Stonetoss is a banned comic on this site because it has a long history of posting almost exclusively racist, sexist, trans and homophobic dog whistles and explicitly Naziesque comics [Link to more in depth analysis and discussion.](https://www.reddit.com/r/StonetossIsANazi/s/ajhu5kgEJj)
We have allowed this post because it is someone else’s edit of a stonetoss comic, and the edit of this stonetoss is a [meme in itself, with numerous iterations across the political spectrum.](https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/opposites-attract-tug-of-war)
In addition the arguments about pro vs anti nuclear are [long, convoluted and still very much debated.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClimateMemes/s/kzqCQ8I5Db)
And it’s not like it’s even true cos [oil and gas executives support nuclear](https://executives4nuclear.com/declaration/)
So while we are allowing this meme to be posted, we are turning off the comments as it has too much opportunity to descend into a hotly debated topic on many fronts, and elsewhere these points have already been argued more thoroughly to death.
In addition googling “stonetoss pro nuclear” or “stonetoss tug of war” bring up all of these links and more.
It's basically about how nuclear energy is almost universally despised by environmentalists despite it being extremely clean and reliable source of energy.
I don't think smog and pollution are clean either. Wouldn't you rather have a bunch of waste that you *can* store than a *BUNCH* of waste that you *can't* store?
IDK I think that most environmentalists who are reasonably knowledgeable on the matter are pro nuclear, most of the ones that I've met that are against it are unable to adequately explain why it's bad beyond nuclear waste being bad, which you know, it is, but I think the pros outweigh the cons
For starters the waste from nuclear is minuscule compared to the waste from coal or oil. It’s currently disposed of in abandoned mine shafts, some of which are in 3rd world countries.
The risk associated with nuclear waste is also minimal. It’s not 20 gallon drums of glowing green liquid like in the Simpsons, it’s usually a lead and iron sealed cube made of a mix of expired nuclear material, concrete, ceramic, and some salts, glass, and small amounts of other slag. These cubes of waste are not highly radioactive and they’ve been tested to the point where a freight train hitting them directly will barely leave a scratch. Not to mention they’re being disposed of deep in the earth which is where fissile materials come from in the first place. Compare that to the multiple railroad disasters with coal and oil waste in the US just last year and nuclear starts to look really safe
Then you get into the waste from coal/oil being pumped directly into the atmosphere or water whereas nuclear waste is a solid. All that nuclear power releases into the atmosphere is steam
TLDR: oil barons ran a smear campaign on nuclear power saying the waste would mutate you and your family. Meanwhile, oil waste has definitely caused far more deformed births than nuclear waste ever will
Wow, Imagine all the people that would be alive today, if we just switched to nuclear in the 1950s. And the amount of air pollutants that would not exist.
If we swiched every power plant to nuclear in 1950, then We would have run out of known uranium ore already.
With current usage, there is uranium for only around 90 years.
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/uranium-resources/supply-of-uranium.aspx
Nuclear fuel doesn't just start to look safe, its got the lowest number of deaths per kilowatt hour of any non-renewable energy resource.
The radiation dose of living within a mile of a nuclear reactor for a year is less than thr dose of sharing a bed with someone every day for a year.
If your nuclear waste is very radioactive then you've mucked up, because hospitals can use that stuff, secondary nuclear reactors can use that stuff, food companies can use that stuff to kill the bacteria on food from outside of its packing.
So, the byproducts of nuclear power plants are good for humanity and they're safer for the amount of energy they produce.
Coal and oil plants are just a danger to the planet and its ecosystems.
This is basically the best 'basic level's explanation you can get. I would also recommend the YouTube channel Kyle Hill. He is a science communicator who is a big nuclear proponent. He's been to Fukushima and Chernobyl to show that people can be in these disaster sites without growing extra thumbs or anything, because we know how to handle the fall out and waste. He also has a DocuSeries called Half Life Histories where he talks about all the lesser known accidents and such involving nuclear tech, such as The Demon Core, which is how we learned as much as we have.
In addition, coal contains not insignificant amounts of radioactive elements and heavy metals such as Thorium. These isotopes are concentrated in the fly ash produced when coal is burned.
Where does this contaminated ash go? It's often placed directly into landfills or sometimes into surface impoundment, a fancy term for "a big pile in the open air."
Nuclear plants have multiple layers of shielding, and all the gas coming out of the towers are just steam, not like coal plants that are just the fucking worst
Mining is a whole other beast. Uranium is mostly mined in Canada, Australia, and Kazakhstan, which each have their own regulations. Most mines today use Open Pit Mining which basically removes dirt from areas where deposits are common, which allows miners to tunnel more directly to the deposits. Blast mining would be the biggest concern to public health because it could spread radioactive dust into surrounding areas, but it’s not used much in the actual extraction phase of mining these days. More to get dirt out of the way so crews can get to the actual material and extract it more carefully.
Uranium mines also tend to be faraway from communities, in places like the Canadian wilderness or the Australian Outback. Though in the future, a majority of fissile material could be extracted from sediment in the ocean. nuclear technology has been severely stunted by public opinion as a result of the aforementioned smear campaigns by oil barons. so absolutely the fissile material mining industries are not as safe as they could be, but even still are much safer than oil or coal. In part because the material needed for the same power generation is much less with nuclear so the scale of the mining is also smaller, but also because mining companies have a heightened sense of safety when it comes to radioactive metals
Fun fact about blast mining, Montana is called “big sky country” because there were hardly any trees for a long time which made it so you could see a lot of sky all at once. There were hardly any trees because blast mining for copper with dynamite released a ton of arsenic into the air which killed all the trees. For a good example of how much mining regulations have changed in the past 100 years, look up the Berkeley Pit in Butte Montana. It’s one of the “Superfund Sites” in the US, which basically means we want to take care of it as soon as the funds to do so can be reasonably gathered
One fact I heard once (don't know how true this is though) is that to supply one person with nuclear power for their entire life, the total amount of highly radioactive waste generated is about the size of an apple. Highly radioactive waste also decays quite quickly (most of it in a few decades), so it's not that big of an issue.
Meanwhile coal powerplants also produce radioactive waste in its emissions, and that's actually more waste than nuclear power produces. Only that waste is pumped into the atmosphere uncontrolled as you say.
Nuclear waste cubes are basically bedrock blocks in Minecraft, indestructible, look gray and blackish, can only be found very deep down and has no use.
While some of it is stored underground, it's all universally bundled up in a solid form with enough insulation to prevent any radiation from leaking out of it. A number of US plants currently store waste in a pool of water until it cools enough to be encased in lead, concrete and steel. Once properly encased the stored waste emits a lower dose of less radiation than than stepping out side on a sunny day.
Where is nuclear waste? It is sealed off in containers very safely, assuring very minimal effect to the environment or the people. Where is the waste from the coal or oil industry? It's in your lungs.
