this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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Nuclear power plants last 40 years or so, before they need a large scale refurbishment or be replaced. All but the last three plants were roughly at that age and even the last three were 35 years old at the time they were shut down. If you want to see why, just look at the issues France has with its aging nuclear power plants in the last couple years.
The decision to close them was purely political as an overreaction to Fukushima.
Yes and no. The og plan was made before Merkel. Merkel slowed the trasition down. But suddently Fukushima hit and the anti nuclear greens had good chances in the upcoming state election. So she closed the powerplans in hope to win an election but the plan was to shut them down anyway but now with less renewables than there should be.
Most nuclear plants operate in a perpetual state of "well we could shut it down with this plan here but we might as well pay more to keep it running since it's already there. "
They're like NASA projects: the project timeline is projected to underdeliver because the worst part about these projects is the initial approval and construction cost: once it gets approved, it's more economical to keep it running than to shut it down and find an alternative.
the running costs also exceed the costs of renewables as the waste issue remains unadressed.
Oh I must have forgotten that storage is free. Silly me.
WhAt aBoUT tHe WasTE isSSue?!
Shut the hell up. This is such an uninformed concern and dumb takes like this are the reason why underuse the greenest source of energy we have.
First, the total waste produced from plants is small, and of that amount, only about 3% is the scary, long term waste you're so worked up about. With newer reactors, it's down to below 0.5%.
But let's talk about that 3%. Let's say you took all of it worldwide and stacked it all up. It would be the size of a football field and 200ft high.
That may seem like a lot, but that's all the nuclear waste ever produced. Ever. Literally nothing else has that small of a footprint. Even solar and wind have a larger footprint when you consider how many old panels and broken blades/turbines there are. And that's not even getting into waste per energy produced.
As far as what to do with it, we actually have good long term solutions for storage, but no one wants to implement them because of ignorant people who are afraid of anything to do with the word nuclear. For example, he US spent billions developing Yucca Mountain. It was almost ready to go, but has been dead in the water due to people from Nevada not wanting it in their state. This is despite numerous studies and testimony from experts showing it's safety and efficiency. All of that was ignored because all people heard was "nuclear waste in Nevada" and the critical thinking stopped there.
Also, our current storage solutions are actually pretty damn good for the short term. And by short term, I mean 150 years. Casks are usually stored on site and have proven to be extremely durable. They are able to store them on site because, again nuclear power produces an absolutely miniscule amount of waste.
Any source for this?
Because the only viable long term storage project i am aware of is in Finland and the facility is magnitudes larger than a football field. And that is just for storing the waste of one country with a very small population.
Also while we talk hundreds of thousands of years for the highly radioactive waste, the medium and low radioactive waste is still a concern for longer times e.g. hundreds of years to a few thousand years. You realize that just 200 years ago the horse was the hottest shit in terms of transportation?
But to get back to your football field analogy. Even if the numbers add up right now, i calculated with the 250.000 tonnes HLW from 2010 and the analogy fits the measurements of our HLW containers, the amount would become much larger with expanding the use of nuclear power. And that is ignoring that the whole thing would melt down and probably explode because you cannot put the containers so close to each other. That is why they have to put each container into its own tomb and nicely space it out. So the facilities will be gigantic, very expensive and again not resolving the issue of the other 97% of waste that you also need to put somewhere.
But how about this? We just put all the nuclear waste into your country, seal off all rivers and aquifiers and put a large concrete wall to keep all people and wildlife in. Then if in 500 years everything is aokay with the waste and your storage facilities did not deteriorate, you can get out again. In the meantime we pay you in food and materials for your service to mankind. Sounds good? If not, then why dont you want to take the waste you just explained to not be an issue at all?