1. You can make same argument about any energy recourse. "we need so big number of them, that it's futile." I guess my grandchildren will die then.
2. No way to recycle.. Except there is. Over half of current energy production happens in countries that already have nuclear weapon, or are part of NATO. So because Ghana can't have heavy water nuclear power plant, U.S. can't either?
3. Price going up with the cheapest fuel out there does not sound like much of an issue. He does not quantify anything.
4. France needs to use huge amounts of water for cooling because they produce about 75% of their electricity with nuclear. If average would be even 50% of electricity produced by nukes, we could breathe lot easier with the climate change. You can also cool with seawater.
Fukushima proved that even with completely fucked up security culture, dated power plant and overall completely unpredictable carnage, nuclear is still safe.
5. Nuclear is centralized and that's not hip-n-cool. This last point is the best one IMO. But it's more of an argument why we should not rely only on nuclear. Not a reason to abstain from it.
>"we need so big number of them, that it's futile." I guess my grandchildren will die then.
You can build a lot of PVs and turbines in the same amount of time, and place them closer to where they're being used (reduce transmission loss). You can also place them on top of buildings (reduces AC load by 2%) and on top of parking lots (reduces car heat and urban heat island effect).
You're not going to electrify poor parts of the world with big, expensive, centrally-controlled fission plants.
>You can also cool with seawater.
The video addresses this. Seawater is often near fault lines, but that's not the biggest issue: transmission loss. If your power generation is on the coasts then you lose a lot of electricity powering the interior of the country.
>nuclear is still safe
Even if every nuclear accident was as "safe" as Fukushima, that's still a lot of wasted money. It will cost over $100 BILLION to clean it up. You can buy a lot of safe and renewable energy for that amount of money.
>You can build a lot of PVs and turbines in the same amount of time, and place them closer to where they're being used (reduce transmission loss). You can also place them on top of buildings (reduces AC load by 2%) and on top of parking lots (reduces car heat and urban heat island effect).
That was not the point. The argument was that nobody can build all the hundreds of nuclear plants that we would need. How can we build the millions of PV's and thousands of turbines?
>You're not going to electrify poor parts of the world with big, expensive, centrally-controlled fission plants.
Why not? It's probably the cost/watt that matters.
>transmission loss
Most of world population lives close to coastline.
>How can we build the millions of PV's and thousands of turbines?
Those things fall off an assembly line. Nuclear power plants can't be massed-produced.
>Why not?
Who's going to invest that much money? While you're waiting around for a nuke plant and all of the infrastructure to be built, a few PV's can make a washing machine work and then girls can go to school.
You don't make wind turbine pylons or blades on assembly line either. You don't install solar panels to rooftops by assembly line. If nuclear gets enough momentum, large portion of the parts can be produced on assembly line too. But I think this is better covered by cost analysis than any argument about serial production.
If the absolutely poorest parts of the world are not going to get fission plants in near future, that doesn't mean places like China, India and Indonesia could not get them. This is what matters if we want to combat climate change. But I'm not opposed to solar panels either. Whatever can be done quickly that cuts CO2 emissions.
2. No way to recycle.. Except there is. Over half of current energy production happens in countries that already have nuclear weapon, or are part of NATO. So because Ghana can't have heavy water nuclear power plant, U.S. can't either?
3. Price going up with the cheapest fuel out there does not sound like much of an issue. He does not quantify anything.
4. France needs to use huge amounts of water for cooling because they produce about 75% of their electricity with nuclear. If average would be even 50% of electricity produced by nukes, we could breathe lot easier with the climate change. You can also cool with seawater.
Fukushima proved that even with completely fucked up security culture, dated power plant and overall completely unpredictable carnage, nuclear is still safe.
5. Nuclear is centralized and that's not hip-n-cool. This last point is the best one IMO. But it's more of an argument why we should not rely only on nuclear. Not a reason to abstain from it.