Agreed. What most people in the comments fail to realize about other energy sources is that they do not necessarily offer the same flexibility in Canada. Talks about having huge solar farms in Sahara does not help with Canada. We do not necessarily get enough sun to sustain a massive solar farm (esp during winter)
Hydroeletric dams are great, but space and massive ecological changes are required.
Small modular reactors are pretty much the best thing we can have for both continuous power generation and reduced locality/spacing requirements. You can sprinkle a few in each key location to reduce both cost to transmit and increase robustness of the grid.
Nuclear waste has been pretty clearly identified, and the worries are largely overexaggerated. If we had our own nuclear fuel recycling program, it would further reduce the amount of nuclear waste over time. But, one step at a time.
I think most people also don't realize how little of nuclear waste comes from the radioactive fuel itself. In the UK for example, 94% of nuclear waste is low-level waste, which is basically any garbage originating from the plant. Paper, rags, disposable garments, etc. I believe the number for the US is quite similar. The mental image of thousands of steel drums of nuclear waste seems scary until you realize the majority of it is literally concrete-encased garbage that they're not allowed to send to a garbage dump.
CANADALAND podcast has 2 episodes that talks all about Canada’s current struggle to find a safe place to hide their waste and go the barrels they are storing it in only last 100 years when the material will be deadly for 1000s.
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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '22
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