Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018)
I am in no way or shape <i>against</i> nuclear power per se. I know its technology, I have studied the engineering behind it etc. Still, any argument against nuclear is immediately categorized as &quot;fearmongering&quot; no matter how much it isn&#x27;t based on the technology itself. Facts and an interest in truly bringing your country forward don&#x27;t matter. Money and lobbyism is what rules the discussions.<p>No matter how many subversive nuclear shills keep posting on reddit and other forums. Reddit drowns in fake marketing&#x2F;PR accounts, you can buy them by the thousands. In the past, I have seen templates for responses written in the weekly pro-nuclear threads. But whatever - just one simple statement that remains true in 2021 is this:<p>Nuclear fission power is entirely uneconomical and already replaced by safer, better alternatives.<p>And on top of the insane cost - plants will never be profitable without lifelong government subsidies - the insane length of construction and planning to build new modern generation plants is completely out of what&#x27;s reasonable because we have to tackle climate change NOW. You&#x27;re looking at $20bn and 10-15 years of construction <i>at least</i>.<p>Finland is currently struggling to finish their new reactor and it costs them dearly. Just invest in renewables and be done with it far sooner at much lower cost and factor 1000 less problems (aside from lobbyism and shilling). Just look at this mess of cost and lost time: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Nuclear_power_in_Finland#New_construction" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Nuclear_power_in_Finland#New_c...</a> All that jazz for a measly 1600 MW.<p>Less than 1500 off-shore wind power turbines deliver a whooping 7.5 Gigawatt for Germany [1]. If you can build 300 wind turbines in 20 years at a fraction of the cost of a single nuclear plant you will have the same output and no possible nuclear incidents or nuclear waste to take care of. Mix it with other renewables and you get the power consistency you need. Nuclear in 2021 is so incredibly unreasonable it bothers me to no end.<p>In Germany, we <i>still</i> have no reasonable way to dispose of 1900 CASTOR containers containing dangerous plutonium with a half-life of 24,000 fucking years. The containers are rated for 40 year protection btw.<p>We have a super majority that rejects nuclear power. Do we struggle sometimes to make the shift away from fossil fuels AND nuclear at the same time? Yes. Do we have to buy power from France or other neighbors in times of high demand? Has happened before. But we are making progress and are able to sustain a large portion of our economy on renewables TODAY.<p>If we had this discussion in 1990, my opinion would have been different. But it&#x27;s too late and too expensive now to shift back into nuclear. By 2042, when a plant planned TODAY would go online, our renewable infrastructure will far outdo what any nuclear plant is capable of in terms of risk-reward.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cleanenergywire.org&#x2F;factsheets&#x2F;german-offshore-wind-power-output-business-and-perspectives" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cleanenergywire.org&#x2F;factsheets&#x2F;german-offshore-w...</a>