Well you could just like, put all that tax money into decentralized renewable energy sources…that would also be profitable. While not causing waste that cant be touched for the next million years. While also lessening your dependence on nuclear fuel imports from political less than optimal nations or sources where the mining of it causes radio active dust to contaminate the population (Russia/USA and Australia).
Comment on Not a single one
snoons@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Well yeah, it’s a service. Expecting profit fram necessary services is stupid and counter-praductive but it makes a few people rich so of course it happens then you get memes like this.
einfach_orangensaft@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
felykiosa@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Million year really , so you talk about the EXTREMELY small portion of nuclear waste ? Also why not both , why not nuclear AND solar / wind / hydro electricity? Because all those renewable energy sources are either limited (hydro electricity) or intermittent (solar / wind) And I know you dont care but Yes we can bury nuclear waste if we do it properly, there already were natural nuclear reactor on earth way before humanity and it didnt kill everything where they were.
einfach_orangensaft@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
here already were natural nuclear reactor on earth way before humanity and it didnt kill everything where they were.
Uhm, a river flowing thru low grade non enriched uranium deposit isnt a reactor in the way we build em today, like not even close.
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
“it’s not the same, so the waste and radiation it produced naturally is irrelevant to this
cherry pickeddiscussion”
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
But that would enrich the oligarchy slightly more slowly! Won’t anybody think of the poor oligarchs?
lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
What you say about decentralisation is IMO a big deal that other users here are not paying attention to. You can’t have a nuclear usine in your backyard, but you can have a few solar panels here and there. It’s better to allow people to control their means of electrical generation than to have a government (or worse, a corporation) calling the shots.
Another important detail IMO is that “renewable energy” is a mixed bag of a lot of different approaches, each with its pros and cons. This means that if you’re going for renewables you can min-max the whole thing for less environmental and human impact, cheaper prices etc.
That said I think the part concerning waste from nuclear usines is a weak argument. It’s a relatively low volume, compared with the amount of electricity generated by those usines; and mining operations will be always a mess, no matter if you’re mining uranium (for nuclear), neodymium (for wind) or gallium and iridium (for solar).
einfach_orangensaft@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
That said I think the part concerning waste from nuclear usines is a weak argument. It’s a relatively low volume, compared with the amount of electricity generated by those usines; and mining operations will be always a mess, no matter if you’re mining uranium (for nuclear), neodymium (for wind) or gallium and iridium (for solar).
Yes, but i would argue that when you mine neodymium or gallium once you then can recycle them for ever, while the same cant be said for uranium, in the long term that does make a big difference.
lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
Yes, but i would argue that when you mine neodymium or gallium once you then can recycle them for ever
In practice you can’t. There’s always going to be losses when gathering the used parts for reprocessing and during the reprocessing itself.
In the meantime you can actually reprocess nuclear fuel. It won’t be forever, just like the above, but stuff like plutonium and the likes can be used for further energy production, plus this reduces the amount of high-level waste you need to deal with.
bobtimus_prime@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
I whole heartedly agree. And to anyone who complains about dunkelflaute, if we wouldn’t immediately burn our biogas, and instead stored it where we currently store our fossil gas, we would have a way more comfortable safety margin. Also a stronger European powergrid would be sufficient for almost all usual cases throughout the year.
mirshafie@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
No, you couldn’t. You need base load. Countries like Denmark and Germany freeload on the base load of France, Sweden and Finland. And the moronic EU laws that currently enable this will eventually change to charge them for that.
einfach_orangensaft@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Tell me, how are the french nuclear plants dealt with the last heat wave?
mirshafie@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
You’re deflecting because you don’t have a real argument to come up with. It’s true that global warming is having a negative impact on nuclear power in France, Switzerland and other places, but it doesn’t change the fact that you need some way to keep a stable voltage and frequency over your grid.
naught101@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Baseload has always been bullshit, see e.g. ceem.unsw.edu.au/…/MarkBaseloadFallacyANZSEE.pdf
It’s even more irrelevant now that battery storage can level out multi-day variability.
mirshafie@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
Great. Fucking build it then. Go ahead and build your non-hydro non-nuclear baseload, and I’ll shut the fuck up. Until then, I’ll call you out every time you say that nuclear and hydro is too expensive.
BaroqueInMind@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
This has got to be the single stupidest take I have seen so far on this website, like holy shit this is pants-on-head retarded
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The things are very much run as private companies under the pretense of being profitable. The whole purpose of nukes (other than providing weapons grade material) is shoveling public money into private pockets.
gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Sounds like a political science and economics problem, don’t know why we needed to harass physics nerds about it
jerkface@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
That does not sound universal, that sounds like an artifact of how things are done in your country.
Gladaed@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Spending excessively to provide a service that could have been supplied cheaper is not good a sign of good policy.
Nomad@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
Maybe learn to write correctly before regurgitating propaganda mindlessly. Profitable wants to say it costs less to operate than people pay for the power it produces. If that weren’t the case, people would still pay through taxes. All these evil people working in a power plant, how dare they wanting tip earn money to feed their kids…
doleo@lemmy.one 3 weeks ago
Maybe learn to write correctly
Profitable wants to say it costs less to operate
how dare they wanting tip earn money
Did I miss something in the edited post, or are you just violating rule 1 out of spite?
snoons@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Stop projecting lol
Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
In Canada nuclear power generation is more about creating jobs by rebuilding 50 year old reactors than it is about producing cheap energy.
einfach_orangensaft@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
those people could also build and maintain windmills tho
VibeSurgeon@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Efficient use of resources still matters in a service-driven model.
The service in this case is to provide electricity - if other alternatives can provide the same system of electricity while using less resources in the process, then it is clearly preferable.
overcast5348@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Externalized costs are a thing though. For instance, a coal plant spewing smoke (and radiation) costs everyone else money. A nuclear plant OTOH is usually responsible for dealing with all of its own shit. So it’s not always an apples to apples comparison to consider just the profitability of a project.
VibeSurgeon@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Absolutely. I don’t know that anyone is arguing for coal, except for Trump, but he’s also completely deranged.
Wind and solar have very little externalities, however. I’d even call their externalities trivial.
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Water vapor from the cooling tower is also a greenhouse gas but all heat exchange power plants at such scale emit it. Plus the nuclear waste, not yet economical to recycle, sometimes becomes its own problem too. So the overall externalities of a nuclear power plant are small (it’s the least deadly one!) but not zero.
waldfee@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
It sure isn’t apples to apples, but it’s also not like nuclear plants actually dealt with their waste
Philote@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Are you talking about current nuclear plants or the first generation ones built in the 50’s. Because that’s like using steam train safety to negate the use of modern trains.
bacon_pdp@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You do realize that they made nuclear recycling illegal in the USA right?
Which is ironic because nuclear waste is 97% pure fuel and the remaining 3% has other uses in medicine or have half-lives measured in minutes/hours or are stable (like gold)
VibeSurgeon@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
I don’t know what this has to do with my post at all to be honest
theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s relevant because the less-resource-efficient oil industry has lobbied to make nuclear power artificially inefficient so that their industry can continue to exist.