this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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Nuclear
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Focus on peaceful use of nuclear energy tech, economics, news, and climate change.
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Useful links:
IAEA PRIS - The Database on Nuclear Power Reactors: https://pris.iaea.org/pris/home.aspx
NRC US reactor status: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/reactor-status/index.html
US Nuclear Plant Outage Status: https://www.eia.gov/nuclear/outages/
Milestones in Advanced Nuclear: https://www.airtable.com/universe/expnrIMohdf6dIvZl/milestones-in-advanced-nuclear
What about the waste? http://whataboutthewaste.com/
What about the cost? https://zionlights.substack.com/p/what-is-the-true-cost-of-energy
How long will nuclear fuel last? https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-10-28-nuclear-energy-is-longterm-sustainable.html
Global Energy Footprint https://energy.glex.no/footprint/
Low Carbon Power Nuclear page: https://lowcarbonpower.org/type/nuclear
IAEA PRIS - Under Construction Reactors: https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/UnderConstructionReactorsByCountry.aspx
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Here's my problem:
I've been lied to by capitalists so many damn times about 'the next big thing' thats going to solve climate change, at this point they all look like they are full of shit.
I know the nuclear industry says its clean now, and it certainly SEEMS true, but natural gas and coal and oil companies are also claiming to be clean now so WHAT THE FUCK? We know some of them are lying.
Endless energy from the sun sounds damn good on paper and its clearly a threat to capitalists 'centralize everything' plan which locks us all into their electrical grid systems
The REAL problems aren't even discussed which is that we (the USA) can't expect to keep living this way, our consumption is off the charts. It's wild that in 2023 we still have a car & airplane-based transportation systems that barely utilizes high speed trains or buses, and results in paving half our land with asphalt which traps heat and makes absolutely everything worse in a cycle.
Two things that keep me from supporting additional nuclear: 1) Cost. Show me the actual cost per unit energy for nuclear, and show me the cost trajectory. Now do the same for SWB (solar-wind-battery). I know for a fact the latter is decreasing rapidly year over year. 2) Until all nuke plants can recycle their fuel, and with ZERO global long-term geologic repositories in operation, nuclear has a waste problem that can last 20,000 years.
The problem is that the nuclear evangelists refuse to engage in real debate about the downsides of the technology. Every valid criticism or suggestion that other alternatives are a better investment is brushed aside, often with a side of name calling.
The reality is that renewables are much more scalable and cost effective in the long term than these massive infrastructure projects. Nuclear is fine. We should have been building it for the past 50 years. The reasons we didn't build it are dumb. But it's simply an outdated paradigm now. Investing a billion dollars and ten years in building a power station now just doesn't make sense when you could invest that money in better future proof tech like microgrid solar.
The problem is always evangelists of some stripe who have arrived at a solution without any at scale testing, and want to implement their solution 100% without any system feedback. Terrible way to design anything meant to function in reality.
On your third point, it can be argued that solar panels still allow capitalists to centralize everything. Solar panels use a similar production process to microchips which is something they can just make as expensive as they can, it's not like people can rebel and make homebrew solar panels. Remember when there was a "chip shortage" for no reason so they made all the chips and graphics cards really expensive?