this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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A nuclear fission power plant generates about as much CO2 as wind turbines if you have a look at it's whole lifecycle. That's because just operation doesn't generate CO2. But nonetheless that power plant is made from materials like lots of concrete. It needs to be built, decommissioned, etc. You need to mine the uranium ore, ... All of that generates quite some CO2. So it's far off from being carbon neutral. And we already have alternatives that are in the same ballpark as a nuclear power plant with that. Just that the fission also generates this additional nuclear waste that is a nightmare to deal with. And SMRs are less efficient than big nuclear power plants. So they'll be considerably less "clean" than for example regenerative energy. I'd say they're definitely not amongst the cleanest energy sources we have today. That'd be something like a hydroelectric power. However, it's way better than oil or natural gas or coal. At least if comparing CO2 emissions.
For over a century, the standard way we’ve been disposing of hazardous materials that can’t be easily recycled is to permanently bury it. We’re doing it with thousands of tonnes of hazardous materials daily.
A nuclear power plant only generates about 3 cubic meters of hazardous nuclear waste per year.
At the typical sizes we’re currently building them, you need 50-100 solar or wind farms to match the electricity output of a single nuclear reactor.
When we eventually dispose of the solar panels from those farms we literally end up with more toxic waste in heavy metals like cadmium than the nuclear power plant produced.
No solution is perfect.
But contrary to the propaganda, nuclear is one of our cleanest options.
Are we though?
About 400,000 tonnes of used fuel has been discharged from reactors worldwide, but only about one-third has been reprocessed.
Yes. Nuclear waste is tiny. That’s the point.
Nuclear isn’t the only hazardous waste we dispose of burying it.
We’re disposing of tonnes of hazardous waste daily. Only a tiny percentage of that is nuclear waste.
Yet for some reason everyone loses their mind about the comparatively tiny amount of hazardous waste from nuclear and no one cares about the significantly larger about of hazardous waste from the eventual disposal of solar panels and 100s of other sources of hazardous waste.
The half life of solar panels is insignificant.
The half life of high grade nuclear waste is significant.