Comment on why is fossil fuel still used?
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 6 days agoReactors aren’t bombs, they don’t just go boom. One of them sinking is far less dangerous than thousands of gallons of fuel in existing tankers. The economics are terribly different than electric cars, it makes no sense to replace a ship with 20 year of life left, but it’s worth considering for a new ship.
There is still the anything nuclear is the boogie man problem.
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 6 days ago
And what about when terrorists like the Houthis capture one? Just trust they can’t extract the materials to build dirty bombs?
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
A reactor isn’t a catalytic converter. They might get some coolant that’s mildly radioactive. The core would probably kill them if they ever managed to open it. There’s not a button to just open it, it’s only designed to be opened with heavy equipment in drydock.
Dirty bombs are more of a boogie man than a real thing. High grade materials are dangerous to be around without shielding and can fairly easily be tracked. It’s just as likely to kill the makers before they can get a bomb together than be used. Lower grade materials require more to be dangerous, which means less spread with the same explosive, and the bomb has to be pretty big. It’s easier to get a backpack full of explosives into somewhere than a van full of radioactive material, and the backpack will have a bigger radius.