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Icy-Conclusion-3500 t1_j1ueire wrote

Reply to comment by Unique-Public-8594 in Wind developers’ tightening financials call New England project into question by stewart0077

Nuclear fears were largely spread by the fossil fuel industry.

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Unique-Public-8594 t1_j1ufegl wrote

Ok I see my opinion is thoroughly unpopular, but here’s my thought process anyway: pro-nuclear messaging maybe spread by the pro fossil fuel folks, I hadn’t considered that but, yes, that makes sense. I hear you. I’m not advocating for fossil fuels.

I had been thinking it is being spread by the anti wind-solar-hydro and by the pro-nuclear-anti-environment lobbyists. I’m pro hydro, solar, and wind.

My concern about radioactive waste is that we have a long history of thinking things are totally ok, until they’re not (for example: DDT, coal, mega doses of radiation to children, fracking, plastics, ozone - probably more). We were told these were all completely safe. So we now have a pattern of being told things are totally safe, then learning we were wrong, they are actually deadly. At some point we need to stop and notice this pattern, learn from history, and re-examine how quick we are to assume things are safe. Learn from our mistakes. That’s all I’m suggesting here, not that we go back to fossil fuels, that we instead resist the powerful nuclear power lobby and turn to solar, wind, and hydro. Innovate with projects that produce hydro locally like this one that produces no radioactive waste: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpubi1GjoBE. Or, solar roof tiles that produce no radioactive waste: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/im-getting-my-roof-redone-and-heard-about-solar-shingles/. We have solar electric fences, solar paint, solar bike paths, solar hats, and even a converter of CO2 to power but we aren’t using them. https://greencoast.org/solar-powered-inventions/

Also, we are passing this radioactivity problem on to many future generations. Do we have that right to say “here, we are long gone, we did this but it’s your problem now”?

Biggest environmental disasters in history includes Chernobyl: https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/worst-environmental-disasters-caused-by-humans.php

But I have no expectation anyone here will agree with me, accept that 100%

When the nuclear energy lobby says “we need this, it’s this or fossil fuels” don’t believe them. They are biased. There are other options. They downplay those other options for profit.

When the nuclear power lobby says solar-wind-hydro can’t provide enough, my thought is: we haven’t even tried. Lets try.

Downvote me all you want, I think we can do better/cleaner than nuclear.

It reminds me of the sugar industry telling everyone that weight gain is related to fat intake: we all believed it, but now know better (both fat and sugar are related to weight gain).

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femtoinfluencer t1_j1uy5th wrote

You have good points.

I will say that solar PV needs a LOT of area to generate power in amounts that we currently use/need it as a civilization, but, blanketing far more urban surfaces with PV installations even in marginal areas could make a big dent in our energy needs. I believe this type of policy has been effective in Germany.

The other issue is that tons of new solar generating capacity would absolutely have to come with grid-scale storage for when the sun isn't shining, and that's not yet a solved problem. Researchers are working their asses off to scale up battery storage to grid scale but it's not yet ready for prime time. Another 5 to 10 years will likely solve that, but it remains an additional capital cost + logistical issue to then set up a bunch of grid-scale storage facilities, plus all the changes to the power grid to accommodate them. Edit: there are also other forms of grid storage, but they're either less developed than batteries, or have requirements that limit them to favorable geographic areas (pumped hydro and the like).

A couple things to keep in mind about nukes:

First, modern reactor designs are drastically safer than the reactors everyone thinks of when they think about nukes. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima are generations-old reactor designs with many many more failure modes than current designs. Chances of accident with a major radiation release are so much less with current designs, you can't ever truthfully say zero, but they really are leagues better than the type of nuke plants we're used to thinking about.

Second, nuclear waste is largely a solvable (not solved - but solvable) problem. As long as we are using uranium for fuel, it's possible to build reactors that then burn the waste for power, the resulting waste of that process is both less in quantity and less problematic. There is also the possibility of switching to thorium for fuel, which generates much less / less bad waste in the first place, unfortunately thorium reactors haven't yet been scaled up / installed / operated for years at grid scale. So either of these solutions have a ways to go before they are actual solutions, but, at least they are possible. If new nukes do become a policy then it would be good to push that policy towards solutions like this.

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