Im not a nuclear bro, but a vast majority of the planet’s Uranium is mined in Australia and Canada and both countries have pretty massive reserves. They have strict regulations and safety surrounding uranium operations. Naturally occurring uranium doesnt even pose much safety risk on its own, its the Radon that is generated by decay that causes problems for humans. Im not too familiar with how uranium mining is done but I imagine Radon risks can be mitigated pretty effectively with ventilation.
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Jean_le_Flambeur@discuss.tchncs.de 5 days agoBruh
- Renawbles are capable of generating a ton of energy manageable distances from where they are used in most cases, even for the cases which they are not it is orders of magnitudes cheaper and better for environment if you make green hydrogen, ship it to where its needed and convert it back into current where you need it considered the absurd amounts of time and cost it takes to manage nuclear waste. Not even considering the cost to mine and ship nuclear fuel, build the reactor and safely dispose of it at the end of its lifespan as its miniscule compared to maintain any sort of storage building for a time longer than the time between humanitys first building and now.
Mining is mostly done by people living under slave like conditions in poor countries. Even thinking having a energy source which needs to CONTINUOUSLY BURN MINED RECOURCES to keep outputting any energy at all compared is superior to a energy source which NEEDS MINED RESOURCES ONCE TO CONTINUOUSLY output energy until broken by external forces in terms of mining needed shows the absurdity of your argument
Solar panels need silicium (literally sand) and bor, apart from some plastics and structural metal and glass. Those are way easier and cleaner to mine then radioactive materials, and bor is needed in really small amounts, AND IT DOESNT GET BURNED, YOU CAN REUSE IT.
Thinking that smashing a train against something tells you anything about the properties of a material when exposed to time spans of degradation many orders of magnitude bigger than the time humans even started researching material properties…I dont even know where to start with this “argument” its bs on so many levels
Mavvik@lemmy.ca 5 days ago
A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl 5 days ago
About the point 2.
I live in a thinrd world country, and it angers me to no end when they try to take this moral stand when a lot of times they’re the ones who didn’t let us all develop in the first place lol.
My country depends on it’s mining industry, the biggest copper mining country in the world and i think the 2nd on lithium, they say it’s the wage of chile, most of the copper is extracted by the State owned CODELCO, wich money goes to schools and hospitals, and even the one who is mined privately is taxed and has to pay royalties that go to help the people.
Miners aren’t even poorly paid for Chilean standards, and they have benefits, they’re strongly unionized lol, and mines here have an extremely high tech level, making people don’t have to go to risky places, a lot of mines are totally automated, where robots extract the material and take it out, while their operators sit comfortably in a control room in the city.
So don’t come to lecture me on these “poor people in third world countries” because you know nothing, you are a firstworlder who had benefited from colonization and political meddling in our affairs, now that we’re finally advancing, and making a better country for ourselves, you come to say this thing? Bruh.
Jean_le_Flambeur@discuss.tchncs.de 5 days ago
I fully agree with you that my ancestors have chosen the path of violence and colonization, which I absolutely condemn and try to make up for in my every day live.
And you are right, I dont know about uranian mines in Chile, nice that its state owned and actually beneficial for the area.
I understand if you argue for nuclear if the mines have developed your region and is actually beneficial to the people from an emotional point of view.
You hit me with an argumentum ad hominem, which is kind of deserved by what the society I live in did to a lot of the world (even if I myself try to fight that, lots of the privileges I have stem from exactly those past oppressions, can’t change that) but its still an argumentum ad hominem, and therefore not really contributing to the matter at hand
Nuclear is bad for humanity, even if I live in Europe.
A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl 5 days ago
my country extracts copper nor uranium, I just used it as an example.
Jean_le_Flambeur@discuss.tchncs.de 5 days ago
Well okay, i would not argue to stop buying Cooper. I wouldn’t even argue against mining uranium in small doses for science, smoke detectors and whatnot.
My point is that extracting stuff from the ground is a big undertaking, especially when trying to do it in a way safe for workers. It is not good for humanity to do that, just to burn it, when there are alternatives.
I doubt that most mines are actually owned by worker cooperatives and progressive states, but even if so, the USA has a history of making sure they get enough of their primary energy source for cheap, even if that means invading countries, murdering union people or straight up installing puppet governments. Also here in the EU, conservatives have a history of blocking any legislation that would force company’s to respect human rights outside of the EU. So a lot of the materials used in Europe are not ethically sourced (clothes, caffe, cacoa, lithium, stone are the ones I know about having lots of child labour and wages far beyond the European minimum wage) I assume if uranium prices go up thanks to lots of demand, people here will buy the cheapest, which probably is not ethically from nations/corporations respecting human rights, as respecting human dignity adds cost.
Depending on a finite recource from other countries is hardly evaded in modern capitalism, but making your primary energy source one, when you have other options is just dumb.
I was pulling a analogy to oil, where the EU is buying from Saudi Arabia for example, a country not really famous for human rights, Russia (same) and america (facist).
Giving the powefull corporations and oil spring/fracking site owners there lots of money every year seldom changes the life of ordinary people there for the better.
Maybe it would all be different with uranium, but I doubt that.
Also I am pretty sure as soon as nuclear waste starts really piling up privileged countries would be pretty fast to get it out of there land and onto some less fortunate nation.
I just think if we want to stop using a finite fossil recource which pollutes our world for a few hundred years its not a good idea to substitute it with a finite fossil resource which pollutes our world for a few thousand years, if we have a cheap, renewables alternative available. Mist sane persons would think that way
The only problem is, USA, France and China really really want to build nuclear bombs, but pushing so much money into it that they can pay it as military expanses is to much even for them. So we have lits of propaganda, that nuclear power is good, or even necessary, so most of the costs can be sold as infrastructure to the voters.
I never in my life have met a person who has a good plan on how to manage nuclear waste in timescales in which societys rise and fall, cultures get started and forgotten, etc. Pp. In a way which is even near practical not to speak of Economically feasable. You think medical people could calculate the wage of someone guarding whatever today? Mining is a tangebale aspect, bad to depend on, but graspable, controlling the waste isnt