Nuclear Power Was Once Shunned at Climate Talks. Now, It’s a Rising Star.
Nuclear Power Was Once Shunned at Climate Talks. Now, It’s a Rising Star.
Growing worldwide energy demand and other factors have shifted the calculus, but hurdles still lie ahead.
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If America hadn't responded to Chernobyl with fear of atomic power and instead adopted a "this is why communism will fail, look how much better we can do it" attitude, the climate crisis would be a non-issue right now
As an engineer, Chernobyl is terrifying. It was close to being 10x worse than it was. The thought that capitalism could do it better is the height of hubris. If you think your technology is fail-safe, nature (including humans) will find a better way to fail.
There are many reasons besides safety that nuclear makes no sense. Others have listed them here. But this recent hand-waving away of safety is frightening. Saying that our technology today is so much better while anti-intellectualism is running rampant. Saying facilities could always be staffed by experts while our political system is more unstable than ever. Thinking that we could store waste for 10,000 years when humanity has never built something that has intentionally survived a fraction of that time.
The downside of this equation is just too severe. Nuclear plants are uninsurable for a reason, and by default are insured by the public. That cost is ignored in the equation, because it's too large for even the biggest insurance conglomerates to consider.
Because we were determined to phase out fossil fuels at the time?