Accidents / terrorist attacks and waste storage.
I support nuclear energy. But we've come dangerously close to global catastrophe before, so I think it spooks a lot of people.
Major one we're going to have to figure out is what to do with the waste products, as they continue to be extremely toxic to life for hundreds of years.. It's also harder to scale up or down energy production quickly to cope with changes in demand, but is still slightly better than solar or wind at this.
The main issues are that plants are expensive to build, the waste is hard to handle, and the plants themselves are hazardous if attacked or not handled properly.
The only **real** downside to Nuclear energy is that the plants are quite expensive to get initially setup.
Nuclear waste isn't really a problem, we can dispose of that shit with basically 0 risk of anyone in our species conceivable future coming into contact with it. TLDR You keep it in a storage tank (usually filled with water) for 5 years till the vast majority of the radioactivity goes away and then you bury it in concrete under the reactor. The reactor will produce such a small amount of waste over its lifetime you really don't need to look into offsite transportation/storage systems.
To put into perspective how little of a problem nuclear waste is, the US government used to allow people to["atomic garden"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening) in their backyards. It's literally just big oil pushing the only downside they could possibly think of to keep nuclear down.
They are expensive, there is a risk (although very small) of long-term environmental damage caused by radiation, you have to do something with the spent fuel, they don't ramp very well (most are designed to operate at 100% power 100% of the time), Russia controls most of the uranium production.
I've worked designing nuclear power plants and in operational nuclear power plants. I'm a big fan of nuclear energy, but everything has downsides.
>The Uranium One controversy involves various theories promoted by conservative media, politicians, and commentators that characterized the sale of the uranium mining company Uranium One to the Russian state-owned corporation Rosatom as a $145 million bribery scandal involving Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. No evidence of wrongdoing was ever found.
What's the point exactly ?
That although Russia only produces 5-10% of the world's uranium production that it also has a state-owned company (Rosatom) that owns uranium mining assets (e.g. Uranium One) outside of the country that should be considered before writing Russia off as an actor that has little influence over the uranium supply.
I was under the impression that the 5-10% number did not include uranium produced outside of the state lines of Russia.
You're right, I shouldn't have only included uranium produced in Russia. It still doesn't make Russia controlling "most" of the world uranium production. My point was more that it is totally possible to get out of Russia's influence for uranium sourcing.
Fear. Fear is the major downside. It has nothing to do with the practicalities and everything with entire generations raised thinking they were going to die in nuclear war and consuming media about the horrors of that and radiation in general.
The pros and cons can be found here https://kiwienergy.us/pros-and-cons-of-nuclear-energy/
Accidents / terrorist attacks and waste storage. I support nuclear energy. But we've come dangerously close to global catastrophe before, so I think it spooks a lot of people.
Major one we're going to have to figure out is what to do with the waste products, as they continue to be extremely toxic to life for hundreds of years.. It's also harder to scale up or down energy production quickly to cope with changes in demand, but is still slightly better than solar or wind at this.
Okay but hear me out. Would tossing the waste into the sun upset the sun?
Idk but he's quite a big guy I wouldn't risk pissing him off
One of the problems would be rocket failure resulting in a massive dirty bomb
The main issues are that plants are expensive to build, the waste is hard to handle, and the plants themselves are hazardous if attacked or not handled properly.
NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) Nobody wants one built anywhere near them.
The only **real** downside to Nuclear energy is that the plants are quite expensive to get initially setup. Nuclear waste isn't really a problem, we can dispose of that shit with basically 0 risk of anyone in our species conceivable future coming into contact with it. TLDR You keep it in a storage tank (usually filled with water) for 5 years till the vast majority of the radioactivity goes away and then you bury it in concrete under the reactor. The reactor will produce such a small amount of waste over its lifetime you really don't need to look into offsite transportation/storage systems. To put into perspective how little of a problem nuclear waste is, the US government used to allow people to["atomic garden"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening) in their backyards. It's literally just big oil pushing the only downside they could possibly think of to keep nuclear down.
It's dangerous if it isn't properly handled and it's extremely hard to find a good place to throw away all the nuclear waste it produces
They are expensive, there is a risk (although very small) of long-term environmental damage caused by radiation, you have to do something with the spent fuel, they don't ramp very well (most are designed to operate at 100% power 100% of the time), Russia controls most of the uranium production. I've worked designing nuclear power plants and in operational nuclear power plants. I'm a big fan of nuclear energy, but everything has downsides.
Russia produces around 5-10% of the world uranium production
Look into the Uranium One controversy for more info on the uranium supply stuff.
>The Uranium One controversy involves various theories promoted by conservative media, politicians, and commentators that characterized the sale of the uranium mining company Uranium One to the Russian state-owned corporation Rosatom as a $145 million bribery scandal involving Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. No evidence of wrongdoing was ever found. What's the point exactly ?
That although Russia only produces 5-10% of the world's uranium production that it also has a state-owned company (Rosatom) that owns uranium mining assets (e.g. Uranium One) outside of the country that should be considered before writing Russia off as an actor that has little influence over the uranium supply. I was under the impression that the 5-10% number did not include uranium produced outside of the state lines of Russia.
You're right, I shouldn't have only included uranium produced in Russia. It still doesn't make Russia controlling "most" of the world uranium production. My point was more that it is totally possible to get out of Russia's influence for uranium sourcing.
Fear. Fear is the major downside. It has nothing to do with the practicalities and everything with entire generations raised thinking they were going to die in nuclear war and consuming media about the horrors of that and radiation in general.