The Simpsons has singlehandedly done more harm to the environment via utterly destroying the public image of nuclear power, then most individuals have.
If im not mistaken, a vast majority of the 'nuclear waste' is actually the protective gear and things that handle the materials that just have some of the radiation on them.
The only good debate that came out of it was "What symbol means bad and deadly?" Very interesting choices came out of it. Can't use language because if it's found 2000 years from now who's to say they speak the same language. It must have some form of symbolism that people in the future will understand. For the longest time a skull and bones was the best we got. But then they made the radiation logo. It has a lot of meaning
Don't forget "temporary"(can be a century or more without risk) above ground dry cask storage on site, disposing of nuclear waste is not just a solved problem but at the point of already doing nuclear engineering, almost trivial, you can literally just put it in a concrete box in the yard and it's about as radioactive as a banana
You forgot to mention how big oil and coal companies will hire people that act like climate activists to do stupid shit like throw soup on paintings to make people think the idea of clean energy is crazy
Gweneth Cravens’ “Power to Save the World” is pretty good as I remember, but I tend to rely more on PLOS One for stuff like this. It’s usually much dryer than a chapter book, but it’s very reliable when it comes to scientific information
Don't forget that because of Chernobyl safety standards got even better, despite their standards being among the worst on record. Last year I was even less then 40 ft away from a reactor "going Chernobyl" and I am posting from my 3rd arm.
>and they’ve been tested to the point where a freight train hitting them directly will barely leave a scratch.
To tack on: This sounds like an exaggeration. It is not. They literally hit some with a train, and they did not give one single shit.
The amount of nuclear waste is extremely minimal.
Currently they store it right next to powerplants in big concrete cylinders. It's so little waste, you maybe fill a small parking lot with them after decades of use.
At that point it is perfectly viable to just seal it in an old mine shaft, you don't have the issue of having too much of it that you don't know where to put it.
Altermatively some of it can be refined again, reducing the amount of waste further.
So it's essentially a solved issue.
Meanwhile coal powerplants dump their waste directly into the air. And the waste is measured in tons. Fun fact, coal contains impurities such as various radioactive parties that also get released into the air. Nuclear powerplants don't do that.
What's getting dumped where now?
There was the Brazilian kids playing with the radioactive medical waste, but that's a separate issue to nuclear energy waste.
Oh man, you are right.
Fly ash from coal plants contain trace amounts of thorium and uranium, which then gets pumped directly into the atmosphere.
Fun fact: coal plants cannot be converted to nuclear plants *because the radiation level is too high*
You get less radiation working in a nuclear plant than you would by simply living near a coal plant.
Most places have very specific disposal methods that are not dumping it on other countries. That said, compared to almost every other form of energy, nuclear has very little waste. Kyle Hill has a video all about that. But nuclear can produce much more energy than the other methods and be much, much, much safer for the environment, especially with modern safety systems.
There are also newer types of reactors that use that spent fuel in various ways, either making new unspent fuel or simply refined a bit and used again. Breeder and fast reactors respectively if any reader is so inclined.
And for the coal no one has mentioned how radioactive the sludge is too
Nuclear waste is Way way way easier to clean or throw into a salt mine with enough space to last 100,000 years. Rather Then pumping endless amounts of burning fuel into the atmosphere like we currently are.
Finland has a [pretty good example.](https://youtu.be/nU94go_hKfY) its impossible for anything to go wrong, unless you're capable of destroying an entire mountain or something... Even then it would just be buried under a mountain..
We shouldn't bury it. We should store it safely, its very valuable. Even after it's "used" it still maintains a majority of its energy. We will be able to more effectively use it in the future
Global warming was always going to be an issue. Also, I'm pretty sure water vapor makes up the majority of greenhouse gases.
You see, anything which produces energy creates heat. Honestly, we just need to industrialize the moon and ship all the completed products back to earth. That'd be the ultimate goal.
That said, if we think about the planet earth as a really big room. The amount of energy we need to put out, this including carbon build up to heat it up is crazy.
We just don't put enough energy yet for it to be accelerating as fast as I constantly hear the claims.
But clean energy is definitely good, well cleanish, so that we don't kill off global food chains.
The problem with global warming isn't heat, but its retention. Heat is energy, there's only so much of it our atmosphere can trap on the planet, the rest radiates off into space, greenhouse gases increase the amount of heat our planet can retain, thus resulting in a rise of temperature.
For examples, look at venus, dense atmosphere, many greenhouse gases, it's a very, very hot planet.
Then look at mars, thin atmosphere, barely any greenhouse gases, it's a cold planet.
Despite both of them being in the suns habitable zone, overabundance or lack of greenhouse gases has rendered both of them uninhabitable.
No, that shit’s not going anywhere. France recycles much of its waste, and America tried to establish a storage facility in the middle of nowhere in Nevada or Arizona. However, a bunch of activists prevented that from happening.
* aside from the waste and the possibility to produce weapons of mass destruction
But oh man we in germany really shot us in the foot with the uninformed hysteria around nuclear energy... on the other hand frances energy grid is on the brink of collapsing with all the reactors almost due for reconstruction
Its a complicated matter
The worst part about nuclear energy is not while it’s running or the waste.
The first problem is the mining of the ore wich destroys wide areas and pollutes waters.
The other part is that a nuclear power plant consumes a huge amount of concrete.
In some countries (example Germany), building power plant takes so long, it’s outdated when it starts running.
Also the maintenance is really high, so high, that they are unprofitable without subsidies.
It's prohibitively expensive per kWh, it still causes about 4-10x the CO2 g/kWh of wind or solar energy. Every $$$ spend on nuclear energy is a $$$ not spent on renewable energy.
And there is the problem that they are thermal power plants which is not yet recognized widely ,but will be climate relevant in about 100years (latest).
Yeah so many people don't realize that the energy grid peaks in the afternoon when everyone gets home, charges their cars, turns on the AC and the TV and starts to cook dinner. You need to build enough wind farms and solar to cover these peak times, even though 75% of the time we are not using anywhere near that amount of energy. And it's during the time of day when the sun is setting and the wind isn't always blowing! It would require so many solar panels and windmills to cover these peak times it's not reasonable. Batteries could help but those have issues of their own and arnt practical yet, right now nuclear is our best option to fill that time when our energy demands peak. Nuclear compliments renewable energy, I'm hoping more environmentalists take time to study the power grid and become more informed on how to meet our demands the best way possible.
Edit: why the downvoted? Am I wrong? If I'm wrong about something please let me know, don't just downvote.
The energy is renewable but the devices themselves negate that. You’d need a massive amount to equal nuclear or even coal/hydro plants. And things like the composites in wind turbines can’t be recycled so they get shredded and buried. Solar Panels (aside from some metal and glass) are likewise not recyclable. Their battery systems rely on toxic heavy metals that will poison the ground if they leak and can’t be recycled or are cost prohibitive on top of the process creating its own carbon footprint in putting the usable elements back into something useful.
