| > The pro-nuclear lobby has no argument against Chernobyl > Likewise, Fukushima, which along with Chernobyl is the only other level seven nuclear incident, is simply written off So let's not ignore Chernobyl. Let's say hypothetically that we build our entire power grid out of nuclear power plants that use the exact same design as the reactors at Chernobyl. Still better than using fossil fuels. And it's a stupid comparison because nuclear is only needed for base load, not the whole grid, and we have much better designs. Fukushima, I absolutely do write off for the exact reason you quote "No one was harmed by nor did anyone receive lethal doses of radiation." > nuclear waste from fuel processing, nuclear waste from fuel, transporting of fuel and waste Don't care about the waste issue, because current power sources are dumping the waste into the atmosphere continuously. Don't care that it lasts 100K years. Don't care that someone in 10K years could be killed. I don't care because the alternative carbon based power is killing people right now, so nuclear is better than that. > trusting people in corporations and governments to adequately build and maintain such plants Don't care because of the aforementioned fact that nuclear meltdowns are much less harmful than global warming, which is the side effect of our current power generation system. > not a single nuclear power plant in the world hasn't been built without significant government help Don't care that it's more expensive and needs govt subsidies. Don't care because it's better than using fossil fuels and causing more global warming. Happy to have my taxes go up for this purpose. But what about solar/wind/storage? Don't care because doesn't exist (yet). Show me one reasonably sized area where this powers 100% of the grid (areas w/ hydro don't count), and then I'll care. Using existing tech now is the lower risk option. Don't care about predictions that large scale storage will be ready in X years because predicting when new tech will be ready is basically impossible. |
A nuclear powered world economy also doesn't exist yet (it couldn't use today's burner reactors unless we have massively larger uranium supplies, such as seawater uranium extraction that doesn't exist yet; it could use breeder reactors but they also don't exist yet in a form even competitive with burner reactors.)
The "it doesn't exist yet" argument condemns nuclear even more than it does renewables.