[grecy]

The difference is even when coal or oil goes “worst case scenario” bad, it’s still entirely manageable.

We have tools, equipment and people to put out oil rig fires, clean up oil spills and all that.

Obviously Exxon Valdez was very, very bad. So was deep water horizon. Now imagine they were nuclear plantS that went bad and we didn’t get lucky like in the past. It would be many orders of magnitudes worse, for tens of thousands of years.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Oh, really?

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdgasleck_in_der_Nordsee

https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/technik/elgin-gasaustrit...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02648...

[grecy]

Absolutely those are horrifically bad.

Now imagine humans can't even go within a few hundred meters to clean anything up, and we have no robots that can either.

Also imagine that humans can't live within 500km ever again.

Nuclear is clearly the best option, right up until the point it's the worst possible thing for humans and planet earth, which seems to happen about every 30 years or so. As I said, we've been lucky with it so far.

[vlovich123]

This is the core problem. In this thread people keep referencing the data of the actual historical track record and you’re bringing up imaginary scenarios that haven’t existed and might never. Of course, the flip side argument is that past performance is not indicative of future results. Still, the track record approach feels like a better way to evaluate because a) non-green alternatives are waaaay worse b) green alternatives have a comparable number of deaths per MWh produced c) nuclear can reasonably ween us off fossil fuels d) if you actually invest in technology and make the regulatory environment sane, over time the cost and risk of nuclear decrease really rapidly.

In other words, on a risk adjusted basis, the data continually shows nuclear is the safest and most economical bet for removing fossil fuels and all their problems from the energy mix. You’d need a a relative fuckton of very very bad accidents where everything went wrong and by all accounts that doesn’t really happen.

[philistine]

With how bad things are climate-wise, I feel like anything below a full-throat defence of nuclear power is in favour of global warming.

[grecy]

The time to start building tons of new nuclear plants was 20 years ago.

Given how little time we have to react, and how long it takes to build a nuclear plant (and how expensive they are), putting our hopes on nuclear this late in the game is foolhardy and will never save us.

We have no choice but to go with what will have a meaningful impact in the immediate future (5 year horizon) - wind, solar, hydro. Many countries are already past 50% renewable, and many are climbing towards 100%.

[aldonius]

Thing is I seem to remember people saying "If we were going to build nuclear, the time to start was 15 years ago"... about 15 years ago.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

You are thinking too small. With enough 'nukes' we could suck the carbon out of the atmosphere, and use that to make syngas/synfuels for the applications where it would be impractical to replace them. That alone would be almost carbon neutral. Similar for hydrogen production by electrolysis and process heat for many industrial applications.

Oh, and mass production of carbon zeolithes to regenerate the sucked empty agricultural fields, to make them into something like 'terra preta' without having to use too much fertilizer, instead of uselessly sequestrating it somewhere underground.

Terraforming, so to speak. Like the 'atmospheric processors' from Alien II(Aliens).

edit: Instead of thinking all the raw materials for wind,solar&batteries grow on trees, without any externalities, sustainability problems, and no emissions at all. Which is a fucking cargo cult!

[grecy]

> With enough 'nukes' we could

Uh huh. And when exactly will they be online and performing all this work for us?

As well as the time and cost to build the nukes, how much time and money will it take to build the machines to suck the carbon out of the air.

I'm all for solutions, but 30+ years isn't going to cut it. 10 years is a huge risk.

[pyuser583]

Which has never happened.

It’s fair to bring up hypotheticals, but you have to do it for everything you’re comparing!

It’s especially important to include “never happened” scenarios for brand new, or lightly used, methods of energy extraction!

What are the worst case scenarios for windmills? Solar panels?

Imagine a major Soviet-level accident at a rare earth element mine.

Imagine a large supply of rare earth metals are improperly labeled.

It might not be as bad as a major nuclear accident … then again maybe it would be.