We should take a moment to condemn the people who shut that move down. Fukushima is a much smaller problem than what actually happened.
There may well turns out to be safer options in the long term, but in the short term almost anything that shortens the lifetime of coal plants is a good thing, because worldwide coal kills more people every year than the nuclear industry has killed combined in its entire lifetime.
Imagine how much worse car related fatalities would be if we were all still driving model T's with no crumple zones. (poor example really, because cars are inherently unsafe and nuclear energy is not)
That's a real doozy of an assertion.
Then again...
Maybe we should rather look at Exxon, BP et al. that already in the 70ies knew perfectly well about the possibility of antropogenic climate change and the danger that this might pose. They could have told Greenpeace. Instead they buried the research and chose to do everything to torpedo any political action.
But yeah, let's blame Greenpeace.
But yes, Big Oil is also culpable.
It's difficult to change minds and it takes a lot of persistence. Since I also was very strongly anti-nuclear until the late 2010s, I have some idea on how to approach people in this regard, but it . takes . time.
But then I see the astronomical costs of nuclear in present day, and can’t make sense of it. Especially when compared to the huge fleet of older nuclear plants, which on the whole seem safe-ish at least, and didn’t bankrupt the states who built them.
Can’t quite square that up.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/olkiluoto-island-finland-nuc...
This facility is obviously specified for a certain level of nuclear growth, rather than the end-game solution for the planet.
well, that's about a cubic meter of plutonium, so...
The biggest problem is radioactive concrete from old plants, but it isn't highly radioactive.
More realistically, a few big hangars will do until the radioactivity declines in a few dozen years.
https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/recycling-nu...
The Green New Deal's rejection of nuclear power is by far its most disappointing stance, but don't pretend its absence is some cause for celebration in our steps towards a carbon-neutral future. We're worse off without it.
I do realize that AOC's green new deal was unanimously voted against; not a single democrat voted in favour of AOC's legislation.
I'm surprised by your statement. That the rejection of nuclear power is the most disappointing point. Nuclear power has been shut down by Environmentalists. To me this is consistent with AOC's stance as well as most environmentalists.
Personally the more disappointing things in the green new deal were banning heavy machinery in farming and banning of airplanes and all boats. Which is a reasonable position as an environmentalist as those emit very large quantities of carbon. Which was interesting because the Democrat Senators for Hawaii asked her about this exile. AOC responded that Hawaii would have to make short term sacrifices for climate change. Afterall without fossil fuels, how do people get to Hawaii.
Other's inquired why the green new deal had so many provisions for universal health care, universal basic income, and housing. They weren't exactly to do with anything about climate change. However, that's the point. This has nothing to do with climate change.
Otherwise we'd could have accidentally done something (not much, but something!) to save humanity.
Puh, dodged that bullet!