why we don’t rely on nuclear power plants more, especially these days
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Unfortunately when people think of nuclear they don’t think of power so it scares them since they don’t take the time to learn, they just go with whatever mouthpiece is the loudest…
Fear and lobbying.
Fossil fuels are “easy” to understand: burn rock/gas/oil, make fire, fire boil water, steam turn turbine, electricity! It’s how we’ve been doing it since the industrial revolution, basically (skip the electricity to just get a steam engine).
Nuclear energy sounds SCARY! It doesn’t help that it’s associated with radiation that can cause cancer, and one of the first true shows of force of nuclear power that EVERYONE knows is the atomic bomb. Most people can’t understand that there’s a big difference between THAT and nuclear power generation. (BTW, nuclear power plants, how do they work? Take *fancy* rock, make *fancy* fire, fire boil water, steam turn turbine, electricity!)
There’s also been a few VERY public nuclear power plant emergencies: Chernobyl, Three Miles Island, Fukushima are those that most people can recall. And honestly…. That’s almost all of it. No seriously: [in more than 70 years there have been less than 30 incidents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents) with either casualties or >100 million dollar in damages, and only 10 of those register as an “accident”, which is a term used in the scale to say that there are at least local consequences. BUT people remember the bad things that were very public more than the good things about nuclear energy.
People: nuclear fuel has caused, and if we continue to use it, will cause, way less death and destruction than fossil fuel plant emissions cause, both directly by ruining our air quality, and indirectly by FUCKING UP THE CLIMATE.
Cost of energy, over the lifetime of a nuclear plant, is also only beat in latest calculations that I know of by wind energy. Wind wins because of how cheap the wind mills are, compared of how “little” energy they produce. Nuclear power plants are massive, but they produce a MAAAASSIIIVE amount of energy over their lifetime.
So why? Because of lobbying by the fossil fuel sector. All these companies earning massive amounts of money suddenly saw this power source come up that, quite frankly, didn’t need them. So they lobbied governments to make ever more difficult rules for nuclear plants to adhere to, they made astroturf public groups to protest the construction of nuclear plants, they pushed the link between nuclear plants and atomic weapons,… all to hang on a bit longer, and squeeze out a little more profit for shareholders.
Fear and lobbying.
Fossil fuels are “easy” to understand: burn rock/gas/oil, make fire, fire boil water, steam turn turbine, electricity! It’s how we’ve been doing it since the industrial revolution, basically (skip the electricity to just get a steam engine).
Nuclear energy sounds SCARY! It doesn’t help that it’s associated with radiation that can cause cancer, and one of the first true shows of force of nuclear power that EVERYONE knows is the atomic bomb. Most people can’t understand that there’s a big difference between THAT and nuclear power generation. (BTW, nuclear power plants, how do they work? Take *fancy* rock, make *fancy* fire, fire boil water, steam turn turbine, electricity!)
There’s also been a few VERY public nuclear power plant emergencies: Chernobyl, Three Miles Island, Fukushima are those that most people can recall. And honestly…. That’s almost all of it. No seriously: [in more than 70 years there have been less than 30 incidents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents) with either casualties or >100 million dollar in damages, and only 10 of those register as an “accident”, which is a term used in the scale to say that there are at least local consequences. BUT people remember the bad things that were very public more than the good things about nuclear energy.
People: nuclear fuel has caused, and if we continue to use it, will cause, way less death and destruction than fossil fuel plant emissions cause, both directly by ruining our air quality, and indirectly by FUCKING UP THE CLIMATE.
Cost of energy, over the lifetime of a nuclear plant, is also only beat in latest calculations that I know of by wind energy. Wind wins because of how cheap the wind mills are, compared of how “little” energy they produce. Nuclear power plants are massive, but they produce a MAAAASSIIIVE amount of energy over their lifetime.
So why? Because of lobbying by the fossil fuel sector. All these companies earning massive amounts of money suddenly saw this power source come up that, quite frankly, didn’t need them. So they lobbied governments to make ever more difficult rules for nuclear plants to adhere to, they made astroturf public groups to protest the construction of nuclear plants, they pushed the link between nuclear plants and atomic weapons,… all to hang on a bit longer, and squeeze out a little more profit for shareholders.
I may be a bit late for this, but…
I work for a government organisation dedicated to lowering carbon emissions. We do a lot of broad research on the “best” way to lower emissions and make the country carbon neutral.
**The biggest single obstacle is that nuclear has a** ***terrible*** **reputation.**
* Yes, the plants are big, but they use space far more efficiently than wind or solar and have less restrictions on where you can put them.
* Yes, they use a lot of water, but if you live in an island nation (like mine) where water is abundant, that isn’t a major concern like it would be in less water-rich places.
* Yes, they’re expensive to build. A lot of people in the comments are hung up on costs, and yes, they are expensive… but that isn’t a blocker in the same way reputation is. If people wanted nuclear, we’d find the money.
We know that Chernobyl and Fukushima are extreme edge cases. Fukushima was caused by a confluence of natural disasters, while Chernobyl was caused by horrific mismanagement and human error.
