7 reasons why nuclear energy is not the answer to solve climate change | One Earth
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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.

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.

  • solo@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
    32·
    3 days ago

    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

    • infinitevalence@discuss.onlineEnglish
      1·
      3 days ago

      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.

    • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
      1·
      3 days ago

      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)