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lostparis t1_iu89105 wrote

Reply to comment by max-venum in Poland picks U.S. offer for its first nuclear power plant -PM by SunfireGaren

It is a stupid move - it will take decades to produce power and be expensive - there are far better investments to make with quicker and higher returns.

Nuclear is not the solution people think it is because we don't have enough fuel for it to work on a scale large enough to make a real difference. There are also some environmental/security concerns too.

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bingobangobenis t1_iu8annk wrote

oh please. There's plenty of fuel for nuclear reactors. And you don't just have to use Uranium 235. Alternatives such as old fuel. Thorium. And so on.

There is no threat to the environment with modern reactors, especially gen IV with innovations such as pebble beds and more importantly passively safe reactors that don't even need a source of water. Not to mention the LFTR everyone jerks off.

nuclear is the only clean energy that can provide the energy foundation to a technological future with electric cars and industrial processes, especially in european countries that are far more dense population wise.

and of course they could open another fart gas or coal plant. But the obvious idea here is energy diversity. Maybe even developing a knowledge base of working with nuclear energy

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Hippos-in-Colombia t1_iu8c2ue wrote

Yes sure but still this will probably be finished in about 15-20 years?

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Open_University_7941 t1_iu8in63 wrote

A large part of why it takes long is A: faux environmentalists B: we just dont do it enough to be really fast at it. C: its the most highly regulated form lf electricity, but this also makes it the safest.

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lostparis t1_iu8c5xi wrote

> Thorium.

Are we actually generating any power with this yet?

It is estimated that there is enough Uranium fuel for an additional 200-400 NPPs This is not really going to make a huge difference. In the time it takes to build a NPP we would do better to be investing in stored power. There are many ideas here and building a variety of them at a small but usable scale would allow us to find which ones are effective and start building some full scale implementations.

Building NPPs will not bring us a fast solution, will be expensive, and distracts us from the actual issues.

There may be some niche places where it works but these are few and far between.

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