With the cost of building new nuclear vs building new solar and wind, at this point it's more cost effective to just build and invest into more solar and wind. And in order to save unused power, build a pumped storage power plant. This can pump water into a tank and when there is more demand for electricity, the potential energy of the water will run past turbines and generate more power (basically a giant battery). I realize this isn't effectual everywhere, and maybe that's where new nuclear can be built, which is safe if handled correctly. But we're under capitalism, where nuclear fails due to skirting regulations and not over building the necessary failsafes to prevent accidents.
tldr: nuclear can be good, but pragmatically nuclear bad due to capitalist negligence and comparable or worse cost to power ratio than solar and wind.
Cost effective to build and maintain. As another user pointed out, it takes 10 years to build a nuclear power plant. If you're building nuclear, you better make damn sure it's safe and won't have a meltdown.
nuclear is the least labor intensive
As if nuclear plants don't need upkeep and constant monitoring, nevermind the 10 year build time.
Costs of materials don't just disappear in a socialist society. The materials still need to be harvested and assembly and maintenance of our power stations still need to happen. Besides, my post is talking about right now , not a world that doesn't exist yet. If we do achieve socialism, then yes the goal would be to eliminate the need for as much labor as possible. You can't ignore current material conditions and the fact that we are still in a world run mainly by fossil fuels. When you look at the lifetime of a nuclear power plant and the lifetime of solar and wind, if all things are near equal, go with the option that doesn't have the chance to irradiate innocent people.
look at the current labor costs. i posted it in another post in this thread.
no, i'm saying that thinking purely about dollar signs is capitalistic when you consider the amount of good that comes from nuclear. other things outweigh dollar signs.
and whats your point? you really think we're going to invest into wind and solar? that shit will cost even more to get our society to 100% carbon free energy than nuclear will. and when you consider land use, appropriations... things get way out of hand. youd need an area the size of a small state to power our current grid with solar or wind. not the case with nuclear. i'm not advocating for a 100% nuclear setup, as i think thats as unfeasible as a 100% renewables setup. but i think our society should be around 90% nuclear.
also, solar and wind do produce a ton of toxic waste, so lets not act like its a victimless thing. solar produced around 250k metric tons of waste in 2016. that's for around 2% of the worlds energy, and by 2050 with current growth trends, it will be 78 million metric tonnes. id rather we focus on reprocessing nuclear waste, which we already know how to do, to get rid of it entirely within a decade or two.
With the cost of building new nuclear vs building new solar and wind, at this point it's more cost effective to just build and invest into more solar and wind. And in order to save unused power, build a pumped storage power plant. This can pump water into a tank and when there is more demand for electricity, the potential energy of the water will run past turbines and generate more power (basically a giant battery). I realize this isn't effectual everywhere, and maybe that's where new nuclear can be built, which is safe if handled correctly. But we're under capitalism, where nuclear fails due to skirting regulations and not over building the necessary failsafes to prevent accidents.
tldr: nuclear can be good, but pragmatically nuclear bad due to capitalist negligence and comparable or worse cost to power ratio than solar and wind.
lol cost effective? in what measure? nuclear is the least labor intensive, which as socialists, is what we should be caring about. not cost
Cost effective to build and maintain. As another user pointed out, it takes 10 years to build a nuclear power plant. If you're building nuclear, you better make damn sure it's safe and won't have a meltdown.
As if nuclear plants don't need upkeep and constant monitoring, nevermind the 10 year build time.
Costs of materials don't just disappear in a socialist society. The materials still need to be harvested and assembly and maintenance of our power stations still need to happen. Besides, my post is talking about right now , not a world that doesn't exist yet. If we do achieve socialism, then yes the goal would be to eliminate the need for as much labor as possible. You can't ignore current material conditions and the fact that we are still in a world run mainly by fossil fuels. When you look at the lifetime of a nuclear power plant and the lifetime of solar and wind, if all things are near equal, go with the option that doesn't have the chance to irradiate innocent people.
look at the current labor costs. i posted it in another post in this thread.
no, i'm saying that thinking purely about dollar signs is capitalistic when you consider the amount of good that comes from nuclear. other things outweigh dollar signs.
and whats your point? you really think we're going to invest into wind and solar? that shit will cost even more to get our society to 100% carbon free energy than nuclear will. and when you consider land use, appropriations... things get way out of hand. youd need an area the size of a small state to power our current grid with solar or wind. not the case with nuclear. i'm not advocating for a 100% nuclear setup, as i think thats as unfeasible as a 100% renewables setup. but i think our society should be around 90% nuclear.
also, solar and wind do produce a ton of toxic waste, so lets not act like its a victimless thing. solar produced around 250k metric tons of waste in 2016. that's for around 2% of the worlds energy, and by 2050 with current growth trends, it will be 78 million metric tonnes. id rather we focus on reprocessing nuclear waste, which we already know how to do, to get rid of it entirely within a decade or two.