Nuclear power is the only viable carbon neutral power source. amirite?

Nuclear has always been the best option, but the (unknowledgeable) optics are terrible.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The fossil fuel industry has done everything in its power to shelve nuclear energy. And it worked.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The most expensive option. Why do people ignore that?? Solar and wind get cheaper every month.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Soar and wind are cheaper only if you conveniently ignore the negative externalities, like we do with fossil fuels. With fossil those externalities are the pollution and climate change, with solar it's the massive amount of grid infrastructure that needs to be built to transport unreliable power for thousands of km and the storage.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Just curious: Wouldnt nuclear strategies also need massive grids to reach areas which are potentially dangerous for reactors (eg. High hurricane/earthquake risks) or can I just build them whereever?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Large earthquakes, yes, are dangerous. Hurricanes/Tornadoes would be trivial for a nuclear reactor to survive, provided it's not built on beach front property that gets storm surge. Those places are built to withstand deliberate terror attacks. You need a lot more energy than what can be delievered by weather to damage these things.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Didn't help that almost all civilian reactors were just based on the military ones for ships. They were designed for a different purpose where safety wasn't paramount.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

You don't know anything about nuclear power safety do you?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I don't think the reason nuclear power is that a unpopular public sentiment i think thats largely faded. The real problem is nuclear power is expensive really expensive plants are multi billion £ projects this is not cheap. The fuel is another problem its production is difficult and making more production is extremely expensive aswell. The final reason is one of the big reasons for investment in green power is not only enviromental but also strategic with uranium being sourced from a limited amount of countries nuclear power does not provide the advantage other fuel sources provide which is material independence.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

>The real problem is nuclear power is expensive really expensive plants are multi billion £ projects this is not cheap. How much of that cost is driven by delays driven by changing regulations and lawsuits? I don't know the answer but I suspect it is not insignificant.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

That is part of it, but as someone who is very pro nuclear and even works on a reactor, the fact that nuclear power plants are significantly more expensive to build is a real problem. It's basic loss mitigation, imagine you're Dominion energy, you want to build some more power plants. You can invest $500 into a nuclear plant that will take 15 years to complete, but will have a high profit margins for it's lifetime and pay itself off after 50 years. or you could invest in 3 natural gas power plants, each taking 5 years to build and costing $50 that will have a low profit margin, but pay themselves off in 20 years and if one fails for some reason, it's not the end of the world.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's not just that they are expensive, compared to solar or wind you get no return until it's all finished, while half a solar farm still gives half the power.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I think the other issue is the reason it has so many regulations if it goes wrong it really goes wrong you can't cut corners with a nuclear reactor.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Agreed, it just seems like every NIMBY and their brother tries do do everything in their power to prevent the construction of any type of nuclear power plant. The one near my home town, Kewaunee WI, was decommissioned years early due to this type of thinking and falling electrical rates due to cheaper natural gas. Thinking they might be regretting that move in the future.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

As an American I would hope my friends in Western Europe would be confident the US could supply them with uranium. Our lands are vast. We surely have plenty. And we do like money.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

But the US has very limited supply. Canada has a decent amount but most reactor fuel comes from other countries. Russia actually supplies most of the US and western europe supply. Thats why Rosatom was not sanctioned as heavily as other russian organisations.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Australia has the largest known reserves of uranium in the world. Supply is not a problem.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

So you want them to be dependent on you for their energy source ? lol

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The thing is that the world isn't Western Europe, and most of the world doesn't trust the US that much. Western Europe itself also knows that the US is one bad election away from swinging direction and cutting off supply. That said, most of Western Europe isn't known for wise energy choices - looking at certain coal and fossil powerhouses who insist on tying our energy supply to Uncle Vladimir.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Gotta love "green" Germany.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

You can't base billions of dollars and years of construction off "confidence" dude…