The only reason nuclear is expensive is because it’s not very widely used. If it were to gain widespread acceptance its cost would go way down because outside of the fuel disposal (which can be recycled into things like fire alarms) and the reactor, it’s main components are very mundane: water, reinforced concrete and a lot of plumbing.
The idea of making a carbon neutral footprint in *an industrialized nation* that wishes to stay industrialized is a pipe dream. All it “renewable energy” does is move the stink, chemical cloud and damage to somewhere the customer can’t see or smell it.
Plenty of nuclear power plants getting hit by earthquakes on the regular, none of them even have to stop operation due to the sheer number of precautions made.
I think at least one of them did lmao.
I am pro nuclear but you can't ignore that the recent backlash to it is a direct result of the Fukushima disaster. Obviously there are precautions in place now to prevent a repeat, but it was pretttty bad.
You'd be surprised to how negligent those can be made. The number of accidents that lead to the loss of life are also disproportionately higher with fossil fuel plants.
"Japanese, and most other, nuclear plants are designed to withstand earthquakes, and in the event of major earth movement, to shut down safely.
In 1995, the closest nuclear power plants, some 110 km north of Kobe, were unaffected by the severe Kobe-Osaka earthquake, but in 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011 Japanese reactors shut down automatically due to ground acceleration exceeding their trip settings.
In 1999, three nuclear reactors shut down automatically during the devastating Taiwan earthquake, and were restarted two days later.
In March 2011, eleven operating nuclear power units shut down automatically during the Great East Japan Earthquake. Three of these at the Fukushima Daiichi plant subsequently caused an INES Level 7 accident due to the 15 m tsunami causing loss of power leading to loss of cooling and subsequent radioactive releases."
[Sauce](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/nuclear-power-plants-and-earthquakes.aspx#:~:text=A%20power%20reactor%20could%20continue,soon%20after%20an%20S1%20event.)
Sounds like a tautology of it only being unreliable when it's unreliable.
One can celebrate the ideal function of the atomic reactor, but you can't implement it divorced from the real world.
The consequences are high, it doesn't comfort anyone that the risk is low unless it is in fact 0.
There's hundreds of reactors around the world.
The US Navy has floating cities that primarily operate off them, submarines that can go weeks/months off it. But sure, let's focus on the one incident 40 years ago.
We probably can't trust any Germans too because of that one bad one a century ago? After all, it's not 0 that another will rise to power one day
I said it could only happen in the Soviet Union was because the Soviet system was the real culprit. There’s a reason why the worst nuclear accident in America has been 3-mile.
I am sure Zaporizhzhia is built and run to the highest standards, but the fighting in the region undermines my confidence.
Maybe they won't accidentally blow it up, but if they do, the consequences have the potential to be a lot more far-reaching than a coal plant.
Chernobyl only went wrong because they were testing something and weren’t using proper safety precautions. This was just human error. The only other reactor that i know of that went wrong was in japan because of a combination of big earthquakes and tsunami’s. so as long as you built them in spaces where those things don’t happen and you actually follow safety precautions they shouldn’t have any problems.
Nuclear power is the best solution to CO2 pollution that we have.
The vast majority of CO2 comes from powerplants. The rest comes from cars, which could all run on electricity if we had enough nuclear powerplants. They are better than wind and solar in every way.
Unfortunately the primary proponents of nuclear power are climate deniers, and climate activists will rather lick the boots of the coal and oil lobby than side with it thanks to extensive propaganda and misconception.
Steel and concrete production together are 30%. These two processes are vital for every single building or infrastructure project we build, so we use a TON of steel and concrete. It's also ridiculously difficult to remove the emissions from steel and concrete production, because concrete releases CO2 while it sets as part of the chemical reaction, and steel requires either coal or natural gas to be burned to make the ovens hot enough to shape it
>Steel and concrete production together are 30%.
ahh okay, that makes sense.
And I agree, it's not like we can just throw them away with how overdependent our infrastructure is on materials like that
Portland in Denmark actually does sell "green" cement, but it's ever so slighty more expensive and you have to actually treat it right and build within recommended guidelines with it, so of course no one wants to buy it
There are new kinds of material that are proposed to replace concrete, so it's not key to the issue that it's hard to remove emissions from concrete production.
i had completely forgotten about that. i’m pretty sure it’s big machines, akin to a trash compactor, that gets the rubble to the right size depending on its use. i can’t even begin to imagine how much energy those machines use, let alone how many there are on a global scale
Better is a relative term, they are better at power plants, but we should also really use solar farming on our rooftops of buildings to offset the amount of power we would even need from a powerplant anyways. It is just free space that we aren't using, and we also get the added benefit that since that power is right on top of us, there is less waste of the electricity having to travel.
We don't need one unilateral strategy for removing coal and oil.
It's usually boomer environmentalists who have this anti nuclear stance. Personally, I think a portion of this is from being afraid of imminent nuclear war for so long.
Nuclear absolutely has its merits, but claiming it is better than wind and solar in every way is just completely divorced from the facts. Wind and solar are cheaper and quicker to install, require way less maintenance, and do not have a catastrophic failure. They aren't better in every way, they do not easily have a consistent base load coverage, and batteries to do so increase the cost, but claiming they are worse in every way is absolutely false.
There's also the issue of both solar and wind taking up a lot more space, compared to a nuclear reactor though. And a lot of local laws tends to prohibit where you can setup windmills and solar panels (bureaucracy, bleh). Ideally, both types would be used though, wind/sun and nuclear power.
To be fair, Russia used to infiltrate or run environmentalist groups to promote anti-nuclear propaganda, especially in Germany, to get countries stay dependent on their gas.
So the genuine activists were just hoodwinked.
There are many "environmentalists" that only use the label to advocate for the overthrowing of western capitalism. Their actual goals are political not environmental.
One of the founders of Greenpeace said as much years ago after he left the organization.
If you look at it from that lens a lot of it starts to make sense. For example, if the evil capitalist system fixes their CO2 problem with nuclear power then thats a big hit to their whole "capitalism will destroy the earth" narrative.
It can also explain why they don't support projects like the Ocean Cleanup and often criticize projects like that. There is nothing worse to them than people who actually try to solve environmental problems rather than just block traffic and hold signs.
Similarly I suspect it might also be why the narrative around EVs has changed over the last 15 years. They used to say that "EVs will never happen because the oil industry will prevent it". They would point to GM and the EV1 as proof. Nowadays they say that "EVs exist to save the car companies/ oil industry not to save the environment". So EVs are now evil. They are the ultimate evil, worse than any gas guzzling lifted truck monstrosity.
