Nuclear doesn’t just have one problem. It has seven. Here are the seven major problems with nuclear energy and why it is not a solution to the climate crisis.
Oh boy. The breakdown is:
Takes too long to build
Expensive
Weapons proliferation
Meltdown
Lung cancer risk to miners
Construction/Operation emits carbon
Nuclear wasteThis is… really not great reporting. There are concerns with nuclear power but these aren’t them. I mean, national weapons proliferation? That’s really not a concern with modern reactor tech, and they should know that. The article ignores the last 50 years of advancement in reactor design to present their arguments, and that really undermines their credibility.
I mean, national weapons proliferation?
Also with the current state of NATO this might soon turn into a pro argument.
I mean, national weapons proliferation? That’s really not a concern with modern reactor tech, and they should know that. The article ignores the last 50 years of advancement in reactor design to present their arguments, and that really undermines their credibility.
The problem is: In real life, most nations want weapons potential as an added bonus to their expensive civil nuclear programs. This connects to the “Takes too long to build” and “Expensive” points.
Nuclear waste is also something, that even though ideas exist in spades, no one seems to have been able to solve. So I wonder: What are the real world hurdles, that have prevented all the talk of “we just need breeder reactors” or something similar, that I have been hearing for many years now, to manifest? Is the tech maybe not as easily implemented as thought? Is the cost/reward ratio too bad, so it would again connect to the expensive point?
Thing is: I am not fundamentally against Nuclear as part of a power mix, with climate change being the most pressing reality. But I think it’s often presented as better as it is in the real world by people that are highly intelligent and knowledgeable in the basic physics and theoretical engineering parts - but then usually don’t have answers for why, then, even states that don’t have large anti-nuclear movements don’t use it often, in real world circumstances.
At the risk of retreating to easy retorts, I think most of the answers here can be boiled down to “the extensive efforts of petrochemical companies to suppress every competing technology”. It’s the same reason we’ve had PV or molten salt solar plants for years, but have never extensively pursued them* as a country.
The thing that bugs me about “weapons potential” is the fact that a lack of nuclear plants has done fuck all to stop countries from building warheads.
Could plants help their efforts? Maybe, and that’s a weak maybe on the side of “no.” As it stands, anyone who can build a plant can or is building nuclear arms already. If the sticking point is not wanting nuclear weapons, they’re barking up the wrong tree; the problem is the people in charge.
The article ignores the last 50 years of advancement in reactor design
So does Canada.
According to the World Health Organization, about 7.1 million people die from air pollution each year, with more than 90 percent of these deaths from energy-related combustion. So switching out our energy system to nuclear would result in about 93 million people dying, as we wait for all the new nuclear plants to be built in the all-nuclear scenario.
No one is proposing we stop building renewables while we build more nuclear. This is a bad faith argument and just dumb. Stop building oil and gas plants build renewables and nuclear. The best thing to do is build nuclear on top of existing coal or gas thermal plants.
- Long Time Lag Between Planning and Operation This is a fair criticism but it’s fundamentally misunderstanding the reasons it takes to long to build. Construction takes to long and costs to much because every plant is custom and we don’t have people with experience building them. It’s we start building new ones we will gain that experience and improved modularity.
- Cost Cost is a factor but the LCOE of renewables depends on batteries which they don’t factor in or existing fossil fuel plants to provide peaker and base load.
The clean up costs are exaggerated by first generation designs. I’m currently eating dinner in Fukushima prefecture and I have no fear or concern over contaminated food. The reactor designs the have melted down did so because they did not have passive safety systems which all modern designs include.
Storage of waste is also overblown. All the high level waste the United States had created would fit in a modern NFL stadium. And only 5% of that is actually waste. 95% is firtile fuel and could be recycled and put into a breeder reactor. We only generate this much waste because we never invested in breeding or recycling.
Lastly with waste it does not need to be long lived isotopes like cesium or plutonium. Recycling and breeding can turn these actinides into fissile fule reduces the half-life down to hundreds of years not thousands or millions.
