It's odd to me that anti-nuclear is being labelled anti-science. It's almost like the pro-nuclear people have blinders on. Nuclear is fantastic, in theory. In practice, in the real world, the consequences of accidents are extraordinarily bad and costly. The odds of a bad accident may be very small, but they are not zero (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...). And dealing with the waste is another highly risky and unsolved problem.
I will be happily become pro-nuclear the moment that all the real-world externalities are actually priced in. How much do you think it cost to have 1,000 square miles in the Ukraine uninhabitable for the next 20,000 years? What if such an accident happens in a densely populated area?
How much do you think it will cost to keep all that nuclear waste safe for the next half a million years or so? Plutonium-239's half-life is 24,000 years, and isotopes are dangerous for 10 to 20 times their half-life (cf https://www.livescience.com/33127-plutonium-more-dangerous-u...).
The same problem of externalities exists for fossil fuels, of course. And even for hydro power in a different way: it has displaced millions of people and flooded many beautiful places.
The longer the half-life, the less we care. Bismuth and tungsten are radioactive, with half-lives longer than the age of the universe, but they aren't going to hurt anybody.
> In practice, in the real world, the consequences of accidents are extraordinarily bad and costly.
...not really. Fossil fuels kill a simply enormous amount of people. Coal is responsible for something like 13k deaths per year in the US alone; air pollution (from burning fossil fuels) kills something like 10k people per day.
> How much do you think it cost to have 1,000 square miles in the Ukraine uninhabitable for the next 20,000 years?
A number so low it rounds to zero in this context?
> The same problem of externalities exists for fossil fuels, of course.
I don't think you can handwave that away as an "of course". The externalities around fossil fuels are simply enormous; the issues and costs and risks of nuclear are multiple orders of magnitude less.
> I don't think you can handwave that away as an "of course". The externalities around fossil fuels are simply enormous; the issues and costs and risks of nuclear are multiple orders of magnitude less.
That wasn't intended as a handwave. Fossil fuel externalities are indeed enormous and well documented.
It's exhausting to talk to pro-nuclear people, because all everyone ever talks about is nuclear vs fossil. That was the 20th century's fight.
Fossil fuel for the generation of electricity is already doomed, because solar and wind are way cheaper now. Capitalism will take care of finishing off coal, the sooner the better, if we want to keep the planet livable.
In combination with rapid technological innovation in grid-scale storage, we will hopefully end up with a low-carbon power generation solution, one that does not involve risks of a nuclear accident, nor nuclear waste.
The negative real-world externalities of oil production aren't priced in, from explicit subsidies to global warming. Why does nuclear have to ascribe to such an unrealistic goal? That cripples the industry unfairly.
We already know and have well-studied the negative externalities of nuclear. They are significantly lower than fossil fuels where, for example, coal kills far more people with radiation than nuclear power plants do (even including Fukushima & Chernobyl). Yes, nuclear is dangerous and should be handled with caution. The only standard should be if it's better or worse than existing technologies where it's a resounding yes.
> I will be happily become pro-nuclear the moment that all the real-world externalities are actually priced in. How much do you think it cost to have 1,000 square miles in the Ukraine uninhabitable for the next 20,000 years? What if such an accident happens in a densely populated area?
We don't need to speculate here. That's precisely what happened in Fukushima. Evacuation orders were lifted in 2017. Radiation release in populated areas makes cleanup worthwhile. By comparison, the exclusion zone around Chernobyl still exists because the entire town existed to support the power plants. Once the power plants were no longer operational there was no real reason for the town to exist, and thus no incentive for cleanup.
And you're applying a double standard here. Do fossil fuel plants have to price in the estimated damage done due to climate change? That's estimated to
> How much do you think it will cost to keep all that nuclear waste safe for the next half a million years or so?
Million years or so? You realize uranium is a toxic heavy metal? Naturally occurring uranium is toxic. Spent nuclear waste is toxic forever. And it would have been toxic forever even if it was never used as nuclear fuel. In fact, uranium contamination of water is already a concern due to naturally occurring uranium [1]. The risk of uranium water contamination exists regardless of spent nuclear fuel.
Storing it isn't actually all that hard. You bury it in bedrock in an area with no aquifer. The main concern for uranium is water contamination. Putting it in a place with no aquifer eliminates the possibility of contamination even if the containment vessels deteriorate. The scenarios in which waste fuel results in contamination are borderline absurd, typically involving some sort of societal collapse destroying all knowledge of the disposal sites coupled with some future civilization digging up the waste for no discernible reason.
The cost of such a disposal facility is minimal: around $200 million for the Yucca Mountain facility [2]. Disposal isn't very expensive because the amount of waste generated is so small. The entirety of the US's nuclear waste from power generation occupies a volume the footprint of a football field and less than 10 yards high [3].
I will be happily become pro-nuclear the moment that all the real-world externalities are actually priced in. How much do you think it cost to have 1,000 square miles in the Ukraine uninhabitable for the next 20,000 years? What if such an accident happens in a densely populated area?
How much do you think it will cost to keep all that nuclear waste safe for the next half a million years or so? Plutonium-239's half-life is 24,000 years, and isotopes are dangerous for 10 to 20 times their half-life (cf https://www.livescience.com/33127-plutonium-more-dangerous-u...).
The same problem of externalities exists for fossil fuels, of course. And even for hydro power in a different way: it has displaced millions of people and flooded many beautiful places.