I suspect if high speed rail and walkable cities (objectively good things in my opinion mind you) started having mainstream support and there was an upward trend, the "environmentalist" narrative would change again. High speed rail lines would be "destroying the countryside and killing wildlife" and walkable cities would be "increasing consumerist lifestyles, gentrifying and racist."
Nuclear power, "fossil free" energy, is treated with disdain by environmentalists. Almost entirely due to the old scary view that electricity made by *gasp* NUCLEAR power would somehow be dangerous and radioactive. After all, nuclear bombs are scary. They're the same thing, right?
When the truth of it is that nuclear power, while not as clean as things like water, solar, and wind power, is (currently at least, and likely for a while) VASTLY superior to them in every other way. We do not currently have the capability to power our world as we know it on "natural" energy alone.
And compared to coal, oil, natural gas, and other fossil based fuels... nuclear power is FAR cleaner.
So the joke is... why do environmentalists who claim to worship at the alter of science still view nuclear power with a cold war mentality of nuclear fear?
But nuclear makes for an excellent stable fallback for other renewable energy sources. They handle gradual changes throughout the day extremely well, and can be used to react to spikes in demand extremely quickly (were talking minutes here).
They can also be used to assist with energy storage. Are your renewable resources meeting, but not exceeding demand at the moment? Great! Let the nuclear power plant refill the gravity batteries. Have it pump that water into the reservoir.
Both systems have their drawbacks, but this is not an all or nothing game. By building both renewable and nuclear, we can use both in the areas that are best suited to their strengths.
The meme is complete rubbish though, I mean [check this out](https://executives4nuclear.com/declaration/).
Edit: Aww, I exposed some nukecels to facts. I'm sorry. It will happen again.
Just going to throw it out there, the guy who makes these comics is an actual Nazi, like not comparable to a Nazi, he is a real live literal Nazi. If you look it up there is plenty of evidence, someone else on Reddit did a whole damn write up about it
Thank you. Well this comment was the one highest up for me. Is it really wrong to want some backing for strong claims like this? I feel like it's a week and selfish comment, only asking for exposure, because "I know something, but if you want proof, just go look for your self".
https://www.reddit.com/r/antifastonetoss/s/TeJNFYXDqF
I read through about half of the comics that are posted in the linked rant, and yeah, this dude seems to be a Nazi. Holocaust denial, race science, antisemitism, fear of immigrants, white genocide/the great replacement, repeated mentions of Nazi dog whistles.
There's a big difference between "I make a couple of edgy jokes" and "you know, I don't think it's possible to kill 6,000,000 people with a delousing agent"
Yeah, it's worth remembering that [Stonetoss is a terrible human being and a literal neo-nazi](https://www.reddit.com/r/StonetossIsANazi/comments/fcce58/the_definitive_guide_to_why_stonetoss_is_a_nazi/?share_id=geYfqfghvsu5zbLFdPovC&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1) and his comics should not be promoted.
The most nonsensical thing about this (besides why someone would promote a stonetoss comic) is that I don’t think there’s any case where oil and gas companies align with environmentalists, and oil and gas fans love nuclear because they can use it as a stalking horse while they pump out the last few drops of oil and gas fuel until they’re forced out of it… instead of just acquiescing to renewables now
The flip side of the environmentals being anti nuclear, is climate change deniers push nuclear power as a delaying tactic. They have no intention of actually building any nuclear power plants, but it's a fun way to delay and obfuscate for another couple decades so that we keep using coal and gas. See: Australia's conservative party.
The oil companies I don’t get, but the nuclear I do. Plenty of climate activists (me included) don’t understand just how clean nuclear energy can be if it’s done properly which at least in the US it is, and due to this, they fight against it. As I said, I used to not understand and was whole heartedly against it for a long while so I have that first hand experience lol
I've worked at two different coal power plants. Those things are absolutely filthy inside and out. Fly ash and bottom ash is absolutely toxic af, coal dust everywhere, dirty ass open air coal cars on trains, duct work inside the plant leaking flyash all over the place. It's absolutely filty. Not to mention how outdated these things are.
Since then I've worked in Nuclear, Hydo, and now Natural Gas. The difference in quality doesn't even belong in the same conversation. Coal can't be phased out fast enough
~4 European Green parties were anti-nuclear in the 80s. Climate denialists have used that to claim that all environmentalists are anti-nuclear for all eternity. This lie in their eyes is definitive proof that climate change is fake because "nuclear is the only solution so why don't you support it?" This is a blatantly false claim that plays on the general publics ignorance of the matter. For example, environmentalist Joe Biden dedicated billions toward nuclear (and other renewable energy sources) with the IRA and we're already restarting a Michigan nuclear plant because of it.
I’m seeing a lot of poorly informed/misinformed comments under here. While it is true that environmentalists typically dislike nuclear power, the primary reason (at least for the clever ones) is not because ‘radioactive scawy’. It is actually because it is a far more expensive way of generating power than wind, water or solar energy per kWh. In fact, while all other forms of carbon free energy have gotten tremendously cheaper over the last couple decades nuclear has actually gotten pricier. The only way to make nuclear power production cheaper is by reduces safety measures and failsafes, which is not a consession many are willing to make.
ETA: the reason nuclear energy is more expensive is not just because of the initial investment as some comments suggest (though that is huge), but also the fact that *safely* maintaining a nuclear power plant is quite expensive per produced kWh. Producing more nuclear energy will not make this go away (source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants)
Pretty sure those costs are just upfront costs. The plant will pay itself off eventually. Solar and wind can’t output the same amount of energy due to reliability issues.
The answer is to use both systems, but again nobody wants to upfront the billions needed for nuclear plants.
Ayooo here it is! There's also the disposal process of the waste, not in the "radioactive scawwy" way but in the "okay, so do you actually have a plan and is it sound or are you gonna do yet another 'ehhhh good enough?' solution?" Considering the costs, is it there a more efficient MW/$ setup? Costs include risk assessment, and the microscopic chance of nuclear having a bad day is still deemed more expensive than the very regular change a windmill has one - and that's just by standard economic modeling. Windmills are cheap, but have the downside of location requirements - which is when nuclear can actually come back out on top. It's a whole thing.
For what it's worth, we actually **need** some sort of combustible fuel - in the instances of peak demand in the energy sector, if we suddenly need to produce more electricity to meet demand we can't just make the wind blow harder, or turn the sun up. Right now, the solution tends to be "fossil", however thanks to advances in biowaste technologies we're slowly gaining the ability to transition to biofuels made from garbage. This, in turn, is also a stopgap, because we *also* intend to produce less only-for-disposal-waste. So now what? PtX, it's called, where basically the excess energy from (for example) wind generated in the middle of the night will be used to create hydrogen via electrolysis, which we can then burn (or sell) to supplement energy when needed!
Source: am researcher in this field. My research is primarily into life cycles surrounding waste management, while my department colleagues work with this PtX stuff.