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The US is largely depended on Russia for it's nuclear fuel, how would you be able to supply Europe? Let alone do so reliably and commercially. And why would Europe want to be depended on the US? In 2 years a guy like Trump might take over and blackmail Europe.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Only viable source? No Most reliable source in large scale? Definitely, this isn't unpopular. Saying that Solar, Wind, Hydro or whatever other source is completely unviable is just stupid. All those different types still are very effective at generating power and are probably the better choice when it is possible because of the risk factor.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I agree that all the other green energy sources are needed, but I disagree in the risk factor. Dams failing have a higher chance of killing people and causing ecological disaster (just building a dam arguably has worse ecological consequences than building a nuclear power plant) than a nuclear power plant failing.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

>Dams failing have a higher chance of killing people and causing ecological disaster Dams not failing cause a surprising number of ecological disasters.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I literally said that.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Fair enough. My bad for skimming when I read.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Wind power is awful. The blades are swapped out every few years and are not recycled so they go to landfills. And they kill MASSIVE amounts of birds every year

by Anonymous 1 year ago

They kill birds yes, but building windows, especially high rise windows, kill 1000x more. As do domestic cats. The bird argument is a little moot. The non-recyclable blades issue is a fair point.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Save the birds! Return to the caves brothers! There's pemmican and a warm fire. No internet though.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

First reason is false, and if we're comparing energy sources only, impacts of fossil fuel infrastructure and consumption kill exponentially more birds.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Cats kill more birds than wind turbines and wind turbines actually do something No one cares about the bird issue here unfortunately

by Anonymous 1 year ago

*And don't even get me started on whales!*

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Dams kill an enormous amount of vegetation that rots and releases c02. The break even point is decades.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

And solar is dirty too. Nuclear is the only option for now.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Explain to me how solar is dirty

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Land degradation, habitat loss, production of panels requires a lot of energy and water, and they contain lead and other hazardous materials. Also there's little incitament to recycle them.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The production of a nuclear power plant is also not green. Not saying it isn't better but there does not exist an energy source where the production is green. Wether it be the production of the energy or the production of the facility.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's the cleanest by far. 25% of the carbon footprint of solar, and it doesn't require large areas of land.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

That's why I said that I was not saying it isn't better. The rest is still correct.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Yes we obviously have to choose the least bad options

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Of course.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

A nuclear plant last minimum 60-70 years A solar plant 10/20 meanwhile it will degrade with production

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Did you read that from an Exxon brochure? Absolute hogwash. One of the cleanest forms of energy generation available. 100% clean? of course not. Nothing is. But compared to other sources? Get your head checked.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Solar efficiencies are low in most latitudes. Wind Farms in the US have never been profitable, they require more maintenance than people realize. Hydro is great, if you live anywhere near where it can be produced. Nuclear, until fusion can replace, is the best viable option. We've also learned so much more in the past 40 years that building a safer plant is much, much more likely than before.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Hidro is questionable unless you have mountains. On a plain, you need to flood like 100x100km to get a 20m elevation difference, easily.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

>Solar efficiencies are low in most latitudes. uh - No 1. - higher latitudes are not "most" latitudes. 2. Efficiency is more affected by percentage of cloud cover, rainy days, not latitude Example - California, Arizona are much better than North Carolina, although they are all at the same latitude. Nevada is better than Georgia, even at a higher latitude.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

More importantly maybe, it's the best large scale option without having to make any changes to the existing grid as far as I understand.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Nuclear power is the lynchpin of any climate effort. Any effort to solve climate change without nuclear will fail. Making nuclear energy the only viable option. Remember NASA Climate scientist and leading climate change expert James Hansen said "nuclear power paves the only **viable** path forward on climate change." It's past time we listen to the experts.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Alternative sources should only be supplemental to nuclear.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It might not be unpopular *here*, but irl no one likes the idea of nuclear energy.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Solar and Wind are completely nonviable because they do NOT produce any energy when the sun is down, and when the wind is not blowing respectively. These input parameters are variable and thus highly unreliable. Hydro is very viable and consistent but is location dependent - only certain areas can use hydro power. E.g. BC Canada has alot of hydro power because it has the ability to harness it.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

