https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_III_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety
If all Nuclear had desalination, it still wouldn't offset it's waste heat capture problem which ruins downstream ecologies.
[1] https://monarchpartnership.co.uk/nuclear-power-water-consump...
Mining lithium is a horrible, polluting process that wastes tons of fresh water. One thing to put small quantities into phones and computers. Another to suggest that they should be used for all cars (unless the end goal is to have only the super rich driving cars).
Solar panels involve mining coal (so much more moving away from the coal economy) and quartz, and will pile up as toxic junk after 10 years or so.
Wind turbines can’t be repurposed after their useful and short (comparatively) life and will pile up as junk.
It’s not even a question of “don’t have catastrophic outcomes”, it’s a question of a slow-moving guaranteed catastrophic outcome, or the possibility of a fast catastrophic outcome.
I can't think of any use for coal in production of a solar panel, so is your argument here that manufacturing anything uses electricity and therefore coal?
That doesn't seem like a good argument. Especially given that a nuclear plant tends to involve a huge quantity of concrete (which gives off major amounts of greenhouse gases and requires mining as well).
> will pile up as toxic junk after 10 years or so.
The lifespan of a commercial panel is 25-30+ years (most look to be warrantied to 25)
Failure rates appear to be very low, per NREL: https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2017/failures-pv-panels-de...
And in reality, many will continue producing power longer than that, just at a lower rate than their original nameplate capacity. I expect most of those solar farms will wind up in service for many decades.
Claiming that their lifespan is 10 years is something I feel needs some sort of supporting evidence.
Silicon is produced by carbothermic reduction of silica in arc furnaces. Charcoal can be used, though (and is use by some producers; I think the porosity helps silicon monoxide gas react with the carbon.)
What's really missing for nuclear is economics of scale. If we could just organize a repeatable build model so many operational challenges would be solved.
That said, I'll take anything. Wind, solar, batteries, tidal, nuclear. They're all far, far better than coal or oil from a public health and climate change standpoint. It's such a shame so much was wasted on the Iraq War, since the entire USA could have been powered by green energy with half what was spent.
A fall from a rooftop while installing a solar panel is preventable; it is not a necessary consequence of solar energy. That worker didn't have to die for the sake of two terawatts; he or she could have used safety equipment and common sense.
If we are counting deaths that way per amount of energy, we must count electrocutions among the energy user base too, not only installation and production side deaths.
If there are health risks and accidents working in a solar panel factory, that ought to be counted.
Installations and deaths across the entire grid should be counted: deaths of all electricians installing any sort of residential and commercial wiring, transformers on poles down the street, and everything else.
Possibly deaths arising form unreliable electricity should also be counted as risks of energy use. If a few people die in a heatwave because their AC cuts out due to a blackout, maybe those are energy-related deaths.
Health problems and accidents in solar panel factories should be counted, as well those in mines for nuclear ore, and industries that produce all grid components: wiring, switch boxes, transformers, you name it.
Deaths in every vehicular accident involving an electrician en route to a repair job should also be counted (whether the electrician was at fault or not).
But given that we don't have perfect numbers we have to go off of the ones we have, and solar installations are over 4x the death rate than nuclear. The only reason I bring it up is this constant barrage of anti-nuclear sentiment even though nuclear works great in countries where it is approached correctly. Canada and France, for example, have professional, reasonable cost nuclear that create the medical isotopes we need.
It's all besides the point though, because coal is 1000x more fatal than nuclear, and like I said in my original comment, I'll take anything but coal and oil.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
Also, even worst-case scenario like Chernobyl ultimately wasn't that bad. Several natural disasters in the 2000's have killed way more than it did.
The problem with statements like this is that we don't actually know what a worst case scenario truly looks like. The day before Chernobyl, the worst-cast scenario, by definition, not as bad as Chernobyl. Similarly, the engineers who built Fukishima were aware of tsunamis and earthquakes and built the plant to withstand what was considered the worst case scenario at the time. Then an even worse case scenario happened.
Nuclear is a proven, safe tech that pumps out steady, squeaky-clean energy. People imagine that it’s dangerous because of high-profile accidents but don’t see the daily small catastrophes caused by every other tech.
Nuclear wins, hands down. It’s just such a no-brainer. It’s like we’re back in the days of Edison and Tesla and AC vs DC.