Don't look at the comments. We'll just ignore all the caveats the author put in the video and we'll pretend nothing could possibly be wrong or go wrong about nuclear power. Frankly, the very vocal...
Don't look at the comments. We'll just ignore all the caveats the author put in the video and we'll pretend nothing could possibly be wrong or go wrong about nuclear power.
Frankly, the very vocal pro-nuclear crowd makes it very hard to actually tell what the right course of action is. My view is that nuclear is insanely risky both economically and in terms of safety and security (the economic risk is illustrated above).
The economics also completely neglect - as far as I can tell - the completely incalculable cost of fuel "disposal" and disasters.
And sure, there's designs floating about for safe, no-waste reactors. But they come with proliferation risks, might still be monolithic plants (1GW+, I would presume) and afaik require materials that we don't even have yet (because you're handling a very hot corrosive mixture of all kinds of elements). You might as well push for fusion... Which you should at this point - it seems like the more future-proof technology anyway.
I'm also not convinced by the promise of smaller nuclear plants. Maybe I'm pessimistic here, but I would expect that to make the whole safety/maintenance aspect a lot worse. You now have to inspect 10x as many plants for safety and proper maintenance, and you're making accidents much more likely (though less devastating).
Don't look at the comments. We'll just ignore all the caveats the author put in the video and we'll pretend nothing could possibly be wrong or go wrong about nuclear power.
Frankly, the very vocal pro-nuclear crowd makes it very hard to actually tell what the right course of action is. My view is that nuclear is insanely risky both economically and in terms of safety and security (the economic risk is illustrated above).
The economics also completely neglect - as far as I can tell - the completely incalculable cost of fuel "disposal" and disasters.
And sure, there's designs floating about for safe, no-waste reactors. But they come with proliferation risks, might still be monolithic plants (1GW+, I would presume) and afaik require materials that we don't even have yet (because you're handling a very hot corrosive mixture of all kinds of elements). You might as well push for fusion... Which you should at this point - it seems like the more future-proof technology anyway.
I'm also not convinced by the promise of smaller nuclear plants. Maybe I'm pessimistic here, but I would expect that to make the whole safety/maintenance aspect a lot worse. You now have to inspect 10x as many plants for safety and proper maintenance, and you're making accidents much more likely (though less devastating).
Regarding your concerns about Nuclear Waste: A video from the same professor talking about that