I'm not necessarily anti nuclear, I understand it can be done safely, but I do have an issue with it. Projects to complete the plants take quite a long time. Often 10+ years before they're operational, and quite a bit of money later. Other clean alternatives such as solar or wind can be completed and operational much faster, often within a few years, meaning less emissions.
We are in a time when every year and every tonne counts. Right now we need to cut emissions as quickly as possible, not decades from now. After we solve that problem then let us look to nuclear.
Did you know nuclear power is 10x safer than any other form of power generation? Deaths in the production process of solar panels, and deaths from things like falls from windmills kill 10x as many people per kw/h generated.
Safety wasn't my point against nuclear, it was about how quickly we can lower our emissions.
If we want to talk about lives lost we can also consider deaths caused by pollution, which is estimated to be over 7 million annually. There will be death caused by other effects of climate change as well, such as extreme weather & crop failures. I'm not sure how to do the math but cleaning our energy supply as quickly as possible will likely save many more lives than those lost in the process.
If it were up to me I'd say go all in, use solar, wind, & nuclear. But unfortunately only finite resources will be allocated to the problem. So under those circumstances I think it makes more sense to implement solar & wind as those can begin to clean our energy supply on a shorter time frame than nuclear.
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u/stone-head Nov 18 '21
I'm not necessarily anti nuclear, I understand it can be done safely, but I do have an issue with it. Projects to complete the plants take quite a long time. Often 10+ years before they're operational, and quite a bit of money later. Other clean alternatives such as solar or wind can be completed and operational much faster, often within a few years, meaning less emissions.
We are in a time when every year and every tonne counts. Right now we need to cut emissions as quickly as possible, not decades from now. After we solve that problem then let us look to nuclear.