- Weapons Proliferation Risk
This is true, historically governments wanted weapons with their power so the designs we invested in were only ever dual use. Modern designs are much harder to turn into weapons. This was a deliberate choice and we don’t have to make it again.
- Meltdown Risk
Chernobyl was not a meltdown but something worse as it went prompt critical and created a super critical steam explosion. Had it not flashed both is moderating and coolant instantly it would not have melted down. That design was a cost savings choice without concern for the outcomes.
TMI was a meltdown. And it was due to a lack of passive safety systems and lots of procedural issues that were resolved. There have been no meltdown in the United States since TMI because of those changes. Most running reactor could suffer the same type of failure but don’t because we changed the procedures to prevent it.
Fukushima is perhaps the most valid criticism of “modern” as they decided not to build the sea wall high enough and put the backup pumps and generator on a lower level. It could have been avoided and should have been but humans are not great at evaluating risk.
- Mining Lung Cancer Risk
This is true of all mining and the best argument for recycling our waste.
- Carbon-Equivalent Emissions and Air Pollution
I think they said things but the arguments seem to be renewables create less CO2 which ignores storage and reliance on existing fossil plants. Again no one is suggesting that we don’t keep building renewables only that we stop building fossil plants.
- Waste Risk
Waste is currently a choice not an inevitability. We could choose to recycle, we could choose to breed, and we could choose to use the thorium cycle but we don’t because dumping is cheaper. same with coal ash and gas emissions, we didn’t actually calculate the cost of being responsible. If we did I would expect nuclear to end up costing far less than fossil fuels.
I will address some of the points you make.
After the Fukushima Daiichi accident, there has been an increasing preference for passive safety features in the nuclear power industry. To my understanding, it’s not that all modern designs include this feature. Not only that, there are many ways to implement it, with different evaluations on their effectiveness.
For the US nuclear waste I could suggest the following article:
Nuclear Waste Is Piling Up. Does the U.S. Have a Plan? | Scientific American | March 2023
The U.S., which led the way on managing nuclear waste in the 1980s and 1990s, has now fallen to the back of the pack. About 88,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors remain stranded at reactor sites, and this number is increasing by some 2,000 metric tons each year. These 77 sites are in 35 states and threaten to become de facto permanent disposal facilities.
Finally I believe that
While nuclear champions claim that nuclear energy can work hand-in-hand with renewables, it is becoming increasingly clear that nuclear power acts as a significant hurdle to energy efficiency investments, the roll-out of renewables and fossil fuel phase-out in three spheres: the EU political debate, energy system planning, and decentralisation.
More on this, in the source
The good news is that there is already a clear strategy for managing and disposing of this highly radioactive material. The bad news is that the U.S. government has yet to seriously follow that plan.
The very second paragraph covers my point about waste. It’s been a solved problem we just won’t do it because leaving the waste on site is cheaper, and mining new fuel is cheaper. If we adjusted regulation to match actual cost this with l would change.
To my understanding, it’s not that all modern designs include this feature. Not only that, there are many ways to implement it, with different evaluations on their effectiveness.
Fair but lame I should have said most not all. Guess you got me and all my arguments are negated.
Have you noticed that your arguments in opposition to nuclear power appear to be entirely rooted in bureaucratic failure?
And these are just pet peeves, but why are we measuring nuclear waste — something famous for being made of the heaviest materials possible — in tonnes? Wouldn’t a much better metric for difficulty-of-storage be the volume? I know the reason is that it would be devastating to the argument against nuclear power when compared to the size of, say, a football/soccer pitch, but it’s still deeply irritating. Also, there are grades of nuclear waste. There is much less TRU/HLW waste than there is Class A, which is predictably never ever mentioned in poorly researched anti-nuclear propaganda articles like this.
(I almost forgot to mention this one, but the majority of nuclear waste is produced by the Nuclear Stewardship Program not commercial nuclear power plants. I think we can all agree that nuclear weapons are awful, and if we want to stop the production of nuclear waste we’d have to get rid of them as well, an unlikely condition but one I’d be very happy to see realized)
