this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
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It's sort of too late for nuclear though. They take years to build and cost a fortune. The time to invest in nuclear power on a large scale was probably 10 years ago (although, was it as safe then? I don't know)... Right now we need answers that get us away from fossil fuels much, much quicker. Nuclear may still be a part of the picture, but renewables are more pressing.
Think beyond your own lifetime
The energy problem we have isn't beyond my lifetime, it's now. There is a finite amount of investment available for new energy projects, and if we pour it into nuclear that means 10+ years of continuing with present usage of fossil fuels. Obviously I know noone is suggesting we do only nuclear, but the point remains that renewables projects can be completed sooner and cheaper. Even if we continue to use nuclear to support the base load and decide to develop some level of capability beyond what exists today, the majority of investment should go to renewables.
We have there options:
Continue fossils and make earth uninhabitable for a medium (on the scale of humanity) duration of time.
Switch to renevables, even if it means changing our way of living, maybe overproducing less, having less ultra riches etc.
Switch to nuclear, which isn't fast enough to stop the fossil problem but also contaminates earth for a ultra long amount of time and also is way harder to get rid of (we have at least in theory options to get co2 out of the atmosphere even if its not at all practical/usable e ough to help us with our current situation, for nuclear waste there is literally nothing you can to except wait.)
No sane person I met ever argued for 1, but since some time Americans seem to start arguing for 3 instead of 2 with literally no good arguments.
Thing is this has been said for longer than I've been alive, and will probably still be said after I'm dead, in the intervening 70-80 years we could have and could be actually building the damn things.
I'm not making this argument in the past, I'm making it now.
Well, they are being built? It's not like the world has abandoned nuclear power. We need the base load, there's certainly an argument to use some nuclear, but the safety and waste issues mean it shouldn't really ever be our only way to generate power, at least until some of those problems are solved. Modern reactors are much safer than they once were, but as I said before - the fossil fuel situation is immediate and pressing. I'm not sure I disagree with anyone who made this argument in the past - renewables are a faster way to convert away from fossil fuels. It's more pressing now than ever, but it isn't a new problem and it's been urgent for a long time. Just because we failed to solve it before doesn't mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. What's your reasoning to focus on nuclear rather than renewables today?
My reasoning is we should do both, nuclear and renewables both have useful properties in the short and long term and the idea we can't afford both seems ridiculous when we can apparently spend huge amounts of money on things like space tourism and giving amazon more money back in rebates than they paid in taxes to begin with.
Well I agree there. I think we should be focusing on renewables, but like I said I think we also need nuclear unless we can solve the energy storage problem.