Comment on Not a single one
lvxferre@mander.xyz 6 days agoWhat 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 6 days ago
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 6 days ago
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.
einfach_orangensaft@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
Yeah you can reprocess nuclear fuel, but latest information i have on that is that its nowhere close making sense cost wise and mostly theoretical, i may be wrong on that tho.
When i yeet a solar cell or electric motor into a furnace its possible to refine basically everything, sure here and there a motor in a hair dryer will hit the landfill, but for industrial Motors/Generators is very very low.