There are two main problems in my opinion, and they are both related to the “fuel”. First, uranium is rare and you often need to buy it from other countries. For instance, Russia. Not great. Second, it is not renewable energy. We can’t rely on nuclear fission in the long run. Then there’s also the issue of waste, which despite not being as critical as some argue, is still a problem to consider
A big problem IMO is the generational responsibility of the waste as well. There needs to be decades of planning, monitoring and maintaince to ensure waste sites are safe and secure, this can be done but modern political climates can make it difficult.
Agreed, dealing with the waste is a thing. But for me a solvable problem and something that doesn’t need to be solved right away. We currently store a lot of nuclear waste in holding locations till we figure out a way to either make it less radioactive or store it for long enough. The alternative however is having coal plants all over the world spew all their dust (including radioactive dust) and CO2 straight into the atmosphere. This to me is a far bigger issue to solve. It isn’t contained in one location, but instead ends up all over the world. It ends up in people’s homes and bodies, with a huge impact to their health. It ends up in the atmosphere, with climate change causing huge (and expensive) issues.
The amount of money we need to handle nuclear waste would be orders of magnitude lower than what we are going to have to pay to handle climate change. And that isn’t even fixing the issue, just dealing with the consequences. I don’t know how we are ever going to get all that carbon back out of the atmosphere, but it won’t be cheap.
It’d be nice to prioritise it at least rather than tucking it away under the oil and gas rug. There is no real competition in energy output to a nuclear power plant. And despite its egregious up front cost, operating it is relatively low cost.
In regards to fuel, uranium is used often but there is options such as thorium that have been used with some success. I do agree it is unfortunate to have to purchase from other countries but I think it beats buying natural gas from wherever it may be sold.
you often need to buy it from other countries. For instance, Russia. Not great.
Yeeeeah, I wouldn’t worry about that. Sure we (Australia) are conservative with our fears of mining and exporting uranium, especially with the Cold War and reactor whoopsies around the world. But historically it doesn’t take much for us to go down on an ally.
Is that supposed to convince me that there’s plenty of uranium left? Because based on the numbers shown with reserve vs. historical usage it kinda seems like it would last for a few decades at best.
The mining is also usually a really polluting affair for the region, much more than the what power generation might suggest. And overall, in many countries there is a lot of subsidies going on for hidden costs, especially relating to the waste and initial construction. So it is not as cheap as a first look might suggest.
I’m not against it per se, it is better than fossil fuels, which simply is the more urgent matter, but it’s never been the wonder technology it has been touted as ever since it first appeared.
One thing to remember about the mining issue is that coal mining is just as bad, and coal is often radioactive as well. More people have died from radiation poisoning due to coal power/mining than have died from radiation poisoning due to nuclear power, even when you include disasters like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
Of course, we’ve also been mining and using coal a lot longer, but the radioactive coal dust and possibly radioactive particles in the smoke from coal plants is something that many people are unaware of.
But, like you said, the big thing is to move away from fossil fuels entirely, and nuclear power has its own issues. It doesn’t so much matter what we go with so long as we do actually go with something, and renewables are getting better and better all the time.
Coal has caused more deaths this year than the entire history of nuclear anything has in total. This includes nuclear energy, nuclear research, nuclear medicine, nuclear irradiation (food storage), and too many orphan sources.
Except that you don’t need uranium for nuclear reactors. The reason it’s used traditionally because it’s also used for nuclear weapons. Thorium is a much better fuel that’s more abundant. China has already started operating these types of reactors. The other advantage of this design is that they use molten salt instead of water for cooling. Molten salt reactors don’t need to be built next to large bodies of water, and they are safer because salt becomes solid when it cools limiting the size of contamination in case of an accident.
I don’t think it will. The large cost of a reactor will probably be shared, but fission plants don’t deal with plasma, magnets, hydrogen/helium storage, lasers, or capacitors. And we don’t even know the method by which a practical fusion plant will operate!
I am talking in the sense that the same companies are participating in fusion research, and pretty sure the methods you mentioned are utilized somewhat in nuclear plants. Like handling and filtering radioactive materials.
Radioactive waste maybe. Fusion plants are likely to create irradiated parts that degrade quickly, similar to fission plants. Fusion fuel on the other hand, is gaseous, and likes to escape. Hydrogen is explosive, while helium-3 is just expensive.
It’s interesting watching the discussion in this thread evolving and polarizing. Yesterday the discussion started as ‘nuclear is one solution in a portfolio of solutions to combat climate change. vs. nuclear is always bad.’ and developed into ‘nuclear is good and you’re dumb. vs. nuclear is bad and you’re evil’.
Seems like that’s how every large scale “discussion” on the internet goes, all nuance goes out the window. I guess the platforms don’t allow for nuanced takes? Other than maybe longform podcasts, but those aren’t exactly large scale discussions like reddit or twitter. Maybe some clever sociologist can figure out why we are like this (or likely already has).