People underestimate **how effective and cheap solar power has become**. I live in Poland and with just a couple of panels we (my family) are able to cover 70-90% of our electricity consumption. Of course storage is an issue\*, but the advances in batteries (and alternative forms of storage) are making it less of an issue year by year. Also a great thing about solar power is how scalable it is - need more power - just slap another one of those panels on your roof. Don't get me wrong, I'm pro nuclear - but I think country-wide, centralized energy grids supported by large plants are a thing of a past. We need to think of decentralized local grids, that give us better control over supply and demand of power and are more resilient to potential outages and attacks on key infrastructure. I'm looking forward to small nuclear reactor technology **(SMR)** \- luckily the first plant in Poland will probably utilize this approach. *\*we don't store our electricity individually if anyone asks*

by Anonymous 1 year ago

But that's also what the OP is saying. Solar is great as a supplementary power source, and same with wind. These sources need to be based on a stable 24/7 one. That's where either hydro, nuclear or fossil comes in. As we want to stay away from fossil fuel, we need to switch to nuclear, or hydro when viable which is location based.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

-"unpopular opinions". -quoting word to word the elements of language from lobbies.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Why does everyone forget about geothermal? It's nuclear except the earth already did half the work for us. We just need to get that heat.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Only available in some area where the crust is thin. Tidal is also overlooked as a power source.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

>causing a "disaster" that killed less people than a bad mass shooting Proceed to kill tens of thousands of people (cancer, diseases, radiation, etc.)

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Nuclear is literally the safest form of power generation on the planet, EVEN WHEN YOU INCLUDE THE DISASTERS! This is just straight misinformation, the same kind that lead to the anti-nuclear stigma in the first place.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Theres some pretty decent bio fuel sources, seaweed converts pretty easy and grows fast and burns cleaner than oil or corn

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Using mental gymnastics to call the Chernobyl disaster a "disaster" and claiming it killed less people than a mass shooting is an interesting take. I'd recommend educating on long term effects and how many of the liquidators died within years from cancer related diseases.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Right? Like I'm open to hearing about nuclear but questioning whether Chernobyl should even be called a disaster is just an objectively terrible way of convincing people. That is not a sane foundation for an argument lmao

by Anonymous 1 year ago

This isn't close to unpopular everyone's grandpa says this

by Anonymous 1 year ago

>Solar and wind power are great in certain areas, and good enough to be useful in most places. However, storing electricity for use when the sun isn't shining and/or the wind isn't blowing is impractical. Are there any places on earth where the sun isn't shining AND the wind is blowing AND the tides aren't tiding AND the earth underground isn't warm enough to create Geothermal energy?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Solar power is nuclear power from a safe distance. In an ideal world every house and car will generate their energy from solar panels and they will have batteries that charge for use at night. Technology usually moves towards decentralizing, we just need to improve solar panel and battery technologies.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I almost completely agree. We recently had solar panels put on our house mainly because my dad got a Tesla recently but it does also save us a crap ton of money. The biggest downside however is overcast cloudy weather makes a serious serious impact on how much energy you are getting. Like over the summer we were having days where we didn't even pay a penny for electricity of the grid and then we've had cloudy days where you would question if the panels were even working. So for the most part I agree but we shouldn't be completely reliant on them as they do have that serious downside

by Anonymous 1 year ago

"...storing electricity for use when the sun isn't shining and/or the wind isn't blowing is impractical." It's not impractical. I mean, it's going to take time to build the storage systems, but they are a lot more practical than nuclear power plants.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I think this is pretty popular with most science-minded people. The problem is that most people are emotionally-minded and the more they say "science" the less they typically understand it.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

What people don't understand about nuclear power is that the reason why most pepole can name almost all the nuclear disasters in the last 60 years is because there such a rare occurrence..

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It's honestly a carbon negative source and one of the very few.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Saying nuclear power is completely safe is not factual. There's no "completely green" power source at this point

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It isn't completely safe. I didn't say it is. It is way better for the environment than fossil fuels and unlike solar and wind, it provides continuous power, eliminating the need for massive energy storage infrastructure.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I agree with you completely. It's sad that it's an unpopular opinion.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Did this guy just compare a nuclear plant disaster to a mass shooting? Shows he doesn't have any clue what he's talking about.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Nuclear energy can save the world. And countless fight it tooth and claw because of decades of propaganda and investment in alternatives. If we had kept developing nuclear we would probably have had fusion by now

