All reactors are subject to overheat leading to meltdown when suddenly shutdown. They become massive energy vampires, requiring huge cooling power (and manpower) for up to 2 years after to avoid that.
What are the odds that a “social collapse” (war, plague, disaster, etc) leaves some with no workers and no external juice? Not if, when! Meltdowns will occur, some will breach containment. Only fools light an unextinguishable fire that kills them if they ever stop feeding it.
While reactor designs are “safe”: this requires that they follow protocols, which often means unplanned downtime. Given the social pressures for energy, it seems that reactor operators will sometimes disobey shutdown requirements. Corruption is real in all societies. With reactors it absolutely includes a non-zero catastrophe chance. Again not if, when!
Reactors are safe, for a pre-designed lifespan. Often 50 years. To decommission properly is massively expensive and takes years of labour, and requires a replacement plant. Are operators actually squirreling away the funds to have this all saved up 50 years later (by “overcharging” now)? Or are the future governments just gonna keep patching a pig… not if, when!
What kind of containment system will work for 10s of thousands of years? What does that cost, or even look like?
All this only holds true for traditional large scale commercial reactors.
Newer large scale reactors designs don’t require any power to cool once the reaction is shutdown (which is automatic if power is lost) and will not melt down if a loss of power happens.
Dedicated trust funds help pay for shutdown and yes, a new reactor would need to be built. This cost is significantly less than oil, gas, or coal over the long-term. Upfront cost with nuclear are higher, but only because of the large scale projects we currently utilize.
Sounds like a burden? Let me ask you how they control the pollution from Gas, Oil, or Coal. Trick question, they don’t really control it at all except for some scrubbing. Please realize that 250,000 people die (low estimate) from pollution related to power generation every year.
So every year non-nuclear fossil based power generation is killing a quarter of a million people. I would like to hear how you logically deal with this in your argument against nuclear.
![[Discussion] Are you pro or anti nuclear energy? Why?](https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/f1dcd9bc-51f8-4d82-ba04-9c34a26ea389.webp){kind=link}
All reactors are subject to overheat leading to meltdown when suddenly shutdown. They become massive energy vampires, requiring huge cooling power (and manpower) for up to 2 years after to avoid that.
What are the odds that a “social collapse” (war, plague, disaster, etc) leaves some with no workers and no external juice? Not if, when! Meltdowns will occur, some will breach containment. Only fools light an unextinguishable fire that kills them if they ever stop feeding it.
While reactor designs are “safe”: this requires that they follow protocols, which often means unplanned downtime. Given the social pressures for energy, it seems that reactor operators will sometimes disobey shutdown requirements. Corruption is real in all societies. With reactors it absolutely includes a non-zero catastrophe chance. Again not if, when!
Reactors are safe, for a pre-designed lifespan. Often 50 years. To decommission properly is massively expensive and takes years of labour, and requires a replacement plant. Are operators actually squirreling away the funds to have this all saved up 50 years later (by “overcharging” now)? Or are the future governments just gonna keep patching a pig… not if, when!
What kind of containment system will work for 10s of thousands of years? What does that cost, or even look like?
https://www.damninteresting.com/this-place-is-not-a-place-of-honor/
All this only holds true for traditional large scale commercial reactors.
Newer large scale reactors designs don’t require any power to cool once the reaction is shutdown (which is automatic if power is lost) and will not melt down if a loss of power happens.
Dedicated trust funds help pay for shutdown and yes, a new reactor would need to be built. This cost is significantly less than oil, gas, or coal over the long-term. Upfront cost with nuclear are higher, but only because of the large scale projects we currently utilize.
As far as containing nuclear waste.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository
Sounds like a burden? Let me ask you how they control the pollution from Gas, Oil, or Coal. Trick question, they don’t really control it at all except for some scrubbing. Please realize that 250,000 people die (low estimate) from pollution related to power generation every year.
So every year non-nuclear fossil based power generation is killing a quarter of a million people. I would like to hear how you logically deal with this in your argument against nuclear.