Preferences

Just to call it explicitly, because I think this is one of the big points of misunderstanding between pro- and anti-nuclear people (take that as a very rough categorization and not an accusation) -

There is a difference between “something can be done correctly” and “something is likely to be done correctly.” Nuclear advocates I’ve read tend to argue the former - it’s possible to have safe reactors, it’s possible to keep the waste sequestered safely, there’s not a technical reason why nuclear is inherently unsafe. Skeptics tend to be making a different argument - not that it’s not possible to do things safely and correctly, but that in our current late-capitalist milieu, it’s almost impossible that we _will_. It’s not an argument about capability, it’s an argument about will and what happens in bureaucracies, both public and private.


Yeah, if waste management was as viable as proponents claim, places like Hanford [0] would already be an inactive site with a memorial park on top.

Whether it's technology, economics, or politics, clearly the state of the art is deficient because we currently have persistent deficiencies.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site

Manuel_D
It's politics. The US already built a waste site in Yucca Mountain, but never bothered to actually use it for political reasons.

Digging a shaft half a kilometer into bedrock and sealing it is not state of the art.

This item has no comments currently.