It's this line of thinking that ultimately pushes me to being pro-nuclear.
However, I think our optimism regarding the political situation is more misplaced than our optimism regarding the tech.
Here, you criticize Carter's order and present an alternative. A great one, even: Not having the order in place and doing the reprocessing.
But that's not reality, right? It's more likely that we'll have Carter's order and some new dumb order in the next few years. Nuclear is inherently scary and will always be politicized.
I agree somewhat regarding the overblown burial worries. But I could make a really great commercial out of the disaster scenarios involved there. They'll never not be convincing arguments.
Radiation is a silent killer. Nuclear weapons are the worst thing humanity has made. Not being afraid of nuclear power is rational only within a very narrow discussion window, one which most people simply cannot see through.
I guess my frustration here is that the pro-nuclear side constantly uses arguments that don't work and casually dismisses being afraid of the smallest and largest deadly thing. There's lots of "just" and "most" and it all feels so hand-wavy.
"We checked the numbers, we've got the worst thing under control." It's just not a convincing argument to most people. I don't know how to fix this, but it's definitely not another politicized pro/anti divide.
> our optimism regarding the political situation is more misplaced than our optimism regarding the tech
Yeah, living in Germany I am afraid this is going absolutely nowhere. I've given up on seeing nuclear energy help us even a little bit in this emergency, but I do try to still inform people about how out of proportion the fatalities from coal and the fatalities from fission power really are. We're shutting down nuclear before coal? Environmentalists in Germany are handing out stickers for it and you see them on literally every third car or building. It's ludicrous. I've never seen a disinformation campaign more effective than this. It's like fear of flying but without the people claiming it's safe or faster than traditional methods. Not a one in Germany; no one I've spoken to was even neutral about nuclear. Next, when they realize their safety argument isn't logical, they turn to costs. What do they think the costs of extreme weather events, ecosystem collapse, and mass relocations will be?!
I just hope that, with better information, they will at least realize that we have a bigger problem than nuclear power, even if it doesn't mean they become neutral or in favor of building a new nuclear plant to help with the transition.
However, I think our optimism regarding the political situation is more misplaced than our optimism regarding the tech.
Here, you criticize Carter's order and present an alternative. A great one, even: Not having the order in place and doing the reprocessing.
But that's not reality, right? It's more likely that we'll have Carter's order and some new dumb order in the next few years. Nuclear is inherently scary and will always be politicized.
I agree somewhat regarding the overblown burial worries. But I could make a really great commercial out of the disaster scenarios involved there. They'll never not be convincing arguments.
Radiation is a silent killer. Nuclear weapons are the worst thing humanity has made. Not being afraid of nuclear power is rational only within a very narrow discussion window, one which most people simply cannot see through.
I guess my frustration here is that the pro-nuclear side constantly uses arguments that don't work and casually dismisses being afraid of the smallest and largest deadly thing. There's lots of "just" and "most" and it all feels so hand-wavy.
"We checked the numbers, we've got the worst thing under control." It's just not a convincing argument to most people. I don't know how to fix this, but it's definitely not another politicized pro/anti divide.