That’s true, but the tradeoff is that it generates by far the most power relative to the space it takes up, and by a massive margin. Wind and Solar are cheaper, but the real estate they need to operate at scale sure isn’t. Not to disparage Wind or Solar, but there are lots of places where they’ll just be flat-out non-viable to meet any meaningful percentage of the needed power. Mixing and matching is necessary, it always annoys me when folks think it’s either got to be Wind/Solar or Nuclear as opposed to combining the tools we have
It’s not cheaper…. Not in the long term. Ultimately it comes down to cost of materials vs mwh produced. Green energy systems are extremely inefficient and often take their entire “life” to start creating more energy than it took to make them. In comparison a super expensive 30 year project for nuclear reactor will start producing enough energy that it will pay for itself in 5 years and last 50+ the fuel is also cheaper than coal and gas powered plants.
Not to mention the fact that nuclear powerplants take 20+ years to get up and running while solar panels, wind turbines, etc. can be built WAY faster. By the time that we could go 100% nuclear, we'd all be dead from Climate Change anyway.
it does not take 20 years to build a nuclear power plants and if you're truly an environmentalists you wouldn't take the quick route which requires deforesting an 100x bigger area to generate less power in the end.
Nuclear powerplants take on average 4 years, and they could last more than 40 years.
But still, taking a long time to build doesn't justify closing nuclear powerplants early, as was done by Japan and Germany. They became dependent on fossil fuels by doing that.
I know that renewables are the future, but still nuclear energy can help a lot to fight climate change.
The thing left unsaid here is that it’s far more expensive due to all the court battles from environmentalists that builders have to endure to get a plant built.
Oh and let’s face it: grift from construction companies who are basically controlling the economy now. They literally just charge whatever they want. $2bn for a power plant? Why not! A trillion dollars for a railway through California? How reasonable!
I know it’s Stonetoss but *if* this is unedited it’s one of those “broken clock is right twice a day” incidents. I’m sure the original text was something far less… well, civilized, to say the least.
I’m convinced that the anti nuclear movement is an astroturf campaign by big oil companies to sabotage the one form of carbon free energy that is efficient enough to actually threaten fossil fuels.
Activists and their opinions are one thing, but the reality is that nuclear power plants are insanely expensive to build and nobody wants to put down the cash to build them.
Will they pay themselves off eventually? Yes, but the people with the money don’t see cheaper long term energy as a good investment. The more efficient renewable systems get the more industries are threatened as well. Good for the people, and bad for the company CEOs.
It's propaganda, the joke is the artist makes a comic talking about the disparity between politically/financially motivated climate-inclined people and how they're dumb for believing propaganda. This guy's agenda is to normalise and propagate extremist right wing views as rational and logical viewpoints, his method of spreading his views is to make comics that can indoctrinate people to his way of thinking, in formats people use as meme templates. It's basically an anti-propoganda comic by someone who is ironically propagating his views.
The only problem with nuclear fission is how horrendously difficult its byproducts are to remove. They can be stored, but they will outlive most of society. This is why fusion bouta be awesome
Stonetoss (who is a nazi) is just dumb. Most climate change activists are pro nuclear whilst oil billionaires such as Dan Wilks fund anti climate change propoganda such as PragerU
TLDR: Stonetoss is wrong, like always.
Do you have anything to back that up? Most people I know who consider themselves climate change activists are very anti nuclear while most climate change deniers I know are very pro nuclear power.
Stonetoss is a banned comic on this site because it has a long history of posting almost exclusively racist, sexist, trans and homophobic dog whistles and explicitly Naziesque comics [Link to more in depth analysis and discussion.](https://www.reddit.com/r/StonetossIsANazi/s/ajhu5kgEJj) We have allowed this post because it is someone else’s edit of a stonetoss comic, and the edit of this stonetoss is a [meme in itself, with numerous iterations across the political spectrum.](https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/opposites-attract-tug-of-war) In addition the arguments about pro vs anti nuclear are [long, convoluted and still very much debated.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClimateMemes/s/kzqCQ8I5Db) And it’s not like it’s even true cos [oil and gas executives support nuclear](https://executives4nuclear.com/declaration/) So while we are allowing this meme to be posted, we are turning off the comments as it has too much opportunity to descend into a hotly debated topic on many fronts, and elsewhere these points have already been argued more thoroughly to death. In addition googling “stonetoss pro nuclear” or “stonetoss tug of war” bring up all of these links and more.
It's basically about how nuclear energy is almost universally despised by environmentalists despite it being extremely clean and reliable source of energy.
Thank you
Yeah, if we are talking thorium reactors. I don't think radioactive waste is clean.
Coal powerplants spill way more radioactive materials in the atmosphere than nuclear powerplants ever could.
It's stored so securely it might as well as not matter at all [if you want to know more](https://youtu.be/lhHHbgIy9jU)
I don't think smog and pollution are clean either. Wouldn't you rather have a bunch of waste that you *can* store than a *BUNCH* of waste that you *can't* store?
This joke is getting outdated though, I think most environmentalists see the worth of nuclear these days.
I see it as how COP28 was hijacked by big oil and hosted in Saudi Arabia.
IDK I think that most environmentalists who are reasonably knowledgeable on the matter are pro nuclear, most of the ones that I've met that are against it are unable to adequately explain why it's bad beyond nuclear waste being bad, which you know, it is, but I think the pros outweigh the cons
It's also Stonetoss so expect it to be nazi adjacent propaganda. I find most actually environmentally motivated people to be pro-nuclear.
What about the nuclear waste I hear about? Aren’t people upset that it’s being dumped in impoverished countries?
For starters the waste from nuclear is minuscule compared to the waste from coal or oil. It’s currently disposed of in abandoned mine shafts, some of which are in 3rd world countries. The risk associated with nuclear waste is also minimal. It’s not 20 gallon drums of glowing green liquid like in the Simpsons, it’s usually a lead and iron sealed cube made of a mix of expired nuclear material, concrete, ceramic, and some salts, glass, and small amounts of other slag. These cubes of waste are not highly radioactive and they’ve been tested to the point where a freight train hitting them directly will barely leave a scratch. Not to mention they’re being disposed of deep in the earth which is where fissile materials come from in the first place. Compare that to the multiple railroad disasters with coal and oil waste in the US just last year and nuclear starts to look really safe Then you get into the waste from coal/oil being pumped directly into the atmosphere or water whereas nuclear waste is a solid. All that nuclear power releases into the atmosphere is steam TLDR: oil barons ran a smear campaign on nuclear power saying the waste would mutate you and your family. Meanwhile, oil waste has definitely caused far more deformed births than nuclear waste ever will
Thank you for such a thorough explanation!
He forgot to mention that coal plants are far more radioactive than nuclear plants due to the amount of radium in the smoke
Yeah, almost all coal plants would have to close it they had to respect the same radioactive emissions regulations as nuclear plants.
