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Young climate activist tells Greenpeace to drop ‘old-fashioned’ anti-nuclear stance
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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I really feel the pro-nuclear people here are misunderstanding the lack of regulation and safety requirements we had for nuclear. Many countries wont or cant follow these and that becomes a threat to our environment just as much as CO2. I absolutely agree nuclear is needed but the reason we got Chernobyl and Fukishima is entirely because corners got cut on safety.
Then we have the issue with waste storage. We already struggled during the 70s to 90s to store the waste. Some of it is toxic, as well as radioactive. Countries gave up and simply dumped it in the oceans in substandard containers which then leaked and caused massive environmental damage.
To get nuclear back we need those issues fixed first. Safety everyone follows, and storage principles everyone follows.
safety and efficiency will be improved by investment in nuclear. storage needs are dramatically reduced because we now have reactors that can run off of the waste of other reactors, "recycling" it and massively improving efficiency while reducing waste. yes, there are concerns with nuclear, but opposing nuclear is a losing battle. we need nuclear, and yes, the tech needs to develop further, but we won't get that without investing in it today.
This. It amazes me how many people are anti nuclear but don't understand what it is, how it's waste can be recycled and how it is less harmful to the environment than wind and solar. Yes you read that correctly.
It's less surprising when you realize the founder of greenpeace was drummed out of the org over this same issue.
Do you have a source on that? I googled the founders of greenpeace, but I didn't find any reference to your claim.
not really my jam, but even wikipedia mentions division over golden rice which is also pretty dumb.
here's one from '08 politico.
a lot of things like this gets memory holed as to not be so obvious about having luxury beliefs where they don't mind how many people starve as long as it pushes their particular facet of a nuanced agenda imho.
Well if you want less harmful than wind and solar, why not go for less harmful than nuclear and just go geothermal with the new ultradeep drilling techniques? Literally the 450-1000C on tap as and when we need it
Because this is not currently deployed at scale. We are way past "waiting for the next great technology".
Neither is nuclear now is it.
Conventional nuclear is deployed at scale, especially in the USA, China, and France.
Would it be deployable to most major city areas that have easy access to water?
You forgot the /s
Good stance, though part of the problem is that we hopped off nuclear, but not quite.
So we recognized risks of the nuclear plants and we started doing fixes, but most critically, we largely stopped making reactors. So instead of migrating to newer, fundamentally safer designs, we keep duct taping the existing ones.
We already have much better technology understanding, but because new nuclear is scary, and somehow old nuclear got grandfathered in, we are generally living with 70s limitations. Fukushima failed in a way a more modern design would probably have done in a 'failsafe' way. Same for waste, we have knowledge on how to have reactions that end with much less problematic material (though still not great, at least with a more manageable half life).
So we should make sure we address the concerns, but have to balance that against letting perfect be the enemy of the good. So far we've been so reluctant about safety of new reactors, we ironically are stuck with roughly 70s level safety.
Norway (iirc, or some country near it.) Has been making a large containment facility in a deep mountain cave that would be able to store a large amount of the waste. The waste is actually pretty much a non issue at this point. I would much rather we start making more reactors now while we still have a chance, than be paralyzed with fear that the nuclear waste is gonna be some major crisis. It won't be, but the amount of pollution from NOT having the reactors will be.
It is really not a "non-issue"... jesus wept.
Have you heard of half life? Only France recycles the fuel rods (and at great cost). polonium, cesium and other chemicals are made and are toxic.
High level waste is only about 5% of the total waste produced and the rest is low to moderately radioactive. The low stuff is safe within a week and the moderate waste is safe within a few months. Almost all of it can be disposed of normally after that like any other trash.
If you took all of the high level waste like actual fuel rods that has ever been produfed in the US since 1945 and put it all in one spot it would be about the size of an American football field.
Literally fling them into the sun or something. Waste is a non-issue
I agree that waste is an overblown issue but launching it into space is about the worst thing we could do. With the rate of critical failures of rocket launches, we are practically guaranteed to have exploding rockets spewing nuclear waste into the atmosphere. There are plenty of solutions to nuclear waste here on earth that are mainly held up by fear mongering and nimbyism
Fling them dont put them on a ballistic missile. Literally get a strong rubber band and a flock of sophomores, put the shit on the band, have the boys pull on it and bada bing bada boom shit flies past voyager 1 in no time and the lads will regrow every cell on them anyway by next friday
There's also the issue with mining and refining uranium that emit a huge amount of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
Nowhere as close to fossil fuels or even the materials for EV batteries.
Do you have any numbers on this?
