[foepys]

Why should we create nuclear waste for hundreds or thousands of generations to deal with when we can just expand renewables and phase out coal and gas over the next 20 years?

Planning and constructing a new nuclear reactor takes at least 15 years and it's the most expensive and also dangerous form of energy source.

Just look at Hinkley Point C in the UK where costs exploded and construction was delayed over and over. The cost of £92/MWh (estimated in 2012) is outrageously expensive as well when wind and solar are approaching half. New nuclear reactors make no sense now.

[pjerem]

> Planning and constructing a new nuclear reactor takes at least 15 years and it's the most expensive and also dangerous form of energy source.

This is false. Even accounting the few catastrophic failures (including Chernobyl and Fukushima), deaths by nuclear industry can be counted in dozens.

Here is what says Wikipedia about the Fukushima aftermath :

> There were no deaths from radiation exposure in the immediate aftermath of the incident, though there were a number of (non-radiation related) deaths during the evacuation of the nearby population. As of September 2018, one cancer fatality was the subject of a financial settlement, to the family of a former station workman.

There were a few more deaths in Chernobyl but it’s mainly due to the bad management of the cleaning process.

[Pokepokalypse]

Well, yeah, but entire towns had to be evacuated and interdicted.

How do you figure THAT external cost?

[belorn]

If we include those, the most costly and deadly energy is hydro. Last year a much bigger evacuation than Fukushima occurred in the US because of a dam failure.

It is kind of interesting that almost no one have heard of it, and that it did not make major international news.

[reedjosh]

> nuclear waste for hundreds or thousands of generations to deal with

Solar and wind don't generate waste?

And while batteries are getting better, they're still not to the point that solar and wind can just replace the kind of power nuclear produces.

Further, lithium batteries don't produce waste?

[foepys]

Nuclear waste is a lot worse than any other type of waste. It's dangerous for tens of thousands of years and we don't know if we will be able to tell a civilization 10,000 years in the future that the stuff we buried deep in a cave is dangerous.

[kergonath]

> Nuclear waste is a lot worse than any other type of waste.

It's really not. It is compact, contained, and isolated. It takes a tiny amount of space compared to any other solution.

> It's dangerous for tens of thousands of years

Some of it is. Most of it isn't. By definition, long-lasting isotopes are the least dangerous.

> we don't know if we will be able to tell a civilization 10,000 years in the future that the stuff we buried deep in a cave is dangerous.

We won't have a civilisation in the next century if we keep fucking it up. It is patently absurd, considering the state of the world, to keep saying that nuclear is the absolute worst. Non-nuclear is what put us in this very situation in the first place.

[Macha]

Per unit volume, sure: A cave full of nuclear waste is worse than a cave full of CO2.

Per energy generated, it's not clear at all to me that the nuclear waste from a country running off nuclear power is worse than the CO2 emissions of running that same country off fossil fuels.

That cave full of nuclear waste has something like "all the waste generated by the UK to date". Enough CO2 to fill a cave is one coal plant running for a few days.

[Pokepokalypse]

you keep comparing nuclear to fossil.

You should compare it to solar/wind/(etc) which produce neither CO2, nor radioactive plutonium, cesium, xenon, (etc)

[belorn]

> expand renewables and phase out coal and gas over the next 20 years

Put in a plan to stop building new coal and gas power plants in EU and that strategy would have a bit more support behind it. New coal, gas and oil is the core of the energy strategy for handling grid stability. It will last much longer than 15 years.

[splistud]

This is where citizens of a world that has enjoyed the type of civil stability and wealth to allow for caring for nuclear waste sites for roughly 200 years will inform you that they can categorically guarantee that there will be no issues caring for these sites in 500 years.

[deepnotderp]

Because civilized societies can provide electricity at night.