Let's nuke climate change!

I want a bumper sticker that says "let's nuke climate change!"

I endorse nuclear power as a solution towards dramatically lowering carbon emissions in industrialized nations.

How much opposition is there for this? What are the rational arguments against replacing old coal-fired plants with new, state-of-the-art nuclear facilities?

I don't know what the general views are about this by most other people.
But I personally have nothing against nuclear power in principle as I am satisfied that the most modern up-to-date reactors with all their most up-to-date safety features are safe enough.
However, I think the real issue isn't safety but economics: At the moment nuclear power is a much more expensive alternative than the other cheapest of the renewable alternatives and with those renewables becoming cheaper all the time and this doesn't look like this will change for the foreseeable thus renewables are clearly the way to go with nuclear at most only playing a minor role if any role.
Having a supergrid + improved off-the-grid energy storage and with flow-batteries + MgS batteries for all-electric cars replacing the expensive lithium ones + some marine current power + biofuel from waste, would all help make renewables replace fossil fuels and with less cost.

@wildgrass said
I want a bumper sticker that says "let's nuke climate change!"

I endorse nuclear power as a solution towards dramatically lowering carbon emissions in industrialized nations.

How much opposition is there for this? What are the rational arguments against replacing old coal-fired plants with new, state-of-the-art nuclear facilities?

I used to be an advocate for nuclear power but the rate at which
renewables are coming on line it doesn't seem necessary.

I think the UK gets 10% of its power from nuclear but as far as I
know there are no plans to develop more stations.

NZ is nuclear free! 😉

@humy said
I don't know what the general views are about this by most other people.
But I personally have nothing against nuclear power in principle as I am satisfied that the most modern up-to-date reactors with all their most up-to-date safety features are safe enough.
However, I think the real issue isn't safety but economics: At the moment nuclear power is a much more expensi ...[text shortened]... power + biofuel from waste, would all help make renewables replace fossil fuels and with less cost.

The only thing I have against nuclear power is the end game when thousands of tons of nuclear waste has to be disposed of.

@wolfgang59 said
I used to be an advocate for nuclear power but the rate at which
renewables are coming on line it doesn't seem necessary.

I think the UK gets 10% of its power from nuclear but as far as I
know there are no plans to develop more stations.

NZ is nuclear free! 😉

I think that nuclear is the most compact and safest of all available energy sources. Waste disposal is no longer a problem, as the spent fuel in modern plants are recycled to extend power production for many more years than older plants. The problem with nuclear is that the downsides are so much more dramatic and visible than other energy sources, but that does not mean dangerous.

1) Solar panels are great. They are compact, go on rooftops and are getting better and more efficient every year. But with increasing popularity and aging of the old ones, there is a growing problem of waste. It's not as green as people think. [1]

2) Wind's great too. But it takes up a ton of space [2] (the size of Rhode Island), needs to be in high wind areas, it's loud, it kills birds etc. Not a permanent solution either.

Here's a very good article about the issue [3]. I encourage you to read it. Nuclear energy is green energy, and yet we seem to be moving in the other direction, decommissioning existing plants and building new coal/natural gas/hydroelectric. This is backwards thinking.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if-solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/#66b21cbe121c

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/wind-turbines-to-power-earth-2016-9

[3] https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-nuclear-power-must-be-part-of-the-energy-solution-environmentalists-climate

@humy said
I don't know what the general views are about this by most other people.
But I personally have nothing against nuclear power in principle as I am satisfied that the most modern up-to-date reactors with all their most up-to-date safety features are safe enough.
However, I think the real issue isn't safety but economics: At the moment nuclear power is a much more expensi ...[text shortened]... power + biofuel from waste, would all help make renewables replace fossil fuels and with less cost.

Why is it more expensive? If you account for all the downsides associated with coal and natural gas, I think the benefits outweigh the costs.

@wolfgang59 said
I used to be an advocate for nuclear power but the rate at which
renewables are coming on line it doesn't seem necessary.

I think the UK gets 10% of its power from nuclear but as far as I
know there are no plans to develop more stations.

NZ is nuclear free! 😉

Sizewell C

@wildgrass said
I want a bumper sticker that says "let's nuke climate change!"

I endorse nuclear power as a solution towards dramatically lowering carbon emissions in industrialized nations.

How much opposition is there for this? What are the rational arguments against replacing old coal-fired plants with new, state-of-the-art nuclear facilities?

If people used common sense when they build a nuclear power plant I might support nuclear power. The problem is that no matter how advanced a technology is there are morons deciding the most important decisions, like building sites for example.

https://www.rt.com/news/339763-disaster-nuclear-earthquake-japan/

It is easy to say "but now we know what not to do" and fool ourselves into thinking nuclear will go better this time around. All it takes is one moron to make a design flaw that ruins everything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy%27s_law

Don't forget about terrorism. If we had a fair foreign policy we would not have a terrorism problem, but most people do not accept the obvious. For that reason terrorism will continue until people re-evaluate foreign policy. Since the corporate news media ignores the true cause to continue imperialism, this could take a very long time.

Nuclear power makes sense in a sane world, but this world is insane. Are you willing to risk insanity ruining nuclear power for generations just because you got impatient?

