It's shameful to see the effect targeted media campaigns have on Republicans with the steep dropoff in support of wind/solar. But at least it's good to see nuclear gain ground on both sides.
Waste is not so much of a problem. We can handle it.
Don't get me wrong. Nuclear waste is a problem. But it is much, much less of a problem than fossil fuels. As in: fossil fuels are currently killing us (so nuclear waste won't be a problem for many if we continue like this with fossil fuels), and nuclear waste is manageable.
We don't have the luxury of finding something truly "clean" (nope, renewables don't remotely have the potential of nuclear power, which won't remotely replace fossil fuels. And technically they are not truly clean either).
What is making future generations pay is fossil fuel. And it is extremely expensive.
Genuinely interested: are you an expert in nuclear energy? If yes, I would be more than happy to get your view on that. You would be the very first expert I read that believes that "nuclear is so much worse" than fossil fuels, that are currently in a good direction to kill most living thing in the next few decades.
We may not survive the consequences of fossil fuels, in our lifetime. Not sure how nuclear waste can be worse than that.
> Genuinely interested: are you an expert in nuclear energy?
I know a lot about energy policy, through involvement in the policy development process.
Fossil fuels are having a catastrophic effect on the environment and we must stop using them except in the very few cases there is no choice.
The clear path to doing that is renewable energy, which now is cheaper in almost every case. There are no unknown problems to replacing the use of (almost) all fossil fuels, it is a matter of money and resisting those who would burn the world for profit.
At a high level nuclear on the other hand has all the problems fossil fuels have:
* It produces pollutants that will destroy the world. We have very little nuclear power compared to fossil fuel. If we had the same amount, built by the same capitalist group that bought you the 737 max we would have a Fukishima every year. Correctly handled low level nuclear waste is not so bad. But it costs a lot of money to correctly handle, and the handling of it is invisible. It is an invisible unnoticeable poison (at least CO2 has some benefits - if you are a plant) If we had 1,000 times as many reactors low level waste would kill us all in 100 years. Just like the last 200 years of dumping CO2 into the air is doing
* Worse: It produces high level waste. Not much, but enough to be a problem. It is like low level waste invisible and unnoticeable without specialised equipment, or noticing that you are dying some time after you encounter it. It lasts for 200,000 years. It has to be kept away from living matter all that time. Where? How? What sign can you write today that people will be able to read in 200,000 years? At any discount rate you care to think of the storage of the waste is many times more expensive than any benefit that accrues now. Those costs are paid by future generations so we can ignore them. Immoral, but we can.
There are glimmers of technological solutions:
* Fusion - Yea right
* Energy amplifiers. No body has ever built one, but in theory a thorium powered energy amplifier could consume the worst waste and transmute it into safer forms. An energy amplifier would also provide continental scale (to coin a phrase) electricity. Why have they not been built? Perhaps because they are useless in making bombs, and the real attraction of a nuclear industry is making bombs.
> We may not survive the consequences of fossil fuels, in our lifetime. Not sure how nuclear waste can be worse than that.
Fossil fuels are destroying the world as we watch. In the worst case scenario civilisation collapses (much like post Roman Britain).
Nuclear - if pushed to the (il)logical conclusion will destroy the world such that normal human life becomes impossible in many places.
> I know a lot about energy policy, through involvement in the policy development process.
Right. So not an expect in nuclear waste.
> The clear path to doing that is renewable energy, which now is cheaper in almost every case.
But which are built with fossil fuels, and which are cheaper in a world with abundant fossil fuels to make and transport them.
It's not clear at all that renewable energy can replace fossil fuels. Actually, it seems pretty clear that they can't. Even nuclear energy can't. It's just that we need to maintain some low-emission energy (as much as we can, which is not enough to avoid a degrowth).
> Nuclear - if pushed to the (il)logical conclusion will destroy the world such that normal human life becomes impossible in many places.
This is nonsense. How do you extrapolate from some nuclear wastes to "human life is impossible"?
The nuclear waste of old reactors is miniscule in volume. Pick somewhere, and you're good for ages. The nuclear waste of new reactors is even tinier in scale.
> Nuclear is making future generations pay for current consumption
Yes, a fraction of the payment of any alternative power sources (pollution and climate change for fossil fuels; lost productivity for wind/solar; lost forests for biomass).
The totality of the nuclear waste produced by France in history can fit in a swimming pool, and most of the space is for the containers.
> It has to geologically stable for a long time.
Yep, we know places where natural nuclear waste have been stable for extremely long. Stability is not an issue.
> People 50,000 years from now need to understand your intentions
Sure, maybe some people may suffer from that in 50,000 years (if somehow they go dig there and lost trace of it, I suppose?). But you have to put it in perspective. Even if that killed millions of people (and you would have to look very far to invent a scenario that would be that bad with buried nuclear waste, but let's be very conservative here), that is still much, much better than killing billions in the next few decades with the alternatives.
Nuclear energy is not easy, it has to be taken seriously. But you have to realize that we are not talking about saving a few lives here. We are talking about the survival of most living species in a way that is not too bad for humans.
> The totality of the nuclear waste produced by France in history can fit in a swimming pool, and most of the space is for the containers
and, alarmingly
> we know places where natural nuclear waste have been stable for extremely long. Stability is not an issue.
Just where can you store several swimming pool's worth of extreme poison for 200,000 years? "natural nuclear waste" is an entirely different thing from the several swiming pools worth of material that people seem to want to make every year. There is nowhere that stable.
You have to erect a signpost that can be read and understood, and believed for 200,000 years. That is an order of magnitude longer than we have had writing. How can that be done?
> the several swiming pools worth of material that people seem to want to make every year
I said "in the entire history of France", not last year.
> You have to erect a signpost that can be read and understood, and believed for 200,000 years.
You are worried about people in 200,000 years, where our entire society may collapse in a couple decades. Also you completely ignore that we are screwing the climate in such a way that it may take thousands of years to recover.
Nuclear waste is infinitely better than everything we are doing right now.
Where are you going to store the waste? 200,000 years?
Nuclear is making future generations pay for current consumption