Sweden's parliament on Tuesday (20 June) adopted a new energy target, giving the right-wing government the green light to push forward with plans to build new nuclear plants in a country that voted 40 years ago to phase out atomic power.
Build nuclear reactors and people complain about waste. Build solar panels and people complain about the destruction of local habitats. Build wind turbines and people complain about the view. Build hydroelectric dams and people complain about the river ecosystem.
Nuclear is the cleanest energy available on the planet. The fuel lasts for decades and is 90% recyclable. Heat up water, make steam, spin turbines. That’s it. Then you recycle the rods and do it again. Only 10% of the energy can’t be used after decades of producing power.
Here’s a little science lesson for you, the longer something is radioactive, the less dangerous it is. Danger is expressed as dose over time. If that time is hundreds of thousands, or millions of years, the dose per second will be miniscule.
Also, if all the nuclear waste ever produced was gathered into one location, it would all fit on a standard football pitch. That’s how efficient this stuff is.
And then you ask what do we do with this waste? Well, 90% of it can go right back into a reactor, a lot of the remaining 10% can be used in various industries, including medicine.
The rest? Just bury it and forget about it, by the time any theoretical future civilization digs it up, it will have decayed into a stable form.
The final little note, most of the anti-nuclear talking points were invented by the fossil fuel industry. Some of the talking points go back to the 1950s
So instead of (rightly) not believing the fossil fuel industry you link to a website created by a guy working on nuclear reactors? This is exactly the same: big companies want everyone to build centralized big plants instead of local productionthat actually helps home owners and the regular people.
Nuclear waste is a huge problem as many countries simply don’t find a place to burry the stuff. You don’t need a lot of nuclear material to cause consequences that will last for centuries.
Nuclear Power Plants also might be safe under normal circumstances but they are not safe in case of human stupidity, wars and earthquakes/tsunamis.
Compared to something like solar or wind nuclear is just stupid. It is unsafe, only big corporations profit of it, has huge risks, is centralized and therefore a risk factor, way to expensive and simply a bad idea. It also takes decades to build Nuclear Powerplants.
So if you have some, let them keep running if you must but don’t build new ones, invest into safe sources of energy instead.
Sweden has so much potential for actually clean energy… Nuclear is not good.
Build nuclear reactors and people complain about waste. Build solar panels and people complain about the destruction of local habitats. Build wind turbines and people complain about the view. Build hydroelectric dams and people complain about the river ecosystem.
Serious question, what options do they have? I don’t know enough about Sweden to comment.
Nuclear is the cleanest energy available on the planet. The fuel lasts for decades and is 90% recyclable. Heat up water, make steam, spin turbines. That’s it. Then you recycle the rods and do it again. Only 10% of the energy can’t be used after decades of producing power.
Ah, I see, you want the nuclear wastes in your appartment/house because it is so clean. We finally found a place for it.
Nuclear is nowhere near clean. And its waste stays radioactive for milennias. Renewable energy sources are way cleaner.
Here’s a little science lesson for you, the longer something is radioactive, the less dangerous it is. Danger is expressed as dose over time. If that time is hundreds of thousands, or millions of years, the dose per second will be miniscule.
Also, if all the nuclear waste ever produced was gathered into one location, it would all fit on a standard football pitch. That’s how efficient this stuff is.
And then you ask what do we do with this waste? Well, 90% of it can go right back into a reactor, a lot of the remaining 10% can be used in various industries, including medicine.
The rest? Just bury it and forget about it, by the time any theoretical future civilization digs it up, it will have decayed into a stable form.
The final little note, most of the anti-nuclear talking points were invented by the fossil fuel industry. Some of the talking points go back to the 1950s
So instead of (rightly) not believing the fossil fuel industry you link to a website created by a guy working on nuclear reactors? This is exactly the same: big companies want everyone to build centralized big plants instead of local productionthat actually helps home owners and the regular people.
Nuclear waste is a huge problem as many countries simply don’t find a place to burry the stuff. You don’t need a lot of nuclear material to cause consequences that will last for centuries.
Nuclear Power Plants also might be safe under normal circumstances but they are not safe in case of human stupidity, wars and earthquakes/tsunamis.
Compared to something like solar or wind nuclear is just stupid. It is unsafe, only big corporations profit of it, has huge risks, is centralized and therefore a risk factor, way to expensive and simply a bad idea. It also takes decades to build Nuclear Powerplants.
So if you have some, let them keep running if you must but don’t build new ones, invest into safe sources of energy instead.