[treya]

This is a ridiculous and fundamentally flawed proposition. The obvious omissions and lack of consideration of other factors threatening the planet belies this author's bias/naivete/stupidity/other motivations.

First, the demand for energy is only a small fraction of numerous ways the planet is being compromised - irrevocably. Satisfying all energy demands worldwide cleanly will not "save the planet".

Second, carbon-free is completely different than being clean energy. The byproducts (generally leaking radioactive waste) are significant, highly toxic, and long-lasting. While the emissions of fossil fuels is considered, other cleaner alternatives are not.

Third, the demand for energy is, for the most part, contrived. We are sold on the ideas of the need for one car for each person, the need for cars to travel in the first place, whole house heating and cooling, electrical solutions to simple manual tasks, etc ad infinitum. We could massively reduce energy needs by using low-power and no-power solutions.

[nickik]

> The byproducts (generally leaking radioactive waste)

The idea that nuclear waste 'leaks' anything is absurd and defiantly not generally true.

While of course the output is toxic, its also highly controlled and does not come into contact with anything.

Its long lasting but it also contains lots of useful stuff that, if we continue to use nuclear power and other nuclear byproducts will turn very valuable.

> Third, the demand for energy is, for the most part, contrived. We are sold on the ideas of the need for one car for each person, the need for cars to travel in the first place, whole house heating and cooling, electrical solutions to simple manual tasks, etc ad infinitum. We could massively reduce energy needs by using low-power and no-power solutions.

Sure if you forced everybody how you would like to live then we could do a lot. The idea that we should artificially restrict peoples energy needs as a way to save the plant just so we can avoid the very minor issue of nuclear waste is absurd.

[saagarjha]

> The idea that nuclear waste 'leaks' anything is absurd and defiantly not generally true. While of course the output is toxic, its also highly controlled and does not come into contact with anything. Its long lasting but it also contains lots of useful stuff that, if we continue to use nuclear power and other nuclear byproducts will turn very valuable.

While I view nuclear power relatively favorably, this is an extremely rose-tinted view of the situation. Nuclear waste can and does leak.

[acidburnNSA]

Hanford waste is radionuclides dissolved in acid to get pure plutonium out. It leaks. It's from the Cold War nuclear weapons program. [1]

Commercial nuclear waste is solid ceramic Uranium/fission product-oxide. It does not leak.

[1] https://whatisnuclear.com/hanford.html

[nickik]

That's a weapons production cite. In most post I tried to separate civilian power waste from that.

If we look at civilian power production in the last 40 years its basically a non issue.

[nickik]

Nuclear waste form civilian power production has not done much. Basically not a single person died from it. I tired to separate civilian waste from nuclear weapons waste, that has a worse track record.

The few accidents that have happened are far smaller in scale then the 'horror' stories that people believe in and pretty much all of those are overhanging issue from the early nuclear age.

[erikpukinskis]

Not in meaningful quantities compared to fossil fuels.

[aeternus]

>The obvious omissions and lack of consideration of other factors threatening the planet belies this author's bias/naivete/stupidity/other motivations.

The vast majority of problems facing the planet can be solved given extremely cheap energy:

- Need clean drinking water? Simply desalinate ocean water if you have enough energy.

- Need clean air? Various catalytic converters can remove most and in many cases all harmful molecules, they just cost energy.

- Need to sequester carbon? Sure we know how to do it, provided you have enough energy.

- Need to feed the world? We already grow enough food, the main problem is transportation of that food. Again, easy with enough energy and electric vehicles.