this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
1575 points (94.0% liked)

World News

38956 readers
3492 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] flossdaily@lemmy.world 335 points 1 year ago (82 children)

Good!

Anti-nuclear is like anti-GMO and anti-vax: pure ignorance, and fear of that which they don't understand.

Nuclear power is the ONLY form of clean energy that can be scaled up in time to save us from the worst of climate change.

We've had the cure for climate change all along, but fear that we'd do another Chernobyl has scared us away from it.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 95 points 1 year ago (46 children)

imagine how much farther ahead we would be in safety and efficiency if it was made priority 50 years ago.

we still have whole swathes of people who think that because its not perfect now, it cant be perfected ever.

load more comments (46 replies)
[–] BrokebackHampton@kbin.social 43 points 1 year ago (27 children)

That is factually false information. There are solid arguments to be made against nuclear energy.

https://isreview.org/issue/77/case-against-nuclear-power/index.html

Even if you discard everything else, this section seems particularly relevant:

The long lead times for construction that invalidate nuclear power as a way of mitigating climate change was a point recognized in 2009 by the body whose mission is to promote the use of nuclear power, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “Nuclear power is not a near-term solution to the challenge of climate change,” writes Sharon Squassoni in the IAEA bulletin. “The need to immediately and dramatically reduce carbon emissions calls for approaches that can be implemented more quickly than building nuclear reactors.”

https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-nuclear-energy-good-for-the-climate/a-59853315

Wealer from Berlin's Technical University, along with numerous other energy experts, sees takes a different view.

"The contribution of nuclear energy is viewed too optimistically," he said. "In reality, [power plant] construction times are too long and the costs too high to have a noticeable effect on climate change. It takes too long for nuclear energy to become available."

Mycle Schneider, author of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, agrees.

"Nuclear power plants are about four times as expensive as wind or solar, and take five times as long to build," he said. "When you factor it all in, you're looking at 15-to-20 years of lead time for a new nuclear plant."

He pointed out that the world needed to get greenhouse gases under control within a decade. "And in the next 10 years, nuclear power won't be able to make a significant contribution," added Schneider.

[–] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 29 points 1 year ago (11 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashiwazaki-Kariwa_Nuclear_Power_Plant

the largest fission plant was literally working 5 years after construction started

fission plants are just more expensive now because we don't make enough of them.

I guess safety standards changed but even wind power kills more people per watt than fission so ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Nuclear could've easily worked if people didn't go full nimby in the past few decades

load more comments (11 replies)
[–] oce@jlai.lu 15 points 1 year ago

There are solid arguments to be made against both nuclear and renewables (intermittence, impact of electricity storage, amount of raw material, surface area). We can't wait for perfect solutions, we have to work out compromises right now, and it seems nuclear + renewable is the most solid compromise we have for the 2050 target. See this high quality report by the public French electricity transportation company (independent of the energy producers) that studies various scenarios including 100% renewable and mixes of nuclear, renewables, hydrogen and biogas. https://assets.rte-france.com/prod/public/2022-01/Energy%20pathways%202050_Key%20results.pdf

load more comments (24 replies)
[–] echodot@feddit.uk 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The daft thing is that even if another Chernobyl happened (unlikely given superior technology and safety standards) it wouldn't be anywhere near as damaging as climate change.

The radiation would only affect a small area of the planet not the whole world, and technically radiation doesn't even cause climate damage. Chernobyl has plenty of trees and plenty of wildlife, it's just unsuitable for human habitation.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 51 points 1 year ago (10 children)

The daft thing is that even if another Chernobyl happened (unlikely given superior technology and safety standards) it wouldn’t be anywhere near as damaging as climate change.

Or put another way, coal-fired power plants produce more radioactivity in normal operation than nuclear power plants have in their entire history, including meltdowns. And with coal, it just gets released straight into the environment without any attempt to contain it!

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] apollo440@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

I totally agree that current nuclear power generation should be left running until we have enough green energy to pick up the slack, because it does provide clean and safe energy. However, I totally disagree on the scalability, for two main reasons:

  1. Current nuclear power generation is non-renewable. It is somewhat unclear how much Uranium is available worldwide (for strategic reasons), but even at current production, supply issues have been known to happen. And it goes without saying that waiting to scale up some novel unproven or inexistent sustainable way of nuclear power production is out of the question, for time and safety reasons. Which brings me to point 2.

  2. We need clean, sustainable energy right now if we want to have any chance of fighting climate change. From start of planning of a new nuclear power plant to first power generation can take 15 or 20 years easily. Currently, about 10% of all electricity worldwide is produced by about 400 nuclear reactors, while around 15 new ones are under construction. So, to make any sort of reasonable impact, we would have to build to the tune of 2000 new reactors, pronto. To do that within 30 years, we'd have to increase our construction capacity 5 to 10 fold. Even if that were possible, which I strongly doubt, I would wager the safety and cost impacts would be totally unjustifiable. And we don't even have 30 years anymore. That is to say nothing of regulatory checks and maintenance that would also have to be increased 5 fold.

