People need electricity?
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Surprising? No. But we were promised that by now alternatives would be ready and we could shut these plants off. I don’t think just shutting them down if those alternatives are not ready is a good idea but it’s also a policy failure that we haven’t met our goals for carbon-free generation.
Nuclear power should have been an option, but due to the past disasters, it will take decades for people to come back around.
China was also planning to build the next gen. ones with Bill Gates, they talk about it in his netflix thing, it is a PR positive for Gates but useful info is presented about the possibilites about nuclear.
- https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-approves-expansions-three-nuclear-power-plants-2023-08-01/
- A bit of trouble accessing due to VPN: https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20210912-why-china-is-developing-a-game-changing-thorium-fuelled-nuclear-reactor
- https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202308/1296285.shtml
For?: https://www.cnet.com/science/how-nuclear-power-plants-could-help-solve-climate-crisis/
Edit: format and spelling, added additional links and articles on china nuclear plants
My issue with conventional nuclear is it’s expensive and slow to develop. At this point I’m not sure that by the time we could roll it out it would beat out renewables+storage but I’m open to the idea if it pencils out. Eliminating fossil fuels from the grid needs to be priority 1.
Yes, you are right, it is slow and expensive.
I still think it would be a great investment for the future of energy.
Only thing I’m worried about is a earth quake to happen then we will have a Fukushima disaster in the US. Our infrastructure in the US has been neglected for so long, what makes you think the Fed would help here?
You have a point on our infrastructure problems.
Nuclear Power Plants are on another different level of safety regulations.
Fukushima was a cluster fudge of disasters. Japanese also admitted to underestimating the sincerity of a disaster, one being a 9.0 earthquake. They have now updated and increases their safety factors.
You are right though, in the end we can not trust that it would be safe, we the people would have to be vigilant and demand higher standards or force them to, though legal action like suing the company and gov’t.
Information I found on Fukushima disaster, this one had more details: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a6721/fukushima-nuclear-disaster-what-went-wrong-5508927/
Fukushima was an older design. Newer reactors can handle a lack of active cooling. It was also a mistake to place the backup generators at ground level, instead of elevated like experts were recommending even before the disaster. And it wasn’t the earthquake that caused the problem, but the resulting tsunami and flooding, so most sites that are not on the coast don’t have that risk.
