Comment

Comment on Scientists successfully replicate historic nuclear fusion breakthrough three times

Fusion is definitely green if it works, because it would come to a similar factor of energy as solar, but fission is not, the stuff you need is extremely harmful to the environment itself and mining it as well, also you need to build a gigantic structure for it wich is also a shit load of CO2. And then you have to store the waste for basically eternity…

source

Sort:hotnew top

MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Debating whether or not fission is green has given the fossil fuel industry free rein over energy production for the last 60 years.

We could have a Fukushima every year and a Chernobyl every 5 and it would pale in comparison to the loss of life and habitable land we’d be giving up to climate change.

source
- keepthepace@slrpnk.net ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  We could have a Chernobyl every 5 years and losing less lives than we do through the lung diseases caused by the air pollution or oil vehicles. There was a study in France showing that (every 5 years is a low estimate, actual numbers hinted at 2-3 years).
  
  source
- CJOtheReal@ani.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Bro. Nuclear fission isn’t green and its shit in so many other ways as well, most importantly, its not economic without massive government fundings.
  
  Fossile is pushing for nuclear because they fear actually green energy. Wich is way faster to expand than nuclear btw.
  
  source
  - keepthepace@slrpnk.net ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    If you repeat it enough time it will become true…
    
    If we had gone full nuclear and full electric in the 90s (like we could have) we would not have a climate crisis right now (and the Iraq war, and petro-monarchies with an abusive amount of power). Nuclear has its problem, but CO2 is not one of them and the others are much easier to solve.
    
    source
    CJOtheReal@ani.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Pro Nuclear = 🤡
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
senseamidmadness@beehaw.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Thorium-salt breeder reactors have been effectively ignored by most major nuclear energy players for 60 years now, and they solve most of these problems…but nobody is building them. Likely the fossil fuel industry is behind that.

Counterpoint: every nuclear disaster in history, and all the waste nuclear power has ever produced, is absolutely miniscule compared to the damage burning fossil fuels has already done and will continue to do in the coming decades.

Every oil spill, every mountain ripped open to pull out coal, every jet airplane, every bunker-fueled container ship, every single ICE automobile, all combining to make the atmosphere worse and worse…the oceans are rising and getting more acidic. Wild species are going extinct by the thousands. Weather has gotten worse and more extreme. The damage may literally be incalculable. Millions of people have already died from the cancers and natural disasters fossil fuels have caused. The death toll of nuclear energy? Thousands at most.

Nuclear energy may not be perfect but it is a far better alternative.

source
- CJOtheReal@ani.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Bro the alternative is actually green energy, the entire fucking world agreed that fossil is not good. And no, nuclear isn’t green, it isn’t safe (given the toxicity of the waste and the storage problem, and overlooking potential risks in operational errors and natural Desasters) it takes a fucking decade and longer to build a reactor also its absolutely not economical and makes countries dependent on others again (mainly Russia, wich is also the main exporter of fission material)
  
  We can build more actually green energy in the same time and that energy is basically free.
  
  source
  - AzzyDev@beehaw.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Nuclear is absolutely green! The reason that nuclear energy is popular is that it’s remarkably easy to convert an old coal power plant into a nuclear one, all you need to do is strip out the insides, maybe modify some stuff, but the overall structure can remain pretty much the same. Thorium reactors are also much greener than the existing Uranium/Plutonium ones, with Thorium being ~3x as plentiful in earth’s crust compared to uranium. Additionally, it doesn’t require much of the very expensive ventilation equipment for mines as it doesn’t produce radon gas when it decays. And the best part is that Thorium reactors are meltdown-proof. The thorium can’t fission on its own, it needs a helper material like Plutonium, meaning you can basically just flush the thorium away and it immediately stops the reaction.
    
    source
    CJOtheReal@ani.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Pro Nuclear is pro fossil fule as well. Stfu nuclear Stan.
    
    Nobody talks about the type of reactor, all make waste, all depend on mining, all take at least 10 years to, none are economical. Fuck nuclear. Go Solar.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- DarkThoughts@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  And the thorium bros are in the Fediverse now too... Great...
  
  source
  - senseamidmadness@beehaw.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I know the United States had a working thorium-salt reactor, running inside a flying airplane, back in the 60’s. It was abandoned because uranium was already in steady supply from nuclear weapons development.
    
    What’s the problem? It’s a perfectly viable technology and has been proven to work at least once. I have heard China has been experimenting with them in recent years but haven’t looked into it.
    
    source