So imho nuclear power as a solution to climate change is a non-starter, simply due to logistical and scaling reasons. And that is before we even talk about the very real dangers of nuclear power generation, which are of course not operational, but due to things like proliferation, terrorist attacks, war, and other unforseen disruptions through e.g. climate change, societal or governmental shifts, etc.

[–] CountVon@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago (5 children)

It is somewhat unclear how much Uranium is available worldwide (for strategic reasons), but even at current production, supply issues have been known to happen.

Nuclear fission using Uranium is not sustainable. If we expand current nuclear technologies to tackle climate change then we'd likely run out of Uranium by 2100. Nuclear fusion using Thorium might be sustainable, but it's not yet a proven, scalable technology. And all of this is ignoring the long lead times, high costs, regulatory hurdles and nuclear weapon proliferation concerns that nuclear typically presents. It'd be great if nuclear was the magic bullet for climate change, but it just ain't.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] CountVon@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago

We’ve had the cure for climate change all along

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this simply isn't true with established nuclear technologies. Expanding our currently nuclear energy production requires us to fully tap all known and speculated Uranium sources, nets us only a 6% CO^2^ reduction, and we run out of Uranium by 2100. We might be able to use Thorium in fuel cycles to expand our net nuclear capacity, but that technology has to yet to be proven at scale. And all of this ignores the high startup cost, regulatory difficulties, disposal challenges and weapons proliferation risks that nuclear typically presents.

load more comments (77 replies)
[–] DumbAceDragon@sh.itjust.works 183 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Normally I'm not a "lesser of two evils" type, but nuclear is such an immensely lesser evil compared to coal and oil that it's insane people are still against it.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] qfe0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 170 points 1 year ago (11 children)

For the love of everything, at least let's stop decommissioning serviceable nuclear plants.

[–] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 50 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Looking at you, Germany...

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (10 replies)
[–] elouboub@kbin.social 127 points 1 year ago (32 children)

Anti-nuclear people in here arguing about disasters that killed a few k people in 50 years. Also deeply worried about nuclear waste that won't have an impact on humans for thousands of years, but ignoring climate change is having an impact and might end our way of life as we know it before 2100.

They're bike-shedding and blocking a major stepping stone to a coal, petrol and gas free future for the sake of idealism.

The biggest enemy of the left is the left

[–] PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

A lot of the anti-nuclear sentiment comes from the 80s when the concerns were a lot more valid (and likely before half the pro-nuclear people in this thread were born).

But blaming people on social media for blocking progress on it is a stretch. They're multi-billion dollar projects. Have any major governments or businesses actually proposed building more but then buckled to public pressure?

Anyway, I'm glad this conversation has made it to Lemmy because I've long suspected the conspicuous popularly and regularity of posts like this on Reddit was the work of a mining lobby that can't deny climate change anymore, but won't tolerate profits falling.

[–] sockenklaus@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago

They're bike-shedding and blocking a major stepping stone to a coal, petrol and gas free future for the sake of idealism.

I really don't get this "nuclear as stepping stone" argument. Nuclear power plants take up to ten years to build. Also (at least here in Germany) nuclear power was expensive as hell and was heavily subsidized.

We have technology to replace coal and gas: Wind, solar, geothermal, etc. Why bother with nuclear and the waste we can't store properly...?

load more comments (30 replies)
[–] archonet@lemmy.world 102 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (31 children)

do not let "perfect" be the enemy of "good enough"

edit: quick addendum, I really cannot stress this enough, everyone who says nuclear is an imperfect solution and just kicks the can down the road -- yes, it does, it kicks it a couple thousand years away as opposed to within the next hundred years. We can use all that time to perfect solar and wind, but unless we get really lucky and get everyone on board with solar and wind right now, the next best thing we can hope for is more time.

[–] havokdj@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I completely agree with everything you said except for ONE little thing:

You are grossly misrepresenting how far that can is kicked down, for the worse. It doesn't kick it down a couple thousand years, it kicks it down for if DOZENS of millennia assuming we stay at the current energy capacity. Even if we doubled or tripled it, it would still be dozens of millennia. First we could use the uranium, then when that is gone, we could use thorium and breed it with plutonium, which would last an incomprehensibly longer time than the uranium did. By that point, we could hopefully have figured out fusion and supplement that with renewable sources of energy.

The only issue that would stem from this would be having TOO much energy, which itself would create a new problem which is heat from electrical usage.

[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Then you just move the planet slightly further away from the sun! Problem solved!

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (30 replies)
[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 75 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Don't get scared off by the N Word

Nuclear isn't the monster it's made out to be by oil and coal propagands.

load more comments (15 replies)
[–] Sentau@lemmy.one 65 points 1 year ago (10 children)

I am not sure when the narrative around nuclear power became nuclear energy vs renewables when it should be nuclear and renewables vs fossil fuels.

