Just because it’s safe doesn’t mean it’s the best we have right now.
It’s massively expensive to set up
It’s massively expensive to decommission at end of life
Almost half of the fuel you need to run them comes from a country dangerously close to Russia. (This one is slightly less of a thing now that Russia has bogged itself down in Ukraine)
It takes a long time to set up.
It has an image problem.
A combination of solar, wind, wave, tidal, more traditional hydro and geothermal (most of the cost with this is digging the holes. We’ve got a lot of deep old mines that can be repurposed) can easily be built to over capacity and or alongside adequate storage is the best solution in the here and now.
The problem with these arguments and the focus of debates is that they are based on nuclear energy from uranium, not thorium. Thorium is ubiquitous in nature, power centers are much easier to set up and can be small and the waste, while initially (a bit) more radioactive than uranium waste, loses it’s radiation level much faster
The abundance of uranium and thorium is of the same magnitude. The thing is economics. Uranium is cheap, and as long it is, we use the sources we have. As the peice of uranium rises other sources get economical including sea water extraction which is effectively renewable.
Uranium is a much scarcer source compared to thorium. Uranium can also be used to create nuclear weapons, that’s why other countries have difficulties using the tech because foreign powers are afraid of these consequences
Already India and chine have had working ones for many years. It’s not speculative and I recommend you to research the tech. It’s unfortunately not very present in western nuclear energy debates. Could be a political reason but that’s just a dirty guess
I thought all thorium based reactor were still at the research stage. I made a quick search to see if there was any in actual use but couldn’t find a source. If you have one please send it I’m really interested.
If they are still at the research stage then I’ll wait until one is built at scale to decide whether they are a better alternative.
I would like to add, that though we have the means to store the radioactive waste safely, it’s not done properly in many places. So it’s also an organizational challenge.
Storage is not easy when you don’t have massive amounts of free land. This is an ongoing debate in Europe, and in one particular country a leaky storage was discovered just a month or two ago. Again.
And there is no guarantee that what we build today is not going to be a massive liability in 50 or 200 or hell, 500 years. But the companies and people who are responsible will not even exist at this point.
That their son used an entire bottle of Elmer’s glue and now sleeps face down to keep that mohawk standing up. They’ll spend time understanding his interests because they love him very much.
I mean, in previous years we did pass some environmental laws (like banning internal combustion cars), not as much or as strict as I hoped, but change was there. Sure hope that doesn’t all get undone ‘to boost the economy’ (in the USA sense - so help the existing big corps to boost their profits & do nothing for the majority).
Hell, I rally like the vast majority of EU regulations (various directives and delegated acts) that were passed & are being constantly updated (to keep up with the times/trends & tech) over the last 20 years, I think its a rally good balance between protecting the people whilst at the same time working with the market to actually achieve a meaningful & painless change over several years. That’s why we have representatives. The added “bureaucracy” as companies call it is just extra reporting & testing (to confirm compliance with standards). This benefits us all & is of unbelievably marginal cost when you look at the economy, regardless of what lobbyists say.
Mexicans should absolutely be keeping an eye on American politics. Especially since half the debate was: Sir please explain how much you hate Mexicans and what you’ll do to prevent any Mexicans from entering our fair country and how you’ll remove the Mexicans problem when you’re in power.
Trump: internment camps, American Auschwitz if he can
Biden: further tighten border control and further restrict ability to obtain legal entry
Honestly that’s something I never learned about until I was like, 23, 24. Still know bugger all about it and that’s fucked. Do you know any good resources where I can learn about this stuff?
Wilson, and to a lesser extent Monroe are the presidents that caused those, with Wilsonian Military Doctrine, and The Monroe Doctrine, specifically so perhaps start there.
For a fun and light read I’d start with Wikipedia entry on the attempts on the life of Fidel Castro.
For chronological read I’d start with Iran then Latin America, Wikipedia as well. Don’t skip the chapter where they associated themselves with drug lords that sent drugs to US as a way to finance anti communist operations in Central America. I think that was Nicaragua.
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