| Sorry, in the sum as you present it, it is wrong. It is correct that nuclear has the potential to produce a lot of energy without emitting CO2. And I am always happy to see new concepts for a more practical usage of nuclear energy. But the current way we are using nuclear energy has a lot of flaws, especially in the face of the ever cheaper reneweable energies. To address your points in more details: - nuclear power plants might not occupy much space compared to other forms of energy production, but nuclear plants are extremely expensive. To the point where new building projects based on the conventional nuclear technologies are starting to fail because of cost basis. And there is nothing clean about mining and processing the needed uranium. Mining uranium is very bad for the environment and the workers as the uranium-rich soil radiates. - it is also not true that the production of wind turbines and solar panes "devastate" the environment more than any other industrial production. - it is not vastly friendlier for humans and animals. Beyond the issues with the mining of uranium and potential hazards whenever radioactive material is handled, operating a nuclear power plant has an environmental impact, even if it is only for the needed water cooling. - as far as I am aware, no country has so far solved the issue with the long term storage of used fission material. - and there are the meltdowns. While the exact number of people directly killed by the meltdowns are debatable, there are many more suffering long-term damage for the radiation exposure. They have rendered quite some large areas completely inhabitable for humans.
And I am writing these lines from Bavaria, where there are still limits on eating mushrooms from the local forests, and where wild boar has to be checked for radiation before it is considered safe for human consumption. This is over 30 years after the Chernoby incident, and over 1000km away from the reactor. And it is expected to last for at least 20 more years. So far the usage of nuclear energy has had quite a negative environmental impact already. Not to imagine a large incident in a more populated area. Japan got away lucky that the radiactive contamination was not blown towards the Tokyo region. You write, that nuclear energy has no intermittancy problems - yes it mostly does not depend on the weather for the amount of energy produced. Except when it does, as power plants have to be shut down depending on the supply of cooling water, or when the water temperatures get to high, etc. Or when there are technical reasons which force a complete shutdown. Then the whole plant goes down removing a significant amount of energy production from the grid. In the last days, a lot of solar and wind power was transmitted from Germany to France due to extreme weather conditions As said before, building new nuclear plants has become extremely expensive. Meanwhile the prices for wind and solar have gone down rapidly and below the price of new nuclear installations. There are also little risks to the population. If you are not standing below a failing wind generator or falling from your roof while installing solar, there are no risks. No contaminations, and the dismantling is a relatively cheap progress compared the dismantling of nuclear power plants - which is estimated to vastly exceed 1 billion per plant. |