In a recent study, researchers from the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) questioned the planned development of new nuclear capacities in the energy strategies of the United States and certain European countries.
Look the psuedoscience anti nuclear people aren’t going to be what kills nuclear power.
The problem is the option is to “replace pseudo science oil barons with pseudo science nuclear power barons.” Society isn’t largely run by scientists, its run by lawyers and business idiots.
If you operate under the assumption nuclear will be treated more carefully and delicately than oil, well I too would like to live in that star trek communism universe.
It will get dumped in water supplies. It will end up in food supplies. The reality is there is a difference between “looks good on paper” and “even some lawyer who doesn’t believe in germ theory won’t fuck it up”.
That’s a very valid point, but it isn’t unique to nuclear. Solar panel manufacturing produces some nasty chemical waste. Some might be manufactured using hydrofluoric acid even, which scares the living shit out of me.
There are going to be safety and waste issues with everything, and they’re going to be different types of hazards. I would rather drink water contaminated with some nuclear waste than have contact with hydrofluoric acid. Ideally I’d like neither.
I’m not entirely sure what the solution is. It’s hardly worse than oil (which also uses HF!), but that’s not adequate. What we need is regulations and regulators that make it cheaper to throw as much safety factors as possible on something vs pay fines for violations. I’m confident we have the technology needed, we just need to make sure it’s actually used.