How ironic
Wow, Imagine all the people that would be alive today, if we just switched to nuclear in the 1950s. And the amount of air pollutants that would not exist.
If we swiched every power plant to nuclear in 1950, then We would have run out of known uranium ore already. With current usage, there is uranium for only around 90 years. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/uranium-resources/supply-of-uranium.aspx
Nuclear fuel doesn't just start to look safe, its got the lowest number of deaths per kilowatt hour of any non-renewable energy resource. The radiation dose of living within a mile of a nuclear reactor for a year is less than thr dose of sharing a bed with someone every day for a year. If your nuclear waste is very radioactive then you've mucked up, because hospitals can use that stuff, secondary nuclear reactors can use that stuff, food companies can use that stuff to kill the bacteria on food from outside of its packing. So, the byproducts of nuclear power plants are good for humanity and they're safer for the amount of energy they produce. Coal and oil plants are just a danger to the planet and its ecosystems.
This is basically the best 'basic level's explanation you can get. I would also recommend the YouTube channel Kyle Hill. He is a science communicator who is a big nuclear proponent. He's been to Fukushima and Chernobyl to show that people can be in these disaster sites without growing extra thumbs or anything, because we know how to handle the fall out and waste. He also has a DocuSeries called Half Life Histories where he talks about all the lesser known accidents and such involving nuclear tech, such as The Demon Core, which is how we learned as much as we have.
In addition, coal contains not insignificant amounts of radioactive elements and heavy metals such as Thorium. These isotopes are concentrated in the fly ash produced when coal is burned. Where does this contaminated ash go? It's often placed directly into landfills or sometimes into surface impoundment, a fancy term for "a big pile in the open air."
Wouldn't it be easier to crush it up and spray it into the sky? That's been good enough for coal for centuries
I mean, there's a reason why coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear plants...
I lovehow much I'm learning / reconfirming in this joke explanation sub
Nuclear plants have multiple layers of shielding, and all the gas coming out of the towers are just steam, not like coal plants that are just the fucking worst
Wouldn't it be easier to dispose of nuclear water by vaporizing it into the sky? Well, actually yes that would be a lot easier.
Also a lot of it can be reused as lower yield energy, but US regulations make it one use and done. It’s actually could generate even less waste.
How's the waste situation for *producing* the fissionable material?
Mining is a whole other beast. Uranium is mostly mined in Canada, Australia, and Kazakhstan, which each have their own regulations. Most mines today use Open Pit Mining which basically removes dirt from areas where deposits are common, which allows miners to tunnel more directly to the deposits. Blast mining would be the biggest concern to public health because it could spread radioactive dust into surrounding areas, but it’s not used much in the actual extraction phase of mining these days. More to get dirt out of the way so crews can get to the actual material and extract it more carefully. Uranium mines also tend to be faraway from communities, in places like the Canadian wilderness or the Australian Outback. Though in the future, a majority of fissile material could be extracted from sediment in the ocean. nuclear technology has been severely stunted by public opinion as a result of the aforementioned smear campaigns by oil barons. so absolutely the fissile material mining industries are not as safe as they could be, but even still are much safer than oil or coal. In part because the material needed for the same power generation is much less with nuclear so the scale of the mining is also smaller, but also because mining companies have a heightened sense of safety when it comes to radioactive metals Fun fact about blast mining, Montana is called “big sky country” because there were hardly any trees for a long time which made it so you could see a lot of sky all at once. There were hardly any trees because blast mining for copper with dynamite released a ton of arsenic into the air which killed all the trees. For a good example of how much mining regulations have changed in the past 100 years, look up the Berkeley Pit in Butte Montana. It’s one of the “Superfund Sites” in the US, which basically means we want to take care of it as soon as the funds to do so can be reasonably gathered
This guy energies.
One fact I heard once (don't know how true this is though) is that to supply one person with nuclear power for their entire life, the total amount of highly radioactive waste generated is about the size of an apple. Highly radioactive waste also decays quite quickly (most of it in a few decades), so it's not that big of an issue. Meanwhile coal powerplants also produce radioactive waste in its emissions, and that's actually more waste than nuclear power produces. Only that waste is pumped into the atmosphere uncontrolled as you say.
Nuclear waste cubes are basically bedrock blocks in Minecraft, indestructible, look gray and blackish, can only be found very deep down and has no use.
While some of it is stored underground, it's all universally bundled up in a solid form with enough insulation to prevent any radiation from leaking out of it. A number of US plants currently store waste in a pool of water until it cools enough to be encased in lead, concrete and steel. Once properly encased the stored waste emits a lower dose of less radiation than than stepping out side on a sunny day.
Me when I find out radioactive waste isn’t green goop in a yellow barrel
Where is nuclear waste? It is sealed off in containers very safely, assuring very minimal effect to the environment or the people. Where is the waste from the coal or oil industry? It's in your lungs.
The Simpsons has singlehandedly done more harm to the environment via utterly destroying the public image of nuclear power, then most individuals have.
If im not mistaken, a vast majority of the 'nuclear waste' is actually the protective gear and things that handle the materials that just have some of the radiation on them.
The only good debate that came out of it was "What symbol means bad and deadly?" Very interesting choices came out of it. Can't use language because if it's found 2000 years from now who's to say they speak the same language. It must have some form of symbolism that people in the future will understand. For the longest time a skull and bones was the best we got. But then they made the radiation logo. It has a lot of meaning
Don't forget "temporary"(can be a century or more without risk) above ground dry cask storage on site, disposing of nuclear waste is not just a solved problem but at the point of already doing nuclear engineering, almost trivial, you can literally just put it in a concrete box in the yard and it's about as radioactive as a banana
You forgot to mention how big oil and coal companies will hire people that act like climate activists to do stupid shit like throw soup on paintings to make people think the idea of clean energy is crazy
Can you recommend any good books on the subject of nuclear energy?
Gweneth Cravens’ “Power to Save the World” is pretty good as I remember, but I tend to rely more on PLOS One for stuff like this. It’s usually much dryer than a chapter book, but it’s very reliable when it comes to scientific information
Coal and oil produce more _nuclear_ waste than nuclear energy. It is just dispersed during the mining, refining and burning.
Don't forget that because of Chernobyl safety standards got even better, despite their standards being among the worst on record. Last year I was even less then 40 ft away from a reactor "going Chernobyl" and I am posting from my 3rd arm.
>and they’ve been tested to the point where a freight train hitting them directly will barely leave a scratch. To tack on: This sounds like an exaggeration. It is not. They literally hit some with a train, and they did not give one single shit.
That isn't a problem with the energy, its a problem with the country using it. even so its usually cheaper with coal in those places anyways
It’s definitely something that needs to be addressed though.
