| 1. Long Time Lag Between Planning and Operation I guess we should stop doing everything that takes long based on this. How do you define long? Compare to what? 2. Cost Nuclear energy is the cheapest source of energy once you take into consideration all the aspects of an energy grid. This is why Germany is buying energy from France instead of building renewables only. 3. Weapons Proliferation Risk Most nuclear power plants do not consume or produce plutonium. 4. Meltdown Risk Passive safety systems are the norm. The safety requirement to any new nuclear power plant is to have a potentially life threatening accident with 10^-6 probability. Meltdown is not a realistic scenario of non-Chernobyl type power plants (90% of power plants). 5. Mining Lung Cancer Risk So does mining coal. We can make mining much more safe. 6. Carbon-Equivalent Emissions and Air Pollution I guess producing a wing mill does not need to use any energy and the production does not have the same impact as producing a nuclear power plant. Not sure if the author understand that this applies to anything produced. In fact producing renewable power plants probably produces much more CO2 than a nuclear power plant because of energy density. He fails to mention that. 7. Waste Risk This is actually a solved issue, there are special nuclear power plants that sole purpose is to "burn away" nuclear waste by producing elements with less half time. "To recap, new nuclear power costs about 5 times more than onshore wind power per kWh (between 2.3 to 7.4 times depending upon location and integration issues)." This is extremely stupid observation. Leaving out crucial facts (like having base and peak power plants) and comparing apples to oranges. |