this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2025
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So… to summarize the argument: we have to build nuclear plants, even though they are the most expensive renewable per kWh and they take the longest amount of time to build (even by the author’s “fast” timeline standards) because we don’t have batteries that can store wind and solar energy, even though there are multiple emerging potential solutions that could result in days-long storage capacity.
Not buying it. I don’t buy the “unsafe” argument but I also don’t buy this argument
Edit: this same publication that published this op-ed published a pretty negative review of this book, funny enough: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jun/02/going-nuclear-by-tim-gregory-review-a-boosterish-case-for-atomic-energy
Ftr, Uranium is not renewable.
The thing is that the well-known nuclear catastrophes, at a minimum all resulted in fairly large areas right in the middle of civilized land being lost to humanity for the foreseeable future. So, even if overall death rate is only somewhat higher than for e.g. wind energy — wind energy does not lead to such devastating local effects. The other thing is, nuclear needs skilled teams to manage plants at all times, even when they're shut off. As soon as your country goes off its routine because military coup!, nuclear plants become a massive danger. Also, nuclear plants can make for devastating attack targets during a war (obviously the attacker would need to value mayhem and defeat above colonizability).
And finally, nuclear danger is (within human time frames:) eternal because you need to store some materials safely for a very long time; "nuclear semiotics" is an actual thing studied by scientists somehow — yet I've never heard of "oil semiotics" or "solar semiotics".
And Russian Uranium even less so ... which is what much if Europe uses.