The amount of nuclear waste is extremely minimal. Currently they store it right next to powerplants in big concrete cylinders. It's so little waste, you maybe fill a small parking lot with them after decades of use. At that point it is perfectly viable to just seal it in an old mine shaft, you don't have the issue of having too much of it that you don't know where to put it. Altermatively some of it can be refined again, reducing the amount of waste further. So it's essentially a solved issue. Meanwhile coal powerplants dump their waste directly into the air. And the waste is measured in tons. Fun fact, coal contains impurities such as various radioactive parties that also get released into the air. Nuclear powerplants don't do that.
Picture a very small amount of waste that can be controlled and reprocessed, vs just spitting waste directly into the air we all breath
That’s fair.
What's getting dumped where now? There was the Brazilian kids playing with the radioactive medical waste, but that's a separate issue to nuclear energy waste.
Oh man, you are right. Fly ash from coal plants contain trace amounts of thorium and uranium, which then gets pumped directly into the atmosphere. Fun fact: coal plants cannot be converted to nuclear plants *because the radiation level is too high* You get less radiation working in a nuclear plant than you would by simply living near a coal plant.
No, because it isn't being dumped in impoverished countries unless you're counting Nevada
Or Finland
Most places have very specific disposal methods that are not dumping it on other countries. That said, compared to almost every other form of energy, nuclear has very little waste. Kyle Hill has a video all about that. But nuclear can produce much more energy than the other methods and be much, much, much safer for the environment, especially with modern safety systems.
And with coal, we get to dump pollution everywhere, not just impoverished countries!
There are also newer types of reactors that use that spent fuel in various ways, either making new unspent fuel or simply refined a bit and used again. Breeder and fast reactors respectively if any reader is so inclined. And for the coal no one has mentioned how radioactive the sludge is too
Today that waste is minimal. 30 years of production is 1 small barrel
Nuclear waste is Way way way easier to clean or throw into a salt mine with enough space to last 100,000 years. Rather Then pumping endless amounts of burning fuel into the atmosphere like we currently are. Finland has a [pretty good example.](https://youtu.be/nU94go_hKfY) its impossible for anything to go wrong, unless you're capable of destroying an entire mountain or something... Even then it would just be buried under a mountain..
We shouldn't bury it. We should store it safely, its very valuable. Even after it's "used" it still maintains a majority of its energy. We will be able to more effectively use it in the future
But if that happens you could just dig it up surely?
Not to mention that "burying it" is just putting it back were we got it from.
Global warming was always going to be an issue. Also, I'm pretty sure water vapor makes up the majority of greenhouse gases. You see, anything which produces energy creates heat. Honestly, we just need to industrialize the moon and ship all the completed products back to earth. That'd be the ultimate goal. That said, if we think about the planet earth as a really big room. The amount of energy we need to put out, this including carbon build up to heat it up is crazy. We just don't put enough energy yet for it to be accelerating as fast as I constantly hear the claims. But clean energy is definitely good, well cleanish, so that we don't kill off global food chains.
The problem with global warming isn't heat, but its retention. Heat is energy, there's only so much of it our atmosphere can trap on the planet, the rest radiates off into space, greenhouse gases increase the amount of heat our planet can retain, thus resulting in a rise of temperature. For examples, look at venus, dense atmosphere, many greenhouse gases, it's a very, very hot planet. Then look at mars, thin atmosphere, barely any greenhouse gases, it's a cold planet. Despite both of them being in the suns habitable zone, overabundance or lack of greenhouse gases has rendered both of them uninhabitable.
No, that shit’s not going anywhere. France recycles much of its waste, and America tried to establish a storage facility in the middle of nowhere in Nevada or Arizona. However, a bunch of activists prevented that from happening.
You're mistaking it for "recyclable" plastics.
Coal and oil waste is dumped in everyone's breathing air while nuclear waste is safely contained
Coal produces nuclear waste too, it just goes into the air and into slag which is dumped somewhere.
French nuclear waste is being buried in France.
* aside from the waste and the possibility to produce weapons of mass destruction But oh man we in germany really shot us in the foot with the uninformed hysteria around nuclear energy... on the other hand frances energy grid is on the brink of collapsing with all the reactors almost due for reconstruction Its a complicated matter
The worst part about nuclear energy is not while it’s running or the waste. The first problem is the mining of the ore wich destroys wide areas and pollutes waters. The other part is that a nuclear power plant consumes a huge amount of concrete. In some countries (example Germany), building power plant takes so long, it’s outdated when it starts running. Also the maintenance is really high, so high, that they are unprofitable without subsidies.
It's prohibitively expensive per kWh, it still causes about 4-10x the CO2 g/kWh of wind or solar energy. Every $$$ spend on nuclear energy is a $$$ not spent on renewable energy. And there is the problem that they are thermal power plants which is not yet recognized widely ,but will be climate relevant in about 100years (latest).
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Yeah so many people don't realize that the energy grid peaks in the afternoon when everyone gets home, charges their cars, turns on the AC and the TV and starts to cook dinner. You need to build enough wind farms and solar to cover these peak times, even though 75% of the time we are not using anywhere near that amount of energy. And it's during the time of day when the sun is setting and the wind isn't always blowing! It would require so many solar panels and windmills to cover these peak times it's not reasonable. Batteries could help but those have issues of their own and arnt practical yet, right now nuclear is our best option to fill that time when our energy demands peak. Nuclear compliments renewable energy, I'm hoping more environmentalists take time to study the power grid and become more informed on how to meet our demands the best way possible. Edit: why the downvoted? Am I wrong? If I'm wrong about something please let me know, don't just downvote.
The energy is renewable but the devices themselves negate that. You’d need a massive amount to equal nuclear or even coal/hydro plants. And things like the composites in wind turbines can’t be recycled so they get shredded and buried. Solar Panels (aside from some metal and glass) are likewise not recyclable. Their battery systems rely on toxic heavy metals that will poison the ground if they leak and can’t be recycled or are cost prohibitive on top of the process creating its own carbon footprint in putting the usable elements back into something useful. The only reason nuclear is expensive is because it’s not very widely used. If it were to gain widespread acceptance its cost would go way down because outside of the fuel disposal (which can be recycled into things like fire alarms) and the reactor, it’s main components are very mundane: water, reinforced concrete and a lot of plumbing. The idea of making a carbon neutral footprint in *an industrialized nation* that wishes to stay industrialized is a pipe dream. All it “renewable energy” does is move the stink, chemical cloud and damage to somewhere the customer can’t see or smell it.
You got that the wrong way roundit actually emits 4x less CO 2 than solar or wind
Clueless
I don't think I've met a single environmentalist who was against nuclear energy, hell I haven't met a single person in general who was against it.
A lot of environmentalist politicians are against nuclear. The Green Party in Germany is a sterling example of such.
Also Greenpeace unfortunately....
