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Myth vs. fact: Is nuclear power really a climate solution? - Liberation News
(www.liberationnews.org)
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this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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No, it's never been able to compete on the market in terms of cost per kWh without massive amounts of government money. Just try building a nuclear power plant. Without this funding, no bank would give you credit, no insurance would insure you or any bank stupid enough to finance you. And alternatives are only getting cheaper, while trying to deal with the enormous risks continues to highten the costs of nuclear.
And that's not even talking about the enormous hidden costs off loaded on exploited people who have to mine the uranium. Or on future generations who are forced to take responsibility for nuclear waste in the only realistic way: actively guarding ever more and ever larger high security buildings full of poison (yes, the toxicity is just as problematic as the radioactivity) and hoping really hard against probability, that no natural or human made disaster will ever strike in basically all eternity.
After the initial cost, it's literally the cheapest form of energy. Even including the initial cost, it's still competitive and is only just starting to be usurped by renewables + novel storage technologies. When you account for the cost of storage for grid stability, nuclear has been the overall cheapest form of electricity for decades, and may still be for some years to come. You're talking out of your ass.
Nuclear waste is also a solved issue. We can literally reprocess waste to be used again as fuel. France has literally been processing their waste since the 70s. Doing this reduces the radioactive life of waste from over a thousand years to only a few hundred years. America just doesn't like countries doing this because it produces plutonium. The low level waste (i.e. not fuel, but other nuclear related waste products like reactor cladding) can totally safely be stored underground in casks for the entire duration required for them to become safe. The casks can even be safely stored above ground, on the surface, outside, for fucking decades waiting to be put into the ground while fools like you push back against it. This is, again, a solved issue.
Your talking points come directly from fossil fuel companies wishing to forestall the drawdown of petroleum. They were wrong when they were dreamt up, and they remain wrong.
Greenpeace has been campaigning since 1997 for the shutdown of the site, which they claim dumps "one million litres of liquid radioactive waste per day" into the ocean; "the equivalent of 50 nuclear waste barrels", claiming the radiation affects local beaches,[9][10] although official figures are to the contrary.[11]
Sounds great.. nuclear is stupidly expensive anyway you count. The true cost is huge compared to renewables. And renewables can be done now.
"Although official figures are to the contrary."
Greenpeace has always been kooky when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear is quite literally safer to install and operate than solar for the same capacity.
Renewables can't be done now, or it would already be done. Yes it is cheaper to install 1 MW of solar than 1 MW of nuclear. So, if you don't think about it at all, it would be a financial no brainer to go solar. However, nuclear is always there. This is what I was saying when I was talking about the cost of grid stability and how storage technology is almost there. But we're not there yet. This is why when Germany closed it's nuclear plants they went back to fucking coal. Because, right now, you cannot build a grid on 100% solar and wind that runs 24/7/365. Some countries have done it for a few days on particularly windy stretches. Maybe in 10 years. Maybe in 5. But do we have that time? I'm not saying we should open new plants - clearly it's too late for that to be a climate solution - but we absolutely should not fucking close existing ones and switch to coal to bridge the gap.
And I'm not against renewables. Nuclear can load-follow to a point, but it's much better on the plants if they don't. And even if they do, renewables and storage can supplement the higher order fluctuations of the grid. You need much less storage that way.
"Although official figures are to the contrary."
Yea lets trust the French government and its owners.
Greenpeace has always been kooky when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear is quite literally safer to install and operate than solar for the same capacity. No
Renewables can't be done now, or it would already be done.
No, it is not being done because we don't have a planned economy.
Yes it is cheaper to install 1 MW of solar than 1 MW of nuclear. So, if you don't think about it at all, it would be a financial no brainer to go solar. However, nuclear is always there. This is what I was saying when I was talking about the cost of grid stability and how storage technology is almost there. But we're not there yet. This is why when Germany closed it's nuclear plants they went back to fucking coal. Because, right now, you cannot build a grid on 100% solar and wind that runs 24/7/365. Some countries have done it for a few days on particularly windy stretches. Maybe in 10 years. Maybe in 5. But do we have that time?
Again 70 countries have more than half in renewables. Seems Denmark can do it.
What we don't have time for is pipedreams about clean uranium.
I'm not saying we should open new plants - clearly it's too late for that to be a climate solution - but we absolutely should not fucking close existing ones and switch to coal to bridge the gap.
And I'm not against renewables. Nuclear can load-follow to a point, but it's much better on the plants if they don't. And even if they do, renewables and storage can supplement the higher order fluctuations of the grid. You need much less storage that way.
No build renewables. If you need stability do kinetic energy storage.
And since nuclear doesn't even work year round in say France due to climate change , seems like bad bet