anti nuclear greens make me very upset
Like.
You dont want coal, ok good im with you.
You dont want pipelines, also good im there.
And you also dont want nuclear? Like if you dont want nuclear, your getting a pipeline thats just how it works.
Your solar farm needs a gas peaker plant and that means a pipeline.
Your own activism ensures the pipeline. Stop that.
@Laurelai Exactly .
The fact that oil money funds anti-nuke groups is well known.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/07/13/are-fossil-fuel-interests-bankrolling-the-anti-nuclear-energy-movement/#21b5aa6f7453
I get that nuclear energy is scary but compared to the alternatives its a good option in the near/mid term, and it kills less people too. https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2011/apr/04/fear-nuclear-power-fukushima-risks
@svenhayden @crystalsopen That was for nuclear weapons production. Which is bad. Why do anti nuclear electricity people always conflate bombs with power??
@Laurelai @svenhayden I agree that weapons plants seem to have more problems. And I don't think nuclear power is perfect, but it's the best of all the realistic options in the near term. Decreasing energy supply, is politically impossible and would hurt poor people the most. As shortages always do. Massive reductions in power consumption would be needed to go to 100% renewable, and there really still needs to be an always on back-up.
@Laurelai @crystalsopen Hanford is/was used for both. It is a convenient poster child, certainly, but similar problems exist at Vermont Yankee, Indian Point, Pilgrim, Diablo Canyon, etc.
For the record, I prefer combined-cycle LNG plants, assuming good practices (especially CWA 316(a) & (b)) over nukes.
@svenhayden @crystalsopen I lived in Vermont and Vermont Yankee was safe, but attacked all the time by hippies who didnt know the bananas they ate while protesting it gave them more radiation than the power plant ever did.
@Laurelai @crystalsopen
Perhaps when you lived in Vermont, but it has bloomed into a monster mess.
http://www.reformer.com/stories/tainted-water-shipments-continue-at-vermont-yankee,535551
@svenhayden @crystalsopen I lived there last year, this is the fear mongering im talking about. Again. More radiation from a banana.
@svenhayden @crystalsopen @Laurelai Part of the problem (possibly a big part) is that all our current nuclear power plants are super ancient, high risk (by today's standards) designs and were never intended to still be running, plus it costs more to shut then down then it does to run them. It's a real conundrum.
@feoh @Laurelai @svenhayden
Yes they are are engineered typically for a 40 years lifespan, and most of them them were built in the late 60's and early 70's.
Also there are new reactor designs that are even safer. Like everything engineered, the more science and tech move forward the better they can be built. Wave, liquid fuel and thorium are all safer than the pressurized heavy water reactors aka PHWR. The Gates foundation is really smart abotu this. https://www.zdnet.com/article/bill-gates-stops-chasing-nuclear-wave-pursues-variety-of-reactors/
@feoh @crystalsopen @svenhayden Sounds like an argument for an upgrade
@Laurelai @svenhayden @crystalsopen Definitely! But the American public isn't rational about nuclear power. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl have imprinted the idea that nuclear == dangerous - full stop.
@crystalsopen @Laurelai If you read much about the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the largest Superfund site in the country, you may change your mind. Major radioactive and other environmental mess.