Funny how building nuclear power plants that can only (if you have dipshits running them) kill a nearby city is taboo, but climate change that will kill everyone is acceptable to the moralists.

Particularly since coal power stations emit FAR more radioactive material, routinely, than most nuclear "leaks".

It’s sad that the coal lobby has convinced so many people that the most reliable clean energy source we’ve ever discovered is somehow bad.

Its bad in the sense that is a crazy expensive way to generate electricity. Its not theoretical. Ask the customers of the most recent nuclear reactors to go online in the USA in Georgia. source

"The report shows average Georgia Power rates are up between $34 and $35 since before the plant's Unit 3 went online. " (there were bonds and fees on customer electric bills to pay for the nuclear plant construction before it was even delivering power.

...and...

"The month following Unit 4 achieving commercial operation, average retail rates were adjusted by approximately 5%. With the Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery (NCCR) tariff removed from bills, a typical resident customer using 1,000 kWh per month saw an estimated monthly increase of $8.95 per month. This follows the previous rate impact in 2023 following Unit 3 COD of $5.42 (3.2%)."

So another $5.42/month for the first reactor built on top of the $35/month, then another $8.95/month on top of all that for a rough total of $49.37/month more just to buy electricity that is generated from nuclear.

Maybe the power company is greedy? Nope, they're even eating more costs and not passing them on to customers:

"Georgia Power says they're losing about $2.6 billion in total projected costs to shield customers from the responsibility of paying it. Unit 4 added about $8.95 to the average customer's bill, John Kraft, a spokesman for the company said."

So that $49.37/month premium for electricity from nuclear power would be even higher if the power company passed on all the costs. Nuclear power for electricty is just too inefficient just on the cost basis, this is completely ignoring the problems with waste management.

The next biggest problem with nuclear power is where the fuel comes from:

"Russia also dominates nuclear fuel supply chains. Its state-owned Rosatom controls 36 percent of the global uranium enrichment market and supplies nuclear fuel to 78 reactors in 15 countries. In 2020, Russia owned 40 percent of the total uranium conversion infrastructure worldwide. Russia is also the third-largest supplier of the imported uranium that fuels U.S. power plants, accounting for 16 percent of total imported uranium. The Russian state could weaponize its dominance in the nuclear energy supply chain to advance its geostrategic interests. During the 2014 Russia-Ukraine crisis, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin threatened to embargo nuclear fuel supplies to Ukraine." source

So relying on nuclear power for electricity means handing the keys of our power supply over to outside countries that are openly hostile to us.

Anon isn't dumb, just simple. Nuclear energy can be the best solution for certain situations. While renewables are the better choice in every way, they're effectiveness isn't equally distributed. There are places where there just isn't enough available renewable energy sources year round to supply the people living there. When energy storage and transmission methods are also not up to the task, nuclear becomes the best answer. It shouldn't be the first answer people look to but it is an answer. An expensive answer but sometimes the best one.

Also nuclear waste doesn't have to be a problem. If anyone was willing to cover the cost of burning it in a breeder reactor for power or burry it forever. It just is because it's expensive.

While 100% true for nuclear, the current state of burning fossil fuels is much MUCH worse.

Three Mile Island and Chernobyl really did change things. Prior to those incidents there were plans to build over 50 more nuclear plants in place which got canceled as a result. Currently oil and gas industries will do all they can to keep nuclear from making a come back, but for a long time they didn't have to do shit thanks to those catastrophes.

It's more like "Bob and Jim died in a fire a while ago, so everyone decided to put up with heaps of people dying to hypothermia and uncooked meat"

I'm sure the other rock/liquid/gas burning plants have had no issues along their lifetime and had no hand in demonizing the "new" slowly exploding rock technology after extreme negligence let the one big one happen. /s

I'd take the band aid of nuclear in my backyard vs what we rely on now after learning all of the insider knowledge of someone who personally worked in energy generation that did all of this plus renewables almost their entire professional life.

Funny how people think waste is why we don't use nuclear power.

You noticed how we're all fine breathing in poison and carcinogens? Still haven't banned burning fossil fuels.

It's a money problem and a PR problem

Look up deaths per kWHr of different energy sources and come back to me

Most of those didn't involve the magic rocks, and most didn't hurt anyone.

More people die creating the building materials for a powerplant (or a windmills, or a solar panel) than ever during operation. The numbers really don't matter.

I honestly don't care what we do, as long as we stop burning coal, oil and gas. The way I see it, every nuclear plant and windmill means we all die a little later.