Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisV
Don't really want to go on a giant derail of this, but as with fossil fuels, there are hidden costs and externalities. If nuclear power plants were forced to insure themselves for the cost of what might happen in a disaster scenario, the power cost would be much higher. Costs of repairing and decommissioning reactors often blow out. Spent fuel is not being stored properly right now and nobody wants to take it (although my state, South Australia, is considering building a repository here and I hope we do). etc etc. Nuclear should certainly be part of the solution imo but it's not a panacea.
Any energy source has externalities. But like Shifty86 has said, the net effect of energy is positive to the human existence, even if the perception of today isnt so.
The general public views renewables as mostly (if not fully) positive, which just isnt true. Wildlife impacts, rare earth issues, and a whole host of NIMBY concerns come along with each of hydro, wind, and solar. Until fairly recently it actually cost more energy to make a solar panel than that solar panel produced.
At this moment, intermittent energy sources in anything other than small doses typically need to be backed up with dispatchable sources, so the choice is often not wind vs x but wind + x.
On a separate note...while pushing for cleaner sources of energy is certainly worthwhile, we focus way too little on the demand side of the equation in my opinion. Which leads to hypocritical clowns like Dicaprio consuming 100-1000x the energy of the average human, while at the same time complaining about the dirty sources of that energy.