It’s also really weird because discussing a topic like this heavily impacted by where you come from. For exemple the discussion about nuclear energy cannot be the same in France, China, USA or Russia and I see almost everyone here talking the thing like the choice between Nuclear Energy or not (because it’s should never be about Nuclear Energy or Renewable Energy) was the same everywhere on the planet.
So here we are, a lot of people talking to themselves instead of talking with each other, hammering their idea on the topic without even once considering that others living in others places and living in others conditions will approach the subject differently (and than it should be normal and comprehensible)
Yes yes. Let’s continute to use energy sources which are limited in terms of available but necessary resources and cause highly problematic by-products. It has been going on so well so far. Hasn’t it?
it is still the same, but we’re already conditioned to have everything thrown at us on every single internet interaction, making the thought of searching something new seem like stepping out of our comfort zone
with AIs and what not, this feeling will only worsen
My phone. HeyPiggy, Five Surveys, and Qmee apps are the best. I’ve made about 5K in three years, this is Qmee alone. It’s a grind but I’ve really made lots of cash. I went through my Amazon account one day and discovered I’ve bought 117 items with my survey cash.
So are you people in this meme just on your phone all day looking at stupid phone apps? God, what a waste of life.
Smartphones are just boring little tools guys. Don’t make it your life. Be a real nerd, get a PC, and surf the web where there are no limitations set by apps. Play some video games, look at porn sites, do some online shopping or whatever. If you’re done with all that, go outside and ride a bike or something.
I started reading books and mags while pooping. I like it. Highly recommended.
Just got to have system to make sure you don’t do anything unhygienic to your reading material. I make sure to set it down before I touch myself. I touch myself.
I’m just checking my social media apps for any new messages and maybe droify for updates. After checking them in the morning I kinda think to myself that now job is done and any more time I spend of my morning on them is kinda wasted. Checking social media from time to time and speaking with your friends seems kinda healthy, but doomscrolling is kind of a waste after a point (happens if I’m too bored to start my day).
The thing is, after I check all these, I might go in a loop due to boredom (boredom may have many many reasons behind it). When I have tasks to do or I’m in a period that my friends and I are busy, this is more intense. The phone is an easy and portable distraction. All these contribute to an increase of phone usage (currently I’m in one of those situations and phone usage has increased probably by at least 50%).
I had to move to a country with a more introverted culture than the one I grew up in (not the US), and I’ve struggled finding friends to spend my free time with so far, so I spend it on apps :-( They really are just a last resort and I’d much rather spend my time with actual people like in the olden days :-/
About the former, I recently realized in practice that it’s important to pick up activities etc. that you like and that attract people you can bond with. For example I like weightlefting at gym, but I realized it attracts so many people with repulsive ideologies, while I tried dancing and mobility classes the same gym offers and the environment was much much better, I found many good people there. (I still do weightlifting though and I found some good people there too.)
Plus, voicing your opinions helps a lot to filter people (I’m struggling a lot with this though).
Plus, voicing your opinions helps a lot to filter people (I’m struggling a lot with this though).
This is massive. “Filtering” is the perfect way to put it. If you don’t risk saying something potentially disagreeable, then no one will ever know who you are.
That goes for both repulsive and inclusive ideologies, I guess, but I definitely prefer the latter (this is an example of one of your “filtering” statements - now spectators to this conversation know I value inclusivity).
Join some Whatsapp group that piques your interest and meet with them IRL. I wouldn’t have thought that drinking beer and shooting the shit with total strangers could be so much fun, but here we are.
Yes. I think what makes these apps appealing is that 1) they can be used unplanned and your time in them doesnt have to be structured, and 2) they can fill up an arbitrarily long or short amount of time.
Hmm that is a very good description of how I use social media. Fill up unstructured downtime, or to bridge a gap between two other activities (god forbid I go thirty whole minutes without stimulation lol)
Then sometimes just hours and I come out of it feeling like total trash
When I was a kid, I used to play video games while jumping around. I’d stand in front of the TV, bounce around, play Mario, run in circles. My parents didn’t care.
At some point, society said that was weird, and I had a gaming chair?
Watching myself balloon (and already using a standing desk for work) went back to standing while playing video games. I enjoy it!
Condolences. I’ve taken to going to the coffee shop to meet my friend. Yeah it’s not free, but it’s cheap. For games, that’s a bit of a blindspot for me since I only play good games these days.
Go for a walk, read a book, watch a movie, play a game it will make you feel so much better. Just remember to change activities every few hours. If you’re going to play games for 10h you are probably going to get bored of it way too quickly.
Go for a walk, read a book, watch a movie, play a game
I’d love to, but I’m at work. There’s a bit of a lull between the storms of activity atm, and I would absolutely love to not waste time with just being stuck in the office. But I can’t afford it
I know how you feel man. I used to work in a job like that. Honestly what saved me was reading some comedy manga on mangadex. Since it didn’t require a lot of brainpower and I could just stop reading it whenever I wanted it was perfect for times like this. My head also was in a much better state than after scrolling back then reddit for hours. If you don’t like manga you could just find some easy book.
If you can’t go for a walk during work go before or after work. I try to cycle every day after work and it always makes me feel better.
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