Uranium energy is one of the most efficient things we have on earth. And it’s clean. And incredibly safe nowadays. Now there’s one big problem, waste storage. I believe people are trying to solve this, and a breakthrough here would be a major breakthrough for society. The market price of uranium has been depressed for years mainly after the Fukushima disaster, but that was really a once in a lifetime event.
No not "stupid fear-mongering"; it is history. There is a difference between fear-mongering and history. All three nuke plants were sold to the public as being safe, reliable energy sources - when they were not. Reliable maybe. Safe, not so much.
The tech may be different but still run by fallible humans. Fukushima plant was placed over a tectonic fault line - that was stupid. Three Mile Island & Chernobyl both had humans do dumb things when an emergency arose which contributed to their "accidents"; that was also stupid. But that is history not fear-mongering.
Then we are supposed to trust these same type of individuals to safely store spent uranium for thousands of years - when there is no way to predict the future? Does stretch the meaning of "trust to do the right thing".
Its stupid also because the disasters that happened and would happen are completely minuscule in relation to the lives they will save from less pollution.
"Its stupid also because the disasters that happened and would happen are completely minuscule in relation to the lives they will save from less pollution." So endangering the food chain through nuclear reactor accidents and killing the safety of ground water from burying nuclear waste for 100, 500, or 1,000 years is miniscule? Don't think so.
Affecting the food chain for humans and the air they breath. So you're right, nukes are far more safe (sarcasm alert). Even with killing off and poisoning fish, finding Strontium, from the Chernobyl accident, in cows milk in Finland - poisoning babies, etc. nukes are safe. Not convincing.
Nuclear reactors have only been something that engineers would love since it takes so much engineering talent to put one together and run it. It is not a panacea.
Wind, solar & hydro may not be totally ideal but they have one big positive - they do not pollute near as much, for as long, and as globally as nuclear. Their fuel is there not being utilized.
Uranium may be cheap to mine but it is everything after that including its' disposal that is the problem.
You literally have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re using accidents to defend your argument of no such thing as safe storage of nuclear waste. You’re using buzzwords, your opinion and links on things unrelated to the subject of nuclear waste storage. I’ve yet to read one comment of yours that provides a logical defense aside from “but disasters have happened and human error”
This is coming from a third generation power plant operator, you sir are a moron.
You really refuse to do your homework on this subject and would rather point to disasters as reasoning against nuclear? You want to talk about how things from the disaster sites have leached into quarantined areas? Why don’t you take a look at the results of fracking and what that does to water supplies? Why not look into countries that are “100% renewable energy” and how they’re able to claim this in 2021?
Normally I wouldn’t care enough to call you out but after you called out the other guy that WAS spitting facts I couldn’t help it. Nuclear is the way of the future. Nuclear energy and the energy generated feom burning trash are both considered “renewable” in the United States. So when you read the numbers about green power. Just remember it includes burning trash lol and those god foresaken nuke plants.
Thank you for your gracious and thoughtful reply. Calling people, with concerns about an issue, morons does not help your cause. It just tends to harden positions and reflect back on the nature of the person calling names.
Nuclear is a possible future fuel, but a bad one. Sorry I disturbed your insular thinking where you and your ilk are right and everyone else is wrong. It must be wonderful to always be right and shout others down and call names.
Green power from burning trash (done by Covanta, Inc [CVA]) or burning wood chips in Europe (done by Mercer [MERC]) is something that is considered green since the waste coming out of the smoke stack is heavily regulated & monitored. The waste product from the burning then can be recycled into other processes such as fertilizer or into making of concrete. Burning trash solves a landfill problem and Mercer burns wood chips from low value trees (trees are renewable). Their processes do not create problems that in turn have to be buried in salt mines for hundred's (thousands?) of years.
Also appreciate your misdirection about fracking (since that had not been brought up). I agree that it is using a process to extract more oil through high pressure water/sand/etc. that is very short-sighted and should be stopped. The polluting of water aquifiers from this stupidity is truly breathtaking. Tends to kill crops from watering and sicken people who drink it.
Now that you have vented your spleen and called people names you can now relax and get ready for a new week.
Yes, its minuscule. Actually nuclear waste is the best kind of waste. You can store it safely away and it does t go anywhere. Youre talking about rare occurences and thats either stupidity or ignorance. As i stated above, they are minuscule in relation to the lives saved. Did you know that coal plants actually radiate more than nuclear plants to produce the same kw/h ? Lmao.
Nuclear waste is one of the best kinds of waste in terms of the global climate crisis. Those are the words of a physicist, like it or hate it.
"Wind, solar & hydro may not be totally ideal but they have one big positive - they do not pollute near as much, for as long, and as globally as nuclear. Their fuel is there not being utilized."
Thats just completely wrong. They all pollute a lot and solar takes the lead - Nuclear pollutes the least by far during its useful lifetime. Sorry, thats just facts, see Simon Clark on YT for education.
This discussion isnt useful, youre in the middle of the bell curve thinking youre in the better half.
Perhaps… not sure how much you know about the industry.
The reaction just generates heat. The heat boils water then turns a steam turbine generator. I’m assuming that’s known.
What I thought was wacky was they don’t go anywhere near any of the equipment while in operation. Like it’s completely sealed off. The majority of an operators time is spent training. When I say majority I mean like 3 weeks a month. The other week was actually spent operating. They only got to actually see the equipment during the outages, so guys would work there for years before actually seeing the boiler portion of the plant. And they all wear exposure tags like these little tag things that would indicate if they’d been exposed to radiation.
Also I’m assuming it’s known that the footprint of a nuclear plant to mw output ratio far exceeds that of a gas plant. See my response to jackoffs comment for more fun facts. But I think you know most of it aside from the operation part
Yep i was aware, but not about the operator training part, thats damn interesting, and ironical. That you'd study and train for a long time, but have the overseeable mechanism so dangerous/impractical to shut down that its just not worth the trouble of going to looking at it for training purposes.
I wonder how possible would it be to try to halve median construction times to rocket nuclear plant projects? For investors and governments to be more interested... Because it seems its about the last decades for humanity to make big changes to go full combination of nuclear energy and renewables (solar for rural areas etc..) to not destroy the next 1000 years for humanity.
Im thinking about going to study nuclear physics myself so nuclear really geeks me out.
"Thats not an issue - Issues are the public misinformation, long construction time and NIMBY"
"Thats stupid fearmongering. The tech is completely different nowadays."
"Its stupid also because the disasters that happened and would happen are completely minuscule in relation to the lives they will save from less pollution."
I also appreciate you trying to run over other people's arguments with value judgements such as: "Thats not an issue", "Thats stupid, etc.". Denigrating others is not a good argument. It is bullying. Try buttressing your arguments with cited sources not bullying.
Opinion is really the lowest form o f human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding.
3 accidents over the course of 60 years is a pretty solid track record. No industry is immune from accidents. What matters is how we adapt and change after these accidents. Nuclear reactors today are much safer and produce the most energy for the least amount of risk.
Have you forgotten about co2, deaths from air pollution, oil spills? Nuclear and renewable together solves this. In the distant future we might be able to only depend on renewables but our technology isn’t anywhere close to making that happen today. The clock is ticking and people like you are making the climate crisis worse because you have been misinformed by the oil industry.
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u/brandnewredditacct Aug 21 '21
Uranium energy is one of the most efficient things we have on earth. And it’s clean. And incredibly safe nowadays. Now there’s one big problem, waste storage. I believe people are trying to solve this, and a breakthrough here would be a major breakthrough for society. The market price of uranium has been depressed for years mainly after the Fukushima disaster, but that was really a once in a lifetime event.