misleading advice about nuclear solution to global warming

[miriam_e]

Please correct anybody who parrots the stupid statement that politicians and their pet news services keep making about nuclear power being any kind of solution to global warming. It is completely wrong.

A major part of greenhouse emissions come from vehicles. Nuclear power will make the world far more dangerous without helping vehicle emissions one tiny bit.

And as I mentioned in an earlier post: there is absolutely no way to ensure people return radioactive waste to "safe" storage. If they want to keep it to make bombs they will. The only safe solution is to not make it available in the first place. Leave it in the ground.

Comments

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

You are right on the vehicle front, but nuclear power stations do emit less greenhouse gases than coal though (Of course, that's not what the politicians are saying). On the other hand, there are one-off greenhouse gases emitted in the construction of the stations.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Solar power produces less greenhouse gasses than either of them. Wind power produces less greenhouse gasses. Tidal power, hydroelectric, hydrogen, geothermal... they all emit less CO₂ than coal.

Nuclear power produces less CO₂, but a major slip-up and we make the planet a radioactive nightmare for millions of years. Already we have a large area northwest of Chernobyl that will be contributing thousands of cancers a year for millions of years. Heaven knows what will happen when radioactive waste dumped in the ocean and "stored" elsewhere makes its way into the environment.

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

Of course. For power production, we definately need a hybrid approach. Using all the technologies we can in tandem can we eliminate our dependency on coal.

But I don't think nuclear is always dangerous. Problems with nuclear happen when safety protocols are breached. Chernobyl occurred primarily because the operators deliberately switched off fundamental safety mechanisms and Chernobyl was an inherently more unsafe reactors out there. I believe that nuclear can be exploited properly with the right protocols, training, and technology. However, I don't think we've got any of these developed properly to really push as quickly as the Government wants to on this. Haste naturally leads to problems.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

While I don't think nuclear power can ever be made truly safe, I think the safety issues of reactors themselves is actually a side-issue. The real problems are:

1. centralising power generation in nuclear power stations attracts two kinds of nasty people: the terrorist morons who would like to strike at it, and (worse) the security forces and restrictive laws that "protect" against that threat.
   
2. nuclear power generates radioactive material that will be used to make truly awful weapons. And I don't just mean nuclear bombs -- a "conventional" bomb that spreads a payload of radioactive material could kill millions of people immediately and for centuries into the future. Nobody can undo radioactive contamination.

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

#1 is indeed a problem. A nice way around it would be technological improvements as to render the problem of attacks on power stations moot. I'm not a nuclear scientist, so I can't really speak on the matter :)

I don't know enough about the theory and practical considerations about dirty weaponry, so I can't really say anything on that point.