[jMyles]

That's right, they aren't. Now, let's have a reasonable dialogue about the consequences of uranium mining vs the supply chain for materials for wind and solar.

All of these technologies are zero-on-site emissions, and that's a useful distinction of course (compared to coal). But of course we still need to consider the externalities of the rest of the process.

[justtopost]

Not just supply side. Decom of old wind units is difficult, and they are mostly non-biodegrading fiberglass, carbon fiber, and polyester and epoxy resins, apart from their easily recycled metal bits.

So far, we are trying to repurpose them, but its not a great solution. We can only use so many turbine blade park benches.

Personally, I think we will look back on wind power as a curious mistake, in comparison to solar farms and nuclear.

[jMyles]

> So far, we are trying to repurpose them, but its not a great solution. We can only use so many turbine blade park benches.

Very interesting. I didn't realize this - thanks for bringing it to my attention. Do you happen to have a link handy where I can learn more about these sorts of efforts?

[runarberg]

Is it weird to note the difficulties of decommissioning windmills, and then advocate for nuclear power plants?

[08-15]

You just shifted the goal posts from power inputs to raw materials, but whatever. Let's have a discussion about production of rare earth elements vs. in-situ leaching of uranium.

[nickik]

Ok. Lets have reasonable idalogue.

The facts are quite simply that nuclear uses the least amount of materials and has the lowest overall resource consumption.

Uranium is mined threw one hole in the ground and is much cleaner and less destractive then virtually all other forms of mining. Furthermore you only need tiny amounts because the the energy density.

The mining required for solar and wind is larger by orders of magnitude.

The same goes for land use. Nuclear has a minuscule land use impact.

On carbon solar, wind and nuclear are all so much better that it hardly matters and calculations become way to specific about what was transported where and so on.

Nuclear pays for the decommissioning and for the waste. The 'waste' is all captures and does not harm anybody (not even animals). Compared to the waste form solar and wind that is not properly accounted for in most of the world.

So nuclear is overall has the smallest environmental impact.