But that doesn’t matter, because nuclear’s reputation is in the absolute gutter. No local authority wants a power station near them because they don’t want to be the next Fukushima. The majority of voters will vote against nuclear-based measures. Greenpeace, one of the largest international environmental charities in the world, are staunchly anti-nuclear, and campaign rigorously against new nuclear power plants.
There are some other less-important problems. One major one is that nuclear power plants cannot be ‘turned off’ easily. Once a nuclear power plant is turned on, it’s on, and switching it off is a slow and careful operation (you have to stop the reaction, which takes several steps).
This means that you can’t shift nuclear power in response to demand. More conventional power plants are turned on and off throughout the day in response to national demand. The current plan in most developed nations is to solve this problem with batteries – allowing excess power to be fed into battery banks during times of low power demand. But sufficient capacity batteries don’t exist yet, and the current options on the market are both expensive and inadequate.
I may be a bit late for this, but…
I work for a government organisation dedicated to lowering carbon emissions. We do a lot of broad research on the “best” way to lower emissions and make the country carbon neutral.
**The biggest single obstacle is that nuclear has a** ***terrible*** **reputation.**
* Yes, the plants are big, but they use space far more efficiently than wind or solar and have less restrictions on where you can put them.
* Yes, they use a lot of water, but if you live in an island nation (like mine) where water is abundant, that isn’t a major concern like it would be in less water-rich places.
* Yes, they’re expensive to build. A lot of people in the comments are hung up on costs, and yes, they are expensive… but that isn’t a blocker in the same way reputation is. If people wanted nuclear, we’d find the money.
We know that Chernobyl and Fukushima are extreme edge cases. Fukushima was caused by a confluence of natural disasters, while Chernobyl was caused by horrific mismanagement and human error.
But that doesn’t matter, because nuclear’s reputation is in the absolute gutter. No local authority wants a power station near them because they don’t want to be the next Fukushima. The majority of voters will vote against nuclear-based measures. Greenpeace, one of the largest international environmental charities in the world, are staunchly anti-nuclear, and campaign rigorously against new nuclear power plants.
There are some other less-important problems. One major one is that nuclear power plants cannot be ‘turned off’ easily. Once a nuclear power plant is turned on, it’s on, and switching it off is a slow and careful operation (you have to stop the reaction, which takes several steps).
This means that you can’t shift nuclear power in response to demand. More conventional power plants are turned on and off throughout the day in response to national demand. The current plan in most developed nations is to solve this problem with batteries – allowing excess power to be fed into battery banks during times of low power demand. But sufficient capacity batteries don’t exist yet, and the current options on the market are both expensive and inadequate.
People keep saying time and cost, but the obvious counter to this is Korea. Average build time and cost is reasonable (the government doesn’t undermine it by changing regulations halfway through) and they have great institutional memory of how to standardise. This is as opposed to the West which tend to repeatedly build bespoke and therefore highly expensive designs.
I may be a bit late for this, but…
I work for a government organisation dedicated to lowering carbon emissions. We do a lot of broad research on the “best” way to lower emissions and make the country carbon neutral.
**The biggest single obstacle is that nuclear has a** ***terrible*** **reputation.**
* Yes, the plants are big, but they use space far more efficiently than wind or solar and have less restrictions on where you can put them.
* Yes, they use a lot of water, but if you live in an island nation (like mine) where water is abundant, that isn’t a major concern like it would be in less water-rich places.
* Yes, they’re expensive to build. A lot of people in the comments are hung up on costs, and yes, they are expensive… but that isn’t a blocker in the same way reputation is. If people wanted nuclear, we’d find the money.
We know that Chernobyl and Fukushima are extreme edge cases. Fukushima was caused by a confluence of natural disasters, while Chernobyl was caused by horrific mismanagement and human error.
But that doesn’t matter, because nuclear’s reputation is in the absolute gutter. No local authority wants a power station near them because they don’t want to be the next Fukushima. The majority of voters will vote against nuclear-based measures. Greenpeace, one of the largest international environmental charities in the world, are staunchly anti-nuclear, and campaign rigorously against new nuclear power plants.
There are some other less-important problems. One major one is that nuclear power plants cannot be ‘turned off’ easily. Once a nuclear power plant is turned on, it’s on, and switching it off is a slow and careful operation (you have to stop the reaction, which takes several steps).
This means that you can’t shift nuclear power in response to demand. More conventional power plants are turned on and off throughout the day in response to national demand. The current plan in most developed nations is to solve this problem with batteries – allowing excess power to be fed into battery banks during times of low power demand. But sufficient capacity batteries don’t exist yet, and the current options on the market are both expensive and inadequate.
People keep saying time and cost, but the obvious counter to this is Korea. Average build time and cost is reasonable (the government doesn’t undermine it by changing regulations halfway through) and they have great institutional memory of how to standardise. This is as opposed to the West which tend to repeatedly build bespoke and therefore highly expensive designs.
People keep saying time and cost, but the obvious counter to this is Korea. Average build time and cost is reasonable (the government doesn’t undermine it by changing regulations halfway through) and they have great institutional memory of how to standardise. This is as opposed to the West which tend to repeatedly build bespoke and therefore highly expensive designs.
Because the coal and oil industry ran a super successful propaganda campaign about it being dangerous, when it is in fact the safest, cleanest power source available.
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