Seems like everybody is jumping on the "environmentalists that don't like nuclear power do it for ideological reasons and are paid by the oil lobby" resentment bandwagon.
While I think it is a fair point and while I do think it's a stupid mistake to close nuclear plants, there are also issues that I rarely see addressed probably because they drown under all the rest :
1. Nuclear plants are very expensive and some projects have been pumping taxpayer's money. I suspect they are not so easy to conceive, build and maintain as other sources of clean energy. Especially since they become a security issue when they get old.
2. The problem of waste management has always been a problem. I hear it argued that it is a solved problem but certainly having this problem lying since the beginning of the industry has not helped not build trust.
3. The nuclear catastrophies have been overblown because they were more spectacular and a new thing affecting lot of people in a short period of time BUT it remains that it is hard to trust people that thought building a nuclear plant in an island that is the victim of dramatic eathquakes and tsunamis a good ides AND the problem is that it fucks up an entire area for who knows how long ? That is certainly scary, no need for oil producers lobbying there to explain distrust.
4. Is there even enough uranium for the world ? Is is sustainable to invest loads of money into systems whose fuel is on foreign countries that you have to dig up ? (so according you gathered by now I am not pro-oil. Keep it in the goddamn ground)
5. It is a single point of failure. Thank god no terrorist thought of "landing" a plane there. It's broken ? No power for an entire region.
6. Finally, but this is a minor point as those considerations may be a luxury during our climate crisis, the technology lends itself well to despotic elite rule, everyone depends on who can secure control of a little army of skilled workers and engineers. Those control the energy supply would have tremendous power.
We still don't need nuclear. We have many other solutions, including reduction of power consumption, cap-and-trade carbon credits, and much more.
What's happened is that, bizarrely, people have completely conceded to the reactionaries. People have given in, and now give the reactionaries free reign, making it a fait accompli that none of those solutions will happen. If you quit trying and let the reactionaries off the hook, then nuclear is (arguably) what's left.
The anti-nuclear power position of the 1980s didn't take into account - and shouldn't have taken into account - that the American conservatives and the fossil fuel industry would prevent any action on climate change for decades, even denying climate change was happening, then falling back to 'it's not caused by humans', and now to 'there's nothing we can do'.
> Seems like everybody is jumping on the "environmentalists that don't like nuclear power do it for ideological reasons and are paid by the oil lobby" resentment bandwagon.
Again, everyone has completely capitulated to the reactionaries, like people in Vichy France. They are jumping on the reactionary bandwagon. The reactionaries are exceptionally aggressive (an obvious, unimaginative tactic) and people feel powerless against them, so like people bullied on the playground, they find a safe position: Join the bullies and attack their targets.
It lends itself to despotic elite rule a lot less effectively than oil though, as you need so much less of it and the economic cost of it is so much less.
Consider if you compare the cost of keeping a petroleum-burning 5 MW plant going for 40 years vs. a nuclear one. How many tankers full of $100 per barrel oil would that be? Just the fuel used by the tankers themselves would dwarf the uranium ore needed for the nuclear plant.
That's not even taking into account newer designs that could be powered from the existing waste of older plants.
As for despotic elite rule, that's what we have faced for decades with oil. Uranium ore is found on all continents, with the largest supplies in Australia and Canada. Oil is run by the Saudis, Putin, Maduro...
1. Nuclear plants are very expensive and some projects have been pumping taxpayer's money. I suspect they are not so easy to conceive, build and maintain as other sources of clean energy. Especially since they become a security issue when they get old.
2. The problem of waste management has always been a problem. I hear it argued that it is a solved problem but certainly having this problem lying since the beginning of the industry has not helped not build trust.
3. The nuclear catastrophies have been overblown because they were more spectacular and a new thing affecting lot of people in a short period of time BUT it remains that it is hard to trust people that thought building a nuclear plant in an island that is the victim of dramatic eathquakes and tsunamis a good ides AND the problem is that it fucks up an entire area for who knows how long ? That is certainly scary, no need for oil producers lobbying there to explain distrust.
4. Is there even enough uranium for the world ? Is is sustainable to invest loads of money into systems whose fuel is on foreign countries that you have to dig up ? (so according you gathered by now I am not pro-oil. Keep it in the goddamn ground)
5. It is a single point of failure. Thank god no terrorist thought of "landing" a plane there. It's broken ? No power for an entire region.
6. Finally, but this is a minor point as those considerations may be a luxury during our climate crisis, the technology lends itself well to despotic elite rule, everyone depends on who can secure control of a little army of skilled workers and engineers. Those control the energy supply would have tremendous power.