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by hfkajshfaks
2558 days ago
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I'm not in this field (university friends are), but reactors require triple redundancy for their power supply, including the grid. A better question is, should we have nuclear power at all? I took classes in nuclear engineering, by friends are nuclear engineers, ect. but it's not obvious to me that cheap electricity is worth it. |
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Why would you say that? I mean sure, if you can't manage to get cost-effectiveness right then it's not worth it. But otherwise dirt-cheap and readily available electricity is absolutely needed to solve the world's problems! Think about what will happen when large swaths of land loose access to drinking water after climate + pollution wreck things up and the only alternative is ocean water filtration and desalination plants that will need huuuge amounts of power! Also think about massive irrigation and civil engineering projects that will be needed to fight desertifications etc. And to keep heavily populated costal cities above (the new, higher) sea level. That's terrawats upon terrawats of energy that will be needed to constantly shuffle earth and water around, and maybe even to power huge city-scale air filters etc.
We have and still are wrecking up the planet to such a high extent that sooner or later the bill will arrive and we'll need to put heavy effort into re-terraforming Earth to keep it inhabitable... And there really is no other answer than nuclear here, while cities filled with LED-lights and low powered devices and highly thermally efficient buildings can run on renewables, heavy civil engineering projects and land decontamination and producing drinking water etc. will need waaay more power than our blanket of communication equipment and drones.
We could decide not to, but then we'll end up fighting for resources and instead of nuclear power with it's inherent risks we'll get... nuclear wars!