A combination of nuclear, solar, thermo, and wind would be ideal, imo. Nuclear can handle a constant base load better than renewables, and concerns about its danger are way overblown. There isn’t as much need for energy storage solutions such as batteries, which come with their own environmental issues, or something like pumped storage, which can also end up being a massive and dangerous engineering problem.
Nuclear accidents only account for a minuscule fraction of the ongoing damage that emissions-heavy power generation causes. The worst nuclear accident in history was at Cherynobl, about 40 years ago. Meanwhile, many ignore the much greater number of deaths attributed to fossil fuel energy. I think most people are unaware that fly ash, the result of burning coal, puts out orders of magnitude more radiation than spent nuclear fuel due to the presence of carbon-14 and the massive quantities that come out of these plants every day. That’s not even accounting for all the other toxic byproducts or the airborne emissions generated.
If we can find a way to safely store the mountains of toxic trash that humans produce daily (in landfills) then given the proper funding, storing the much lesser quantity of nuclear waste shouldn’t be an insurmountable issue.
Nuclear’s biggest drawback is likely the time and money spent to build the plants. It just makes me irate that people will say “Nuclear’s so dangerous!” and completely ignore the coal plant causing widespread cancer right next door. In the end, like most problems humanity faces, its not a technical issue, its a political one.
A combination of nuclear, solar, thermo, and wind would be ideal, imo. Nuclear can handle a constant base load better than renewables, and concerns about its danger are way overblown. There isn’t as much need for energy storage solutions such as batteries, which come with their own environmental issues, or something like pumped storage, which can also end up being a massive and dangerous engineering problem.
Nuclear accidents only account for a minuscule fraction of the ongoing damage that emissions-heavy power generation causes. The worst nuclear accident in history was at Cherynobl, about 40 years ago. Meanwhile, many ignore the much greater number of deaths attributed to fossil fuel energy. I think most people are unaware that fly ash, the result of burning coal, puts out orders of magnitude more radiation than spent nuclear fuel due to the presence of carbon-14 and the massive quantities that come out of these plants every day. That’s not even accounting for all the other toxic byproducts or the airborne emissions generated.
If we can find a way to safely store the mountains of toxic trash that humans produce daily (in landfills) then given the proper funding, storing the much lesser quantity of nuclear waste shouldn’t be an insurmountable issue.
Nuclear’s biggest drawback is likely the time and money spent to build the plants. It just makes me irate that people will say “Nuclear’s so dangerous!” and completely ignore the coal plant causing widespread cancer right next door. In the end, like most problems humanity faces, its not a technical issue, its a political one.