Operated from 1972 to 1996 and produced 119 billion kilowatt hours of energy
Dry cask storage is a method for safely storing spent nuclear fuel after it has cooled for several years in water pools. Once the fuel rods are no longer producing extreme heat, they are sealed inside massive steel and concrete casks that provide both radiation shielding and passive cooling through natural air circulation—no water is needed. Each cask can weigh over 100 tons and is engineered to resist earthquakes, floods, fire, and even missile strikes. This makes it a robust interim solution until permanent deep geological repositories are available. The casks are expected to last 50–100 years, though the fuel inside remains radioactive for thousands. Dry cask storage reduces reliance on crowded spent fuel pools, provides a secure above-ground option, and buys time for nations to develop long-term disposal strategies. In essence, it’s a durable, self-contained “vault” for nuclear waste
I mean nuclear energy is fine and all, but i’d argue that solar is still better.
Think about it:
Image Source
Cyanobacteria and their photosynthesis (essentially generating energy out of sunlight) was the foundational breakthrough that allowed life to expand all across the planet and feed multi-cellular organisms, give rise to the modern variety in life that we see.
Solar panels are like photosynthesis (kinda), just on a more technical level. If nuclear energy would have been significantly cheaper in the last few decades, solar energy might not have been developed in the first place, because there would have been no perceived need for it, so we’d be stuck with nuclear.
But it is important that solar energy is available, and so it’s a good thing that cheap nuclear power didn’t prevent solar energy from happening. We should be thankful.
How much waste does solar produce for the same amount of energy to be delivered? A quick calculation from a very generous 30k kWh per solar panel lifetime results in almost 4 million solar panels for same amount of energy. How much of that waste would end up in a garbage heap? What is the environment cost to mine the materials for those solar panels? The environmental cost of the land needed to deploy them?
Saying “it’s like photosynthesis” is the most useless, reductionist analysis you could possibly do.
I did some quick maths a while ago and figured out that it’s approximately 3% of our total land use.
The reason why nuclear is necessary is because of scale. Solar can’t scale up fast enough to even meet demand, let alone exceed it. Nuclear can. But both is good as well, we can do as much solar as we want and then make up the gap with nuclear.
Based on what argument?
The main problem with solar at a large scale is that it has large variables in base load power. Meaning it’s efficiency is dependent on things like weather and time of day.
The theoretical solution to this is battery storage… However, battery tech at a scale large enough to make solar a viable solution for our immediate power needs is doubtful with our current technology and resources.
Batteries are also a consumable resource that require rare earth elements currently being mined by the modern equivalent of serfs.
https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/39964314
Math
Only the math that says corporations will have slightly less profit year over year.
This has absolutely nothing to do with profit, if nuclear became ubiquitous then it wouldn’t be very profitable either. I’m also saying that we can do as much solar as we want and it’s still not good enough. So please, do more solar but don’t stand in the way of nuclear while you’re adding solar.
Corporations haven’t figured out how to monetize it, so it is nonviable.
they have
I think the companies that make the panels might have figured it out. The companies deploying utility-scale solar farms might have too.
Both are good.