Three Mile Island was the worst nuclear accident in US history. Was mainly caused by poor design of human feedback systems which caused operational confusion and lead to a catastrophic failure.
Three Mile Island was the worst nuclear accident in US history. Was mainly caused by poor design of human feedback systems which caused operational confusion and lead to a catastrophic failure.
We are installing gobs of distributed, cheap, safe solar and batteries to smooth load and nuclear proponents will still be running around advocating for expensive centralized nuclear reactors that generate either long-lasting radioactive waste or nuclear bombs.
🤷♂️
One kilogram of uranium produces more power than one hectare of solar panels does in two years.
Then there’s the waste product to consider.
No, not from nuclear. That’s an issue to be dealt with certainly, but I’m talking about the waste from the production and disposal of solar panels that is ongoing because they don’t last forever.
Solar panels are mostly aluminum and glass and about 90% recyclable. More importantly, they are inert and not radioactive.
You can’t seriously compare nuclear waste to solar panels.
Maybe they’re 90% recyclable, but 90% of decommissioned solar panels are not recycled and end up in landfills. The silver lining of nuclear waste storage being limited is we recycle the heck out of it. I guess solar does have a better solution already, though.
The restrictions on nuclear fuel recycling might be lifted soon, so that argument may very well become moot as well.
I’m not comparing them, I’m saying that it’s inaccurate to ignore the effects that solar has.
The chemicals in producing PV panels are toxic. Part of why production got shifted to countries like China is because without regulation on the waste disposal they are so much cheaper to make there. Sucks for the residents, but that’s capitalism.
Energy is used to make PV. True of everything, but when solar is advertised it leans heavy on the free energy that the device generates, not how much it took to make it. But at least that energy can come from solar too…except it comes from fossil fuels.
The heavy metals that make up part of the other 10% are the later waste problem. I don’t know if you can consider those metals inert since they are considered hazardous waste, but they can’t be discounted either. A recycling program to recover everything possible and then controlling the hazardous leftovers would make this less of a point, but we’re not doing that fully yet, so there are things going in the landfills now that could leach into the environment.
All of this can be improved of course. I’m just introducing the fact that solar, like anything we do to keep our society at its level, has drawbacks too.
Nuclear has its problems, as I mentioned. I didn’t pretend that solar is bad and nuclear is all flowers. But the issues it faces are much different and have their own solutions, and nuclear energy density and flexibility is far better than solar ever could be.
I never understand why people pick their sides and then try to make other choices seem like the antithesis to help their cause. Why not find the best solutions for all of the non-fossil fuel sources, and have them all where they make the most sense? Diversity and redundancy is far better than a monopoly won by falsehoods.
The market found the best solution: renewables.
You are the one here arguing we should be doing nuclear. You are the person here with an agenda.
Of course the market selected renewables as the favored child. “Renewable” and “green” are marketing terms, as is “net zero” and “recycling”. I’m not here with any agenda, I just brought up some points about environmental damage that solar can do on both sides of its existence. I guess I ruffled some feathers.
Did you miss my points about having some of both? Or did you just read the first few lines and rage post? I figured this was a forum where we could discuss the pros and cons of all sides, not just hate on anyone with a differing view.
👀
Now do the math on the cost of that uranium and the facility you need to turn it into power compared to the cost of the solar.
If you think cost isn’t the primary factor in all energy production … 🤷♂️
Edit: not to mention all the essentially free developed space we already have in spades to deploy solar to: rooftops.
Utility-scale solar comes out to around US$0.06 per kWh (source). Nuclear power comes out to US$0.07 per kWh (source).
Commercial-scale solar costs US$0.11 per kWh. Residential rooftop solar comes out to US$0.16 per kWh.
Edit: This does not take into account the cost of battery capacity or pumped-storage hydroelectric solutions, which are necessary for solar solutions but not nuclear ones. Lithium-ion battery storage costs US$139 per kWh. You’d need at least 500 MWh to accommodation a medium-size city, which would cost US$70 million. If you get 5,000 charge cycles out of the battery, this adds an additional US$0.03 per kWh.