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Didn't Bill Gates invest and build a research team? They planned to build it in China. China accepted at first but then they backed out. Well the problem now is no one wants it near their home.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The coal and oil industries have done amazing propaganda and political purchasing.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

This is what really annoys me about the whole debate. There are legitimate problems with nuclear power, but they could have been solved by now if they had let us pursue the technology 50 years ago.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Not saying I agree 100%, as fission research is very separate, but agree with the rest

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It is a separate field indeed, but if money was being directed into fission you know it would open the flood gates for fusion

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I have to respectfully disagree, it could be argued that if fission were heavily funded (and we researched and improved reprocessing to make it efficient and economically viable) then there could be even more resistance to fund fusion, as many still (even with the amazing breakthroughs lately in fusion) still see fusion as a dead end, while fission would be cleaner, safer and more efficient than ever, plus every penny spent on building fission reactors and reprocessing centres would be "a waste" (in the public's' eyes) if we switched to fusion and then just bulldozed them to replace them with fusion (which wouldn't be the case by try telling the masses that) If we're using the courts of public opinion (which unfortunately we do, as it's how democracy works, even for nuanced and technical things the masses have little understanding of), people have been told for decades that "fusion is 20 years away", but at least they know fission works, so tax payers are unlikely to support gov. parties that want to (in the publics eyes) throw money away at "the pipe dream that is fusion" when schools and hospitals are under funded. I personally see fusion as the future, and recent breakthroughs are edging us ever closer, but I wouldn't dream of putting a hard "release date" on it, maybe not my lifetime, but when we do, it will be glorious

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Don't tell that to the environmental wackos, they want the world to go back to pre fire days, since you know fire and wood burning has a carbon footprint.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

And do you have an example of such extremist environmentalists, or would you like to admit your farcical example doesn't exist outside your delusions?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

We are still just burying the waste, though, right? Hoping no-one digs it up and uses it for a dirty bomb, right?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

With how much money we spend on the military it wouldn't be too much to ask to station a company or two of national guardsmen to watch it. Or we bury it in Area 51.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

this is not an opinion

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Nuclear is neither sustainable nor green. If nuclear is so safe why do they refuse to operate them without waivers of liability in case of what you say is impossible - a nuclear incident. Thorium is vaporwear. The lifetime of nuclear waste guarantees no matter where it's placed it will be in some geological danger before it's neutralized by reaching the end of its fission chain.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Where does the waste go?

by Anonymous 1 year ago

In copper-steel caskets surrounded by clay hundreds of meters below one of the most geologically stable areas on the planet which happens to be in Finland. It's a solved problem.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Hydro is the way son

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Not really. Most developed countries have already utilized hydroelectric power to the furthest extent possible. You can't just keep adding more dams to a river

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Three Mile Island and Fukushima have entered the chat. Saying the mistrust is attributable solely to Chernobyl is wildly disingenuous.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Nuclear will never be viable because the politicians pushing for green energy don't stand to profit from it.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

That's not unpopular, and more with the hike of electricity prices.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Mostly agree, but nuclear power as currently designed isn't the magic bullet either. Natural gas plants can move load ridiculously fast, while nukes are basically on or off. The goal should be SMRs with the ability to match a gas plant's ramping capability.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

We are gonna run out of uranium eventually.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

This isn't an opinion. It's just not true…

by Anonymous 1 year ago

our destiny as a species isn't tied to Earth. with all due respect to our home planet, the earth is not built for an aggressively multiplying race like humans. Overpopulation, climate change, and dwindling natural resources can be solved if we can break the limitations of where we live, and we need a lot of energy to put into researching a way to move around the galaxy faster. We're never going to go anywhere relying on solar, wind, and gasoline.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Until someone figures out how to break the laws of physics we're kind of stuck here.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

The best viable solution for solving the energy crisis….having less humans. Not condoning genocide but if we gave tax breaks to families with 0-1 children and taxed family's with 2 or more…it might influence people to cut down on the breeding. I think less people is the solution…..good luck finding the proper way to implement it.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

yeah, Germans are stupid.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

"We can't fuel up our cars because there's no where to do it, they'll never be able to make them efficient"- some guy in 1900

by Anonymous 1 year ago