this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
61 points (98.4% liked)
Europe
8484 readers
3 users here now
News/Interesting Stories/Beautiful Pictures from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: Thunder mountain, Germany, 🇩🇪 ) Feel free to post submissions for banner pictures
Rules
(This list is obviously incomplete, but it will get expanded when necessary)
- Be nice to each other (e.g. No direct insults against each other);
- No racism, antisemitism, dehumanisation of minorities or glorification of National Socialism allowed;
- No posts linking to mis-information funded by foreign states or billionaires.
Also check out !yurop@lemm.ee
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
But... why? Building a new nuclear reactor takes decades, is insanely expensive compared to every other power source, is inflexible and relies on uranium that is tradionally sourced from Russia.
Running it creates even more expensive byproducts requiring expensive extremely-long-term storage.
I honestly don't get it.
Although I can get behind Progressive Slovakia's stance of letting the market deal with it, because there is literally no market for these things.
Those byproducts are still viable as fuel and can be sent to second- and third-stage reactors rather than being locked away in a cement vault somewhere. Also, Australia has an absolute shitload of uranium out in the outback, which is kind of a win-win since it's far from civilization and largely uninhabitable anyway. If the fuel actually gets used until it's spent, nuclear is extremely clean and very safe.
Even if these reactors are built and used and we get the uranium from better sources, there's still the teeny tiny problem of nuclear being insanely expensive per kWh.
That's not been my experience. I live near one of the largest nuclear plants in the world and I pay a pittance for electricity compared to other areas I've lived.
Edit: Just checked my bill. I pay 8 cents per kWh, which is magnificent compared to the 12-14 I paid at my old place.
You cannot take your very localised and anecdotal experience and draw conclusions about energy cost as a whole. There are many reasons why your electricity now is cheaper than at a different place at a different time.
Besides, nuclear is very expensive compared to other energy sources, it is however often heavily subsidised. Wikipedia has a nice summary on the cost of various electricity sources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity
The issue is that uranium is so cheap nobody wants to use non-virgin fuel. You could recycle the uranium, or use breeder reactors, but both of those have political issues. The current usage of uranium is extremely wasteful and produces lots of unnecessary waste, but I’m not totally convinced that this will change anytime soon.
I agree that it won't change anytime soon. Even if the laws changed overnight it would be decades before we had a full pipeline. That said, I don't consider that a reason not to pursue the research and development of one, or to stop the construction of nuclear plants that's already in progress.
No.
Classic German arrogance.
If you have something that actually contributes to the discussion, please share it. Otherwise go jump up your own asshole.
W for me L for you.
This must be that famous German education system in action. Do you consider WW2 a W as well?
I consider your entire existence as L for humanity.
Good, because I woke up today wondering how I could piss off CookieJarObserver most effectively.
And yet you failed horribly
I dunno, you seem pretty mad to me.
Not at all, you aren't even a minor inconvenience, just a waste of time.
And yet here you are, wasting time on me.
I mean i have nothing else to do, im watching tv and there is a advertising right now...
What are you watching?
There is currently Harry Potter running, never watched it thought I'd give it a try. Not bad tbh.
Once you're done with that, you should give Mashle a try. It's an anime about a kid who goes to not-Hogwarts despite having zero magical ability in a world where literally everyone else has it. Shit's hysterical once you have the context from Harry Potter.
Actually I've gotten the same advice the other way around from a friend lol Mashle was great so far, now waiting for cour two of it
You can get uranium from many sources, and it’s really cheap. Actually, the low price is the reason why we produce as much nuclear waste as we do, as there’s little incentive to use all the energy in the uranium. That said, the amount of waste produced is very low compated to any other category of waste. It’s very overblown.
Nuclear is insanely expensive, but what’s the alternative backups for renewables? Coal, that’s what. Gas is too expensive without Russian supply. Battery storage on a scale of more than 5 minutes is an unsolved problem. To bring the irony full circle coal plants are actually very radioactive.