• Poogona [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Okay people are probably not reading this thread any more but I am an energy dumb-dumb and need something explained.

    I was under the impression that nuclear power, while in many ways a step up from coal and oil, produces nuclear waste that needs to be kept under tons of water or something? Nuclear sounds much better but I am scared of these drums of super-concentrated ultra-pollution building up and being inevitably dumped into the ocean

    • keepcarrot [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Nuclear power produces less nuclear waste than coal (per MWh), which just dumps its nuclear waste into the air.

      Not that putting nuclear waste somewhere isn't a problem, just not an insurmountable one.

      • Poogona [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        This is a point I hadn't considered. Jesus Christ we are so fucking behind on what we need (SOLAR FOR FUCKS SAKE)

      • sootlion [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        The problem with these stats is they're always murky. Is this including low-level waste, which accounts for 90+% of nuclear waste?

        • keepcarrot [she/her]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I mean, this is half remembered pro-nuclear stuff from highschool. Not that I'm doing anything useful, so maybe I could try to find data.

      • Poogona [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I'm just worried about that containment. Shit builds up, and without a government that won't hand off disposal duty to some private firm that'll cut corners and dump it into indigenous communities or something, I am not so optimistic.

    • krei [it/its]
      ·
      2 years ago

      But like legitimately, why don't we just shoot it into space?

      • Poogona [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        From what I understand it's pretty expensive to shoot rockets into space already, and doing it regularly would be pretty costly and increases the risk of a cheap ass MuskTek rocket failing and blowing nuclear waste all over the continent