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silence7@slrpnk.net

U.S. Seeks to Boost Nuclear Power After Decades of Inertia | Measures moving through Congress to encourage new reactors are receiving broad bipartisan support (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 8 months ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net

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[–] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 17 points 8 months ago (13 children)

Best time to build a nuclear reactor was 20 years ago.

Second best time is now.

[–] suppenloeffel@feddit.de 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

Isn't nuclear one, if not the most, expensive form of energy production once you factor in stuff like maintenance and disposal?

Not trying to do the whole hot take thing here, I genuinely don't get why investing in nuclear is still pursued versus investing in renewable sources when mobility and land isn't an issue.

EDIT:

“Tackling the climate crisis means we must modernize our approach to all clean energy sources, including nuclear,” said Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado. “Nuclear energy is not a silver bullet, but if we’re going to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, it must be part of the mix.”

kind of provides at least a partial answer: Time. Though this quote gave me graphite control rod vibes:

Some Democrats and Republicans in Congress have criticized the N.R.C. for being too slow in approving new designs. Many of the regulations that the commission uses, they say, were designed for an older era of reactors and are no longer appropriate for advanced reactors that may be inherently safer.

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago (4 children)

There's a lot to unpack in nuclear being the most expensive form of energy production, like:

While nuclear absolutely must be held to extremely rigorous safety standards, I seem to remember that the fossil industry leveraged the nuclear panic in the 80s to lobby all manner of bullshit red tape on top of good regulations, and that has dramatically increased time and financial cost to building new reactors.
Does that also factor in all externalities, like radiological waste from coal fire plants, and the damage from carbon emissions contributing to climate change? Or are we only counting the externalities of nuclear?
Are we also including new generations of reactors, which are supposedly safer, produce less waste, and less able to be used for nuclear weapons production? Or are we just looking at the reactor designs from 70 years ago that represent all of what's in operation in the US today? Can you imagine trying to argue for solar or wind with designs from 70 years ago? It'd be a pretty hard sell.

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