And the thorium bros are in the Fediverse now too... Great...
Comment on Scientists successfully replicate historic nuclear fusion breakthrough three times
senseamidmadness@beehaw.org 8 months agoThorium-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.
DarkThoughts@kbin.social 8 months ago
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.
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.
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.
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.
CalamityBalls@kbin.social 8 months ago
If they take ten years to build, start now. Nuclear plants offset 400 million tons of CO2 a year in the US alone. All the waste produced since the 1950's would fit just over 9 meters deep on a single football field. Yes there's mining, it's not great, guess what? Solar panels and wind turbines also require mining. The open pit sort, the sort with wastewater containing the ever-perfidious radioactive elements. All in all, for each ton of rare earth elements extracted, about 2,000 tons of toxic waste is produced, 1-1.4 tons of which are radioactive, usually thorium and uranium funnily enough. A point of interest on the waste, the tailing dam of the Bayan OBO mine in China, responsible for only half the world's rare earth elements, is around 70 million m3, the nuclear waste I previously mentioned comes in at 49,000 m3, or 0.07% of the volume of a single mine.
All this to say, let's build solar panels, wind turbines and nuclear reactors, because we're in the harm reduction phase, and nuclear reactors are a fantastic tool even if they have downsides, just like everything else.
AzzyDev@beehaw.org 8 months ago
Hi! So the other person completely demolished you, which is fine and none of my business, but it’s never a good idea to insult the person you’re debating against if you’re trying to change their opinion.
senseamidmadness@beehaw.org 8 months ago
Maybe you need to calm down.
Nuclear is not the same as fossil fuels but it is, per dollar spent and per megawatt made and by waste produced, the best solution we have right this instant. Nuclear reactors last 30+ years when built and nothing in current green energy technology has that kind of longevity as far as I know. Green energy has peaks and valleys over a given day and current electrical grids are not built for that kind of short-term storage. Nuclear solves that problem. Battery-powered devices like electric cars also depend on mining, you know. Don’t solar panels also have electrical circuits that require mined minerals?