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Nuclear isn't perfect, but it is the best we have right now. (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (17 children)

Just because it's safe doesn't mean it's the best we have right now.

It's massively expensive to set up
It's massively expensive to decommission at end of life
Almost half of the fuel you need to run them comes from a country dangerously close to Russia. (This one is slightly less of a thing now that Russia has bogged itself down in Ukraine)
It takes a long time to set up.
It has an image problem.

A combination of solar, wind, wave, tidal, more traditional hydro and geothermal (most of the cost with this is digging the holes. We've got a lot of deep old mines that can be repurposed) can easily be built to over capacity and or alongside adequate storage is the best solution in the here and now.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

The problem with these arguments and the focus of debates is that they are based on nuclear energy from uranium, not thorium. Thorium is ubiquitous in nature, power centers are much easier to set up and can be small and the waste, while initially (a bit) more radioactive than uranium waste, loses it's radiation level much faster

Edit:typo

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Where are the thorium reactor ? We currently have none. Are we allowed to throw speculative energy source in the debate ?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

ILL THROW FUSION!!!!!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Already India and chine have had working ones for many years. It's not speculative and I recommend you to research the tech. It's unfortunately not very present in western nuclear energy debates. Could be a political reason but that's just a dirty guess

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I thought all thorium based reactor were still at the research stage. I made a quick search to see if there was any in actual use but couldn't find a source. If you have one please send it I'm really interested.

If they are still at the research stage then I'll wait until one is built at scale to decide whether they are a better alternative.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The abundance of uranium and thorium is of the same magnitude. The thing is economics. Uranium is cheap, and as long it is, we use the sources we have. As the peice of uranium rises other sources get economical including sea water extraction which is effectively renewable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Uranium is a much scarcer source compared to thorium. Uranium can also be used to create nuclear weapons, that's why other countries have difficulties using the tech because foreign powers are afraid of these consequences

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