We need both nuclear and renewable energy where we try to use and develop renewables as much as possible while using nuclear energy to plug the gaps in the renewable energy supply

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 58 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I live less than 2 miles from the last remaining coal power station in England.

I would much rather have nuclear instead of a chimney chucking god knows what into the air (and subsequently into me) for my entire life.

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 36 points 1 year ago (17 children)

Fun fact, coal plants produce more radiation into their environment than nuclear plants

Modern reactor designs are so damn safe it's insane

load more comments (17 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] chaogomu@kbin.social 34 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Greenpeace was founded to be an anti-nuclear organization. See, most of the founding members were members of the Sierra Club (another environmentalist organization) but the Sierra Club was actually pro-nuclear power. The Sierra Club was actually fighting against the installation of new dams due to the effect of wiping out large swaths of river habitat and preventing salmon runs and such.

Anyway, in 1971 there was an underground nuclear bomb test by the US government in an area that was geologically unstable. (there were a bunch of tests to see just how geologically unstable). Protesters thought that the test would cause an earthquake and a tsunami.

Anyway, the people who were unhappy with the Sierra club not actively protesting nuclear power, wanted to protest this nuclear bomb test too, so they formed an organization called the "Don't make a wave committee". They sued, the suit was decided in the US's favor, the test went off, and no earthquake happened (which is how the earlier tests said it would go).

At some point, the "Don't make a wave committee" turned into Greenpeace.

Also about this timeframe, Greenpeace started receiving yearly donations from the Rockefeller Foundation.

The Rockefeller Foundation is the charitable foundation created by the Rockefeller heirs that "uses oil money to make the world a better place" but they kind of don't. They've been anti-nuclear since the beginning, and even directly funded some radiation research in the 1950s that lied about safe exposure limits to radiation, claiming that there was no safe limit. That research went on to shape international policy, and by the time new research came out, the policy was already written and thus hard to change.

As a side note, another alumnus of the Sierra Club was approached by the then CEO of Atlantic Oil and directly paid a sum of something like $100k (in 1970 money) to found another anti-nuclear environmentalist organization called Friends of the Earth.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] eestileib@sh.itjust.works 32 points 1 year ago (7 children)

100% right.

It doesn't make any sense without reprocessing though, have to do both. Fortunately France and Finland have active programs.

The US needs to both learn how to do reprocessing again and build more plants.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] Stoneykins@mander.xyz 24 points 1 year ago (13 children)

Wind and solar > nuclear > fossil fuels

Nothing really against nuclear except how it is being weilded as a distraction from better, cleaner, energy. We need to be going all in on converting everything to wind and solar, with batteries and other power storage like water pumping facilities filling the gaps.

Nuclear needs a few more issues figured out, like how to actually cheaply build and get power from all those touted newer cleaner reactor styles.

load more comments (13 replies)
[–] Relo@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (45 children)

Why go nuclear when renewable is so much cheaper, safer, future proof and less centralised?

Don't get me wrong. Nuclear is better than coal and gas but it will not safe our way of life.

Just like the electric car is here to preserve the car industry not the planet, nuclear energy is still here to preserve the big energy players, not our environment.

load more comments (45 replies)
[–] creditCrazy@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (11 children)

One thing I don't see a lot of people talking about is how nuclear is probably better for the environment due to how you don't have to cut down a Forrest to generate a viable amount of electricity meanwhile nuclear only requires two factory sised buildings to generate more than enough electricity to be viable and that's assuming you have a sister breeder reactor to generate power from the waste

load more comments (11 replies)
[–] andrei_chiffa@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I find it fascinating how few people remember the time when Greenpeace was literally selling Russian gas.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] rusticus@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

This thread: nuclear is far better than fossil fuels

Everyone else: nuclear is not as good as renewables

This thread: nuclear is far better than fossil fuels

Crickets

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Designate6361@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Cause once again no one can see the potential advancements nuclear technology can have if it had proper investment. Everyone see's Chernobyl and Fukushima and then they switch off.

Yes Renewables are better than nuclear for the moment but to demonize and not even discuss it is just burying your head in the sand

[–] iByteABit@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

If the Great Filter theory is correct, climate change will most likely be our Great Filter.

Our species is simply not equipped with the ability to deal with the problems it created. Many people can, but they're not powerful to do anything, and there's too many uneducated people for the masses to rise up about this problem.

We think so short term, it's impossible for some people to think about the future and accept that we'll need to change the way we live now so that we can keep living then. They're hung up on Chernobyl because it was a big bang that killed lots of people at once and it was televised everywhere that has a society and TVs, but they are unable to see that in the long term coal and gas have killed and are still killing way more people than nuclear accidents, because it's a process that's continuous and kills people in indirect ways instead of a big blast.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›