The best argument i have seen towards this (not my own) is that human incompetence is almost inevitable and nuclear power is to dangerous precisely because of that.
Personally i believe we can do better but its an understandable perspective.
People who point out the theoretical risks of nuclear energy are often quick to dismiss the realized harms of fossil fuels. And I don’t just mean long term climate effects, but the directly attributable estimated deaths.
I think the small number of actual nuclear incidents, and the exceptional circumstances they happened in, shows that nuclear power can be safe - certainly safer than freely spewing fossil fuels into the atmosphere. The real issue, to my eyes, is whether it’s economical now.
Considering the rapid advance of renewables, the idea of building new nuclear power plants probably does not have a large role to play going forward. Nuclear power is expensive to build, get up and running, and then put all the security safeguards up. If memory serves at present it’s no longer cheaper than renewables, just cheaper than fossil fuels.
Not even that, true cost of nuclear power was nearly always more than fossils or same. Governments were just very interested in having it for … other reasons and subsidied it to make it viable.
The best argument i have seen towards this (not my own) is that human incompetence is almost inevitable and nuclear power is to dangerous precisely because of that.
Personally i believe we can do better but its an understandable perspective.
People who point out the theoretical risks of nuclear energy are often quick to dismiss the realized harms of fossil fuels. And I don’t just mean long term climate effects, but the directly attributable estimated deaths.
I think the small number of actual nuclear incidents, and the exceptional circumstances they happened in, shows that nuclear power can be safe - certainly safer than freely spewing fossil fuels into the atmosphere. The real issue, to my eyes, is whether it’s economical now.
Considering the rapid advance of renewables, the idea of building new nuclear power plants probably does not have a large role to play going forward. Nuclear power is expensive to build, get up and running, and then put all the security safeguards up. If memory serves at present it’s no longer cheaper than renewables, just cheaper than fossil fuels.
Not even that, true cost of nuclear power was nearly always more than fossils or same. Governments were just very interested in having it for … other reasons and subsidied it to make it viable.
, image source: wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#Europe