coal plants, that getting stricter just makes the world worse.

Keep thinking that, but you’re wrong. Nuclear requires perfection.

But "perfection" is like the shoreline length paradox - once you look deep enough, you will never achieve perfection, it's physically impossible, so all you're doing is making it impossible for yourself to do anything.

Case in point - UK's latest nuclear power plant has been delayed and costs literally billions of pounds more than planned because hairline fractures were discovered in the reactor containment vessel. That sounds bad, right? Anyone who hears "nuclear containment vessel" and "fracture" immediately goes into panic mode and hence why the amount of money being spent on fixing this issue is literally unlimited and the entire project will be massively over budget in every possible way.

But......other nuclear reactors in britain(and in fact across the world) operate with the same fractures in their vessels and it's not considered a reason to shut them down. It's an inevitability of the manufacturing process, the vessel is still strong enough to withstand any kind of situation it could conceivably end up in, so it's literally nothing. But because it "sounds" bad the British public are spending billions to improve something that doesn't need improving, because like you said "Nuclear requires perfection". And I don't disagree with you in principle, but I think we have to acknowledge that perfection has a number of degrees to it.

> other nuclear reactors in britain(and in fact across the world) operate with the same fractures in their vessels and it's not considered a reason to shut them down

This should be viewed as "corrupted regulators" rather than "magically strong materials".

In 1986, the Challenger blew up. We learned that although originally good safety standards had existed, over time a series of small exceptions had been made, each one on the theory that "hey it never blew up yet, a small change won't matter".

Reactor licensing works like that. Sure, the reactor vessel is cracking which was never expected to happen. Sure, the graphite bricks are cracking which was never expected to happen. The important thing is, it never blew up yet, and that means it's perfectly safe to ignore the problems.

At some future point there will be a Problem and it will be dutifully explained that a series of small deviations from safe practices became normalized, blah-blah, and everyone will nod and take the lesson to heart, until it happens the next time.

>>This should be viewed as "corrupted regulators" rather than "magically strong materials".

Or you know, the fact that some of these reactors have been operating for close to 50 years and are fine is proof that it is actually indeed fine.

I don't know - would love to hear an expert argue either way.

The thing to ask is whether it's part of the (current) design and fully reviewed by engineers. The original design isn't gospel. What matters is updating the analysis.

What's the acceptable chance of leaking 100x as much radiation as a coal plant? Same question for 10x, 1x, 0.1x, and 0.01x

If you answer "zero chance" for all of those answers, you're being unreasonable, and choices like that increase the radiation you'll be exposed to.

>>. Nuclear isn’t an option because of financial reasons anyways and probably never will be

The thing is......the "core" of national energy grid shouldn't operate in the "for profit" model. Any wealthy country should have enough nuclear power stations to be completely independent of any external energy source, even if they lose money operating them. It's a matter of national security, not free market. That's just my 2 cents though.

I personally would like to see that, too, and under the auspices of the naval nuclear program currently running in the USA, however I doubt it’s politically feasible.

Do you have the same opinion about cobalt and lithium mining? Both are also horrendous for the environment and have major recycling issues, but people continue to push for EV's over ICE autos.

Sure but those can also be recycled. Standard nuclear reactors cannot. Like I said though, nuclear is financially non viable.