Whoa real information
All of which ignores lots of real world factors that aren’t being included in the costs the commenter outlines.
Again, if nuclear were cheaper, you wouldn’t all be here downvoting my comments, you’d be discussing all the great new nuclear being onlined.
Renewables have won. They’re cheaper and easier to deploy, they’re distributed rather than concentrated, and they have lower impacts on the environment.
FWIW: I thought thorium reactors might have had some legs in the 00s, but it became clear those didn’t make fiscal sense, either.
It does not ignore any information.
The cost per kWh is the totality of all information. It is the end product. That is the total costs of everything divided by the number of kilowatt-hours of electricity produced.
I understand that you’re deeply invested in this argument, but you’ve lost. You’re repeating the same claim over and over, and when proven wrong, you just said “nuh uh” and pretended that nothing I said is true.
Nuclear energy can be cheaper than solar or wind. It is more reliable than solar and wind. It uses less land than solar or wind. All of these are known facts. That’s why actual scientists support expanding nuclear energy 2 to 1.
But people will still dislike it because they’re scared of building the next Three Mile Island or Fukushima. That, as I explained, is the reason why fewer nuclear plants are being built. Because the scientists, the ones who know the most about these, are not in charge. Instead, it’s the people in the last column that are calling the shots. Do not repeat this drivel of “iF nUcLeaR pOweR PlanTs So Good WhY aRen’T tHerE moRe of ThEM??”. I have explained why. It is widely known why. Your refusal to accept reality does not make it less real.
That is the end of the argument. I will not respond to anything else you say, because it is clear to me that no amount of evidence will cause you to change your mind. So go ahead, post your non-chalant reply with laughing emojis and three instances of “lol” or “lmao” and strut over the chessboard like you’ve won.
Because I don’t give a pigeon’s shit what you have to say any more.
Show me the line items for long term handling of the waste, please. I am curious how much they allocated.
So many twists and turns here!
Its alright i wasnt going to tell anyone i knew the best energy solution after reading lemmy comments. I haven’t voted at all in this thread.
Nuclear definitely has a ton of commitment. It takes like 60 years to decommission one right?
The Trojan Nuclear Plant near my city was closed in 1992. They started moving stuff away in 2003. The cooling tower was demolished in 2006. The various other buildings were demolished in 2008. All that remains are some security posts and abandoned office buildings and empty tool sheds.
Yeah. Minimum is like 20. Note that stopping it from generating power is quite early in the decommissioning schedule.
Nuclear power plants don’t make nuclear bombs…
Some nuclear reactor designs can be used for breeding plutonium, as well as for producing power. It was a bigger issue in the past, though; nowadays there are plenty of well tested designs that aren’t capable of breeding plutonium
Oh really? Neat
Thorium was being tested for viability alongside uranium, and got scrapped not because it wasn’t a feasible design, but because it couldn’t produce weapon grade material as a byproduct. Some countries are finally exploring thorium again, hopefully with some success.
The actual quantity of radioactive waste generated is tiny, and even combining the storage space for waste products with the footprint of the reactor plant itself, nuclear is by far the most energy-dense and space-efficient form of power generation we have.
How long does that waste need to be safely stored and what are the projected costs there? How do they compare to solar that you can deploy today?
We are not running out of space to put power generation, but we definitely need to worry about costs.
Not entirely sure if this video covers costs but the short answer is that there are ways to safely store nuclear waste that won’t impact the surrounding environment.
https://youtu.be/4aUODXeAM-k
Are you paid to spew bs or is this something you enjoy doing?
Just create cheap RTGs with the radioactive waste. Invent the process and give humanity the best of both worlds. All you have to do is increase the power generation from a few hundred watts up an order of magnitude using garbage instead of actual purpose engineered materials. Simple.
Oh you sweet ignorant child. Industrial scale battery storage to offset solar for continues power during night time hours is horrifically expensive when you’re talking gigawatt grids, to say nothing of the severe safety hazard they are.