Lithium mined 2022: 130,000 metric tons
Uranium mined 2022: 48,888 metric tons
Of course EV batteries consist of only ~5% lithium so...
People are downvoting you but only because it is true.
It's maddening that you are getting downvotes. Are they from ignorance or bad actors? Because who would downvote a true statement about SAFETY, FFS?
Because the environmental damage caused by the largest nuclear disasters in history is still nothing like the damage from fossil fuels.
Not just that but the fossil fuel industry's history is full of much worse disasters than any nuclear plant.
If you were to truly compare them based just off safety it's no contest. Nuclear power is cleaner and safer
But there was no actual comparison. The post was pointing out how the safety was not good enough, not that it was less safe than fossil fuels. Not everyone is comfortable with a nuclear power plant in their back yard. So I guess you're perfectly fine with the current level of nuclear power regulation and safety? Good. The rest of the public is not for the reasons stated.
The rest of the public has been manipulated by oil barons who constantly push these fear mongering talking points.
It is safer in every way.
You act like Homer Simpson is real and that's how nuclear power plants operate. In the modern age unless it's just gross incompetence it's been safer for decades.
Oh and if you want those safety regulations to ever get better you have to keep putting money into them. You're not gonna get progress by ignoring them.
In fact that's the only reason nuclear power isn't more prevalent because the average citizen is so blinded by oil propaganda they refuse anything to do with it.
I'll type it for the third time in this thread: But there was no actual comparison.
And there are 2 more important reasons to table new nuclear plant development.
What's to compare? On a per kWh basis, nuclear is cleaner and safer. On a per accident basis nuclear is cleaner and safer. On a waste product basis nuclear is cleaner and safer.
Coal plants emit radioactive material in the smoke they kick out. They literally spit continuous radioactive material into the air. Nuclear plants simply do not.
In fact, putting aside Chernobyl (there are so many reasons including it skews the numbers against nuclear unfairly) there have been more deaths related to wind turbines than nuclear plants.
Edit: and even with all the deaths from Chernobyl, it's still safer on a per kWh basis. :End-Edit
The reason Chernobyl is unfair is for a few reasons. Most of them being abhorrent policies that were enacted by the Soviet Union.
Operators of the plant were poorly trained. Design flaws that could impact safe operation were classified and not shared with the operators. Testing processes were a joke by all standards, even for the time. And the RBMK reactors were simply flawed in their design, and it was known about from the beginning because it was done to be cheap.
Compare that with a CANDU reactor which has both active and passive safety mechanisms that make it nearly impossible to meltdown. The closest we've ever had to an accident was a false alarm about contaminated water leaking that was sent out from the Darlington, Ontario plant a number of years ago.
And the issue with nuclear waste isn't as huge as everyone makes it out to be. The vast majority of the spent fuel drops down to background levels in a few decades. And the really radioactive stuff, which is about 2% of the total fuel, is radiative for thousands of years. But the fun fact about that is it can be reprocessed into new fuel and used again in a reactor like the CANDU reactors.
The only reason that fuel isn't being recycled today is because it's still economically cheaper to just use new fuel and store the used stuff on site.
lol. I’ve said now 4 times this is not about nuclear vs fossil fuels. It’s hilarious the perseveration on this.
Nuclear is dead. Accept it and move on to fixing the problems with renewables. There are 2 fantastic reasons to avoid nuclear.
Nuclear is far far FAR from dead. In fact it's picking up steam. And nuclear should be used alongside renewables. There's no reason we can't invest in nuclear and renewables at the same time. And keep in mind that the money invested in nuclear doesn't take away funding from renewables.
At least in the US the number of applications for nuclear plant construction has dropped 75%.
Fossil fuels will always be something to compare to as long as Coal generates electricity, the majority of cars run on petroleum, and housing is warmed by gas
2 million people die every year from coal emissions. Nuclear weapons haven't even killed that many.
"But there was no actual comparison." I'm typing it again because it seems you missed that part.
What fucking comparison are you looking for?
None. Please go back and read the thread. It wasn't about an actual comparison, even though you and others seen to perseverate on the "fucking" comparison.
So you're butthurt that people tried to make it a legitimate conversation?
Jesus Christ lemmy has some fuckin morons
You: hey fuckin moron, I want you to talk about this thing that you didn't bring up and specifically stated your comment was not about. Stop getting upset that I keep talking about it!!
Me: yeah I don't want to hear about your hamster porn addiction either. STFU and have your "legitimate conversation" with someone else.
Sadly thats the problem with the internet. Everyone is an expert, very few have met people in the industry as I had in the past.
We really do need a better option to dumping it into the oceans.
If you're talking about tritium from Fukushima, no, we don't.