Memes

45560 readers

2452 users here now

Rules:

Be civil and nice.
Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

658

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]

585 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [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) (6 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 (3 children)

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