Russia has reportedly made a sinister threat to the West by suggesting it could attack nuclear power plants in retaliation for any strike on its own sites
Russia has reportedly made a sinister threat to the West by suggesting it could attack nuclear power plants in retaliation for any strike on its own sites
Well it’s a good thing that you can’t set off a nuclear explosion by bombing a nuclear power plant either.
A nuclear explosion requires either nanosecond timing that detonates a sphere of explosives that compress a highly enriched nuclear core until it goes critical, or you need two parts of a critical core that come together when you want the big boom. It is impossible for a nuclear reactor to cause a nuclear detonation. There simply isn’t enough highly enriched material in a reactor.
You could cause a nuclear meltdown, but you’d need to damage the fuel rods, which are typically buried rather deep for obvious reasons.
Nuclear power is the most energy dense and efficient electrical energy source that we have as a species.
It’s certainly dense, in terms of output relative to geographic footprint. I’m not sure how you’re measuring efficiency.
In terms of capital costs and build times, I would not describe the Vogtle 3 & 4 as efficient. The promise of SMRs is, similarly, far more focused on density than cost or reliability.
If your goal is a large scale rapid to expansion of production and you aren’t worried about physical space, you can stand up wind turbines in months and solar farms in a couple years. Then you’ll generate ROI that pays off the hardware investment in 2-5 years, pretty consistently.
By contrast, nuclear plants take decades to come online and generations to pay themselves back. They’re very slow and expensive per MWh.
But if you’re space constrained because your are - say - a massive naval floating fortress or orbital space station or arctic research base? There’s a value in a physically compact system
Okay, I’ll admit I was being a facetious when I said nuclear explosion.
That being said, it’s still a non-renewable energy source that produces incredibly toxic waste that lasts tens of thousands of years that nobody wants to keep or store nor has any way of effectively making safe except storing it in bunkers underground for tens of thousands of years, which is stupid, impractical, short-sighted at best and incredibly dangerous at worst.
Also, Absolutely nobody wants to live near a nuclear power plant. Why bother having them take up room if you can’t live or farm near them.
Why leave the means of production in the hands of capitalist scum that will ask for billions to keep the plants maintained on top of the energy tarrifs we pay, only keep the money, and still let the facilities crumble, when I can just install solar panels in my own house and not pay for any electricity? Sounds kinda dumb to go for nuclear at that point.
I can’t confirm if it’s the most energy dense, but even if that’s true, it can still trigger meltdowns that leave kilometer-wide radii of uninhabitable radioactivity dead-zones like around Chernobyl.
As far as I’m concerned, anybody still promoting this technology is so deeply entrenched in their own self- aggrandizement because nuclear energy sounds cool that they can’t grow up and realise other technologies outcompeted nuclear on a number of metrics, decades ago.
Also, I know that this will continue to get downvoted because there are so so so many people who have made nuclear energy part of their personality and absolutely cannot critically self-reflect on the topic.
Nuclear fusion or no nuclear at all.
You don’t have to act like you didn’t mean what you said. It’s okay to admit you were wrong.
It’s so telling that this is the only part you responded to.
Can’t fault any of my other claims for the failure of nuclear, so you have to resort ad hominems - you nukecels are laughable.
Do you know what an ad hominem actually is? Telling someone that it’s okay to admit you are wrong is not an attack on you as a person.
It is when you’re on your high horse telling me that I’m allowed to admit that I’m wrong when I wasn’t wrong and being facetious.
You’ve made assumptions about my intentions and intelligence and tried to negate discussion without addressing any of my claims.
It is an attack on my intelligence rather than my argument, so it’s an ad hominem.
You’re the only one here mentioning your intelligence.
Not even close after you factor in the cost of decommissioning and storage of forever radiation. And before you reply with “next gen” don’t forget that you replied to the comment about “nuclear fission plants”.
Wouldn’t be nearly so expensive if anti-nuclear idiots like yourself wouldn’t keep voting to block long term nuclear waste storage facilities from being built in the first place.
There’s a half built one in Arizona that can’t be used because idiots are afraid of a tectonically stable underground silo somehow releasing dry nuclear waste.
Do actual research. Fear mongering about nuclear reactors is exactly why they’re so expensive.
I’ve forgotten more about nuclear energy than you’ve ever known. It will never be part of the solution idiot. Mark my words.
Dude, this thread is full of morons obsessed with nuclear power. I wouldn’t waste my time replying to morons and bots.
It’s not all morons and bots. You’re here!
Thanks, I appreciate it!
it amazes me how many people drink the Kool aid of conservative propaganda, and misleading research done by parties with conflict of interest.
There’s no kool aid or propaganda here.
It is legitimately impossible to cause a nuclear explosion by bombing reactors. This is objective fact: go ask a nuclear physicist.
I’m confused why you are telling me this, when I was in agreement?