@metal-brain said
All it takes is one moron to make a design flaw that ruins everything.

You write that as if nuclear reactors are particularly vulnerable to human error. Do you have any information that supports that claim? In terms of human casualties, this [1] was way worse (~50 times) than Fukushima but you don't exactly hear people complaining that hydroelectric power represents a serious safety concern or terrorist target. Fear of nuclear reactors is largely irrational.

[1] http://en.people.cn/200510/01/eng20051001_211892.html

@wildgrass said
You write that as if nuclear reactors are particularly vulnerable to human error. Do you have any information that supports that claim? In terms of human casualties, this [1] was way worse (~50 times) than Fukushima but you don't exactly hear people complaining that hydroelectric power represents a serious safety concern or terrorist target. Fear of nuclear reactors is largely irrational.

[1] http://en.people.cn/200510/01/eng20051001_211892.html

Radioactive. Does that mean anything to you? Hydroelectric plants are not radioactive.

You would think the Hubble Telescope would have a good mirror installed before putting it in orbit. Why didn't they have better quality control for a very expensive mistake?

You would think the space shuttle would have good o-rings and heat/friction resistant tiles. Peoples lives literally depended on it when they failed.

People make mistakes no matter how important the project. Nuclear power plants were built near fault lines. Wasn't that really stupid? I'll bet not one person thought about it until after they were built. It isn't the problems you think of, it is the problems you don't think of.

Nuclear power plants are best built in countries that do not invade other countries. It is just common sense.

@wildgrass said
1) Solar panels are great. But with increasing popularity and aging of the old ones, there is a growing problem of waste. It's not as green as people think. [1]
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if-solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/#66b21cbe121c

Wildgrass

This is nonsense. Your link says;
"...Contrary to previous assumptions, pollutants such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium can be almost completely washed out of the fragments of solar modules over a period of several months, for example by rainwater...”

But the most modern up-to-date solar panels need NOT have "lead or carcinogenic cadmium", a fact that the link fails to mention thus that link is obviously massively biased against renewables and is just another anti-renewable propaganda site.

There is on-going research into making solar panels out of NEW and better materials and the material they are made of will change over time, thus,, basing what happens to them after they are spent when using current materials when current materials will obviously not be used in the future is flawed.
It is just a question of when, not if, they will be made of non-toxic materials that can be cheaply recycled; what would their argument against renewables be then?

I have read other parts of that weblink that show info in a highly misleading way confirming that its just another of those anti-renewable propaganda sites. What it does is cherry-pick just those fragments of info that makes solar sound like a bad thing while selectively and deliberately filtering out any and all info that makes solar sound like a good thing.

The link, for example, totally ignores the huge pollution from fossil fuels and fails to COMPARE the OVERALL pollution (i.e. INCLUDING air pollution) and resulting death from fossil fuels COMPARED with solar; again, a clear sign it is just another of those anti-renewable propaganda sites.

I have also heard of the usual propaganda nonsense against wind energy; it isn't a big bird killer compared to the birds that are killed via pollution from fossil fuels. If we should ban wind turbines because they kill a few birds then we should certainly ban fossil fuels because they kill a lot of birds.
I should also point out that many birds are killed colliding with trees and aircraft and our buildings such has flats and houses; so we should ban trees and aircraft and buildings?

With spent nuclear fuel to be inexpensively shipped to the moon?

Or are you aware of countries willing to risk storing it?

@sonhouse said
The only thing I have against nuclear power is the end game when thousands of tons of nuclear waste has to be disposed of.

Exactly.
I hadn't seen your post Sonhouse.
But, your point is precisely the problem with nuclear power generation.

Solar power is clearly the way forward.

But, greedy "corporatists" just can't figure out a way to propagate profits from something so freely available to the whole planet.

@wolfe63 said
Exactly.
I hadn't seen your post Sonhouse.
But, your point is precisely the problem with nuclear power generation.

Solar power is clearly the way forward.

But, greedy "corporatists" just can't figure out a way to propagate profits from something so freely available to the whole planet.

Industrial scale solar power has its own problems. One biggie: the desert states are the ones most likely to get massive solar plants but there is little infrastructure to get that power out to the perifery states. The million volt lines are more or less around the edge of the US because that is where the main population centers are.
In order to fully utilize solar they have to build power line infrastructure and that has been estimated to cost more than a trillion US dollars and that is before you build even one plant. If you can't ship the power out it just sits around wasted in the desert. This is not a trivial problem, it is THE problem.
Who is going to come up with that kind of money?

@metal-brain said
Radioactive. Does that mean anything to you? Hydroelectric plants are not radioactive.

You would think the Hubble Telescope would have a good mirror installed before putting it in orbit. Why didn't they have better quality control for a very expensive mistake?

You would think the space shuttle would have good o-rings and heat/friction resistant tiles. Peoples lives ...[text shortened]... ower plants are best built in countries that do not invade other countries. It is just common sense.

You brought up Fukushima, which killed 573 people, as an example of why nuclear is dangerous. That completely ignores tragedies caused by other sources of power. The one I brought up killed 25,000 people, which is a single disaster that caused more deaths than all nuclear accidents put together. But is hydroelectric considered dangerous?