No climate change if world embraced nuclear

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First sensible thing they have said.

Many of the issues surrounding nuclear have been overblown (with the help of propaganda from the fossil fuel industry), in terms of deaths caused per MWh and the carbon footprint - nuclear wins on all counts, even versus windmills and solar panels. The nuclear waste issue is overblown too there really isn't that much of it to store.

There is really no point in pursuing both. Do nuclear right and you don't need anything except a few hydro storage sites and that's with decades old technology. Modern nuclear designs can be ramped up and down fairly quickly.

-Chernobyl: Old USSR technology and poor safety standards.
-Fukashima: Near a fault line.
-Australia is probably the most stable continent on earth.
-Huge deserts to store nuclear wastes.
-People have spruiked that Australia imports other peoples waste and make a business out of it.
-Lucas Heights has been in operation for decades without a problem.
-New modular nuclear technology is not old nuclear technology.

"Keep up with the program."

I'll be watching Chis Kenny's doco on nuclear energy tonight.

Go to China and wag your finger in disapproval at them.
28% of world CO2 emissions.
If the left were serious, they would pressure China into not polluting the earth.
Sic Greta on them propper.

Politics.

The left have made it a *political* issue.
Ideology is more important than practicle solutions.

I saw the title of this thread, and the black humour enthusiast inside me thought that "yes, a nuclear winter would certainly cool down the Earth".

Pepe had something much less violent in mind. I guess I'm the one who just wants to watch the world burn.

I remember giving a little speech in school advocating nuclear power back in the 70s.

Wouldn't options always be a good idea? Reliance on a single technology seems shortsighted? Wouldn't we then be at the mercy of global uranium prices, much like we are now on oil prices?

You seem to know something about this. Can you tell me why, in the UK, whenever we start building new, modern nuclear plants, it always seems to take decades - if it ever completes - with costs that spiral out of control?

We're also told that nuclear power stations are risky because they are targets for terrorist attacks. This doesn't seem to faze countries like France that rely heavily on nuclear. But is it a real risk? It's never happened so far as I know but could it?

That is why renewable energy sources vary.
When the wind turbines have no wind, we can fall back onto solar.
When the sun doesn't shine, we can fall back onto wind generation.
When there is no wind or sunshine, we are *ucked. <cheeky>

You fool! <joke>

I'm surprised you survived left-wing outrage!
But back then, the left-wing movement was much gentler.

Yes, that is one option.
Probably not a good one, however.

It would also overcome the overpopulation problem.
Scratch that.
We have covid now to get rid of the old deadwood.

We can't rely on renewables anyway, we "rely" on smoky black diesel and gas driven turbines to act as backup generators to allow us to integrate gimmicky solar and wind into our grids.



Most think there is more than enough fuel to last the entire world a good few centuries, and if breeder reactors come to fruition, we need not worry at all.



They are complicated and expensive to build, but as always the UK government finds ways to make it worse. There's probably a thread's worth of complaints about their incompetence but I would suggest they are a little too reliant on the private sector for ideological reasons, that and they hate shelling out cash for nuclear, because like most good things ^TM it's expensive and it's not a vote winner - so we have to invite the Chinese, the French, everyone and their mum to invest in the nuclear plants and because investors hate risk, they require future promises of revenue and energy prices and endless investor-pleasing renegotiation...

What we really need is a grand, nuclear-focused national strategy that isn't afraid to nationalise the whole lot and can survive individual governments.



I think that's getting into what-if-a-comet-hit-it territory. It's possible sure, but I think it is unlikely. To turn a nuclear plant into a disaster that spread lethal radiation everywhere would require some major explosives. If mass casualties is the plan, its probably easier to just put all those bombs in a populated area. The lethality of radioactive material release is likely overblown itself too.

There's also concern that radioactive material could be stolen by terrorists to make a dirty bomb - maybe, but it would be much easier to loot a few hospitals.

Remember the story of the kid David Hahn, who tried to build a nuclear reactor using material cannibalized from smoke detectors?

I hear Boris is looking into expanding the coal power industry, or is he simply reopening some?



I was going to say the same.

Fifty years of tree hugging had little effect. The one week when Fukishima happened is what turned the powers at be the world over overnight en masse against nuclear. Or it did for at least for a decade or so. Now theyre giving nuclear a second look.

I didn't. I just looked him up, quite an amusing story if you ignore the rest of his life.



I've no idea, I'm not paying much attention to UK politics at the moment. It wouldn't surprise me to learn it was true - anyone who looks into this knows what a total waste of time and money solar panels and wind turbines are and have been. If we can't build a fleet of nuclear reactors fairly quickly - then reopening the coal mines is probably the only way to maintain a first world power grid in the near future - CCGT - the go-to back up for solar and wind is getting expensive to run with gas prices rising and gas in Europe is increasingly subject to international political storms.

If not coal, an alternative to that might be for the UK to re-embrace a pre-industrial mindset to energy. Hey kids wake up, it's 3:40am and the wind is blowing, let's march down to the windmill and grind some flour wash ourselves and our clothes and quickly cook a weeks worth of meals while we have hot water and an oven working...

Thank you Green a-holes, thank you so much.

I have heard it reported that no one died because of the Fukushima radiation leak.
The one person connected with that tragedy, died of lung cancer, presumably not directly related.

Regarding Chernobyl, reports of 30,000 dying as a result of its meltdown are fake news.
Less than 100 people died as a result.

The human psyche has a penchant for exaggeration/catastrophization.