The number of people who still think nuclear power is a manageable risk in any capacity is really depressing. We still have no idea what to do with all the nuclear waste we're creating even now. And that's not even considering the impact of having a nuclear plant when you're in a war.

I don't think nuclear power was killed by NIMBYs, at least not entirely. In the 1970s and 80s the financial world started taking a much more short-term view. Nuclear power plants have such a huge up-front cost that you aren't going to see returns for decades. When the market wants numbers to go up every quarter they're not going to finance something that won't make a profit for 20 years.

The problem with nuclear is it gives fossil fuel giants a free pass to try speedrun killing the planet before it even arrives.

If we plan for nuclear, we plan to do nothing for 50 years.

As someone who has actually looked into nuclear waste and the current storage techniques instead of relying on knee-jerk fear mongering, yes. Store it in my area. Hell, store the casks underneath my house for all I care. If you are surprised by this answer, it's because you don't know shit about nuclear waste and how little of a problem it is.

The waste doesn't pose any danger as long as it's stored securely and doesn't cost that much space. The only downside of the waste is that it needs to be stored forever, but that's a very, very, small price to pay for not destroying the planet..

Weird how y'all haven't figured it out yet considering Finland has and Germany has had nuclear power plants for longer.

But I suspect it's more of a lack of wanting to do what's needed for storage because 'politics' and boomers than it is because it's not possible.

It just needs to be buried deep enough. Problem solved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository

The US has a fuckton of space not being occupied by anyone or anything.

You know what’s scary? The existential threat of climate change.

Nuclear is not cheap.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity

whats your problem? who said we want to keep using fossil fuels forever? to me, the thing about nuclear power is its waste products and the timescales on which that degrades into something less but still as dangerous as before slow clap

did you know? getting insurance for a nuclear power plant is possible! but you might as well build a new nuclear power plant every year to spend that money more wisely... source some german paper: https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/kernkraft-ist-nachhaltig-nachhaltig-unversicherbar-a-f6d8ef67-4f51-4697-965a-add0480ca712

we need to get off fossil fuels and nuclear fuels are one of them.

i mean sure, choose a timescale large enough and even the sun becomes a fossil fuel, but thats silly: sipping-off-the-suns-emissions itself, the operation of solar panels is not really degrading anybodies quality of life, except perhaps those who might look down onto now reflecting rooftops... making them is of course power consuming, but we are making stuff that makes power which takes power... and instead of just nodding at each other and chugging along we start bickering about the not tasty, not smelly stuff that makes your hair fall out all funny like...and ogle at it? wtf?

but ok you know what?: sure but only if you are personally responsible to have that thing in your backyard and fix it when it inevitably shits itself. also: garbage days are all yours now

I would. ROI takes longer, but they're super fucking profitable as soon as they turn a profit at all. They're generally base loaded 24/7 except for about 3-4 weeks per year for refueling outage. I'm 35, so assume 10 years to build and another 10 years before it starts profiting. I'm retired at 55. Sounds pretty good to me.

Edit: source in response to reply asking for it so they will find it :)

I absolutely would and have done so: https://www.vaneck.com/us/en/investments/uranium-nuclear-energy-etf-nlr/

Sure would. I put money into renewable stocks and they tanked hard. Looking at you RNW.

We already run carriers and subs on nukes, supertankers and massive cargo ships could use them too. And arguably should, given they're a huge, massive source of pollution.

You dolt there was never a problem with cooling the plants. The issue was that there is red tape that limits how much water the plant can discharge into the Rhine. That could have easily been addressed if the plants were just allowed to cycle more water. The higher the flow rate the colder the water will come out the other end . The water is put through a heat exchanger and then cycled back to the river. If more water can be piped through then the reactor can maintain lower temperatures.

Energy shouldn't be a business, it's a necessity at this point.

I'd like to note it's not profitable because it generates so much energy so consistently that it's hard to keep prices up.

That's why nuclear energy should never have been a private sector investment but a government one, or maybe hybrid. That's how it's worked in Finland, and the new reactor we had built plus the growing solar really saved us from the electricity spike after Russian gas was turned off.