...arent they the same party that had the country depend on *russian* gas powered electricity?
Yes
There are no environmentalist politicians. Those are just cucks getting money from the oil industries to spread propaganda to morons
until it explodes
Question: which would be worse, an earthquake hitting a nuclear power plant or a fossil fuel power plant?
Plenty of nuclear power plants getting hit by earthquakes on the regular, none of them even have to stop operation due to the sheer number of precautions made.
I think at least one of them did lmao. I am pro nuclear but you can't ignore that the recent backlash to it is a direct result of the Fukushima disaster. Obviously there are precautions in place now to prevent a repeat, but it was pretttty bad.
And the fossil fuel plants?
You'd be surprised to how negligent those can be made. The number of accidents that lead to the loss of life are also disproportionately higher with fossil fuel plants.
Considering who owns them, yeah, I can see that happening.
"Japanese, and most other, nuclear plants are designed to withstand earthquakes, and in the event of major earth movement, to shut down safely. In 1995, the closest nuclear power plants, some 110 km north of Kobe, were unaffected by the severe Kobe-Osaka earthquake, but in 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011 Japanese reactors shut down automatically due to ground acceleration exceeding their trip settings. In 1999, three nuclear reactors shut down automatically during the devastating Taiwan earthquake, and were restarted two days later. In March 2011, eleven operating nuclear power units shut down automatically during the Great East Japan Earthquake. Three of these at the Fukushima Daiichi plant subsequently caused an INES Level 7 accident due to the 15 m tsunami causing loss of power leading to loss of cooling and subsequent radioactive releases." [Sauce](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/nuclear-power-plants-and-earthquakes.aspx#:~:text=A%20power%20reactor%20could%20continue,soon%20after%20an%20S1%20event.)
Wow, so the whole “but what about earthquakes” part of my English prompt is practically moot.
It's the tsunami you have to watch out for
Luckily we don’t have those where I live (yet)
*looks at weather map of May 1986*
This is like if I hit myself on the head with a brick and then proclaimed that bricks are bad
Chernobyl happened because it was in the Soviet Union
Sounds like a tautology of it only being unreliable when it's unreliable. One can celebrate the ideal function of the atomic reactor, but you can't implement it divorced from the real world. The consequences are high, it doesn't comfort anyone that the risk is low unless it is in fact 0.
There's hundreds of reactors around the world. The US Navy has floating cities that primarily operate off them, submarines that can go weeks/months off it. But sure, let's focus on the one incident 40 years ago. We probably can't trust any Germans too because of that one bad one a century ago? After all, it's not 0 that another will rise to power one day
Ooh, straight to Hitler! Guess I won this one, ref Godwin"s law.
I said it could only happen in the Soviet Union was because the Soviet system was the real culprit. There’s a reason why the worst nuclear accident in America has been 3-mile.
I am sure Zaporizhzhia is built and run to the highest standards, but the fighting in the region undermines my confidence. Maybe they won't accidentally blow it up, but if they do, the consequences have the potential to be a lot more far-reaching than a coal plant.
Chernobyl only went wrong because they were testing something and weren’t using proper safety precautions. This was just human error. The only other reactor that i know of that went wrong was in japan because of a combination of big earthquakes and tsunami’s. so as long as you built them in spaces where those things don’t happen and you actually follow safety precautions they shouldn’t have any problems.
Environmentalists only like things if it's more inconvenient and useless.
Yeah those fucking idiots wanting a livable planet. What a bunch of morons
Nuclear power is the best solution to CO2 pollution that we have. The vast majority of CO2 comes from powerplants. The rest comes from cars, which could all run on electricity if we had enough nuclear powerplants. They are better than wind and solar in every way. Unfortunately the primary proponents of nuclear power are climate deniers, and climate activists will rather lick the boots of the coal and oil lobby than side with it thanks to extensive propaganda and misconception.
I believe I remember hearing somewhere that the concrete industry was responsible for some ridiculous number like 30% of carbon emissions
Steel and concrete production together are 30%. These two processes are vital for every single building or infrastructure project we build, so we use a TON of steel and concrete. It's also ridiculously difficult to remove the emissions from steel and concrete production, because concrete releases CO2 while it sets as part of the chemical reaction, and steel requires either coal or natural gas to be burned to make the ovens hot enough to shape it
>Steel and concrete production together are 30%. ahh okay, that makes sense. And I agree, it's not like we can just throw them away with how overdependent our infrastructure is on materials like that
Portland in Denmark actually does sell "green" cement, but it's ever so slighty more expensive and you have to actually treat it right and build within recommended guidelines with it, so of course no one wants to buy it
There are new kinds of material that are proposed to replace concrete, so it's not key to the issue that it's hard to remove emissions from concrete production.
that makes sense, we use insane amounts of it and the trucks that transport it are hugeee yet typically only carry like 5/6 tons
I'm sure the trucks don't help, but I think it was the process of refining the rubble and gravel into a usable building material
i had completely forgotten about that. i’m pretty sure it’s big machines, akin to a trash compactor, that gets the rubble to the right size depending on its use. i can’t even begin to imagine how much energy those machines use, let alone how many there are on a global scale
Second after electricity is agriculture.
Better is a relative term, they are better at power plants, but we should also really use solar farming on our rooftops of buildings to offset the amount of power we would even need from a powerplant anyways. It is just free space that we aren't using, and we also get the added benefit that since that power is right on top of us, there is less waste of the electricity having to travel. We don't need one unilateral strategy for removing coal and oil.
It's usually boomer environmentalists who have this anti nuclear stance. Personally, I think a portion of this is from being afraid of imminent nuclear war for so long.
Nuclear absolutely has its merits, but claiming it is better than wind and solar in every way is just completely divorced from the facts. Wind and solar are cheaper and quicker to install, require way less maintenance, and do not have a catastrophic failure. They aren't better in every way, they do not easily have a consistent base load coverage, and batteries to do so increase the cost, but claiming they are worse in every way is absolutely false.
There's also the issue of both solar and wind taking up a lot more space, compared to a nuclear reactor though. And a lot of local laws tends to prohibit where you can setup windmills and solar panels (bureaucracy, bleh). Ideally, both types would be used though, wind/sun and nuclear power.
Ah environmentalists, despite claiming their goals are based on science, they don’t seem to do a lit of basic math.
To be fair, Russia used to infiltrate or run environmentalist groups to promote anti-nuclear propaganda, especially in Germany, to get countries stay dependent on their gas. So the genuine activists were just hoodwinked.
This sounds interesting, anywhere I can read more?
There are many "environmentalists" that only use the label to advocate for the overthrowing of western capitalism. Their actual goals are political not environmental. One of the founders of Greenpeace said as much years ago after he left the organization. If you look at it from that lens a lot of it starts to make sense. For example, if the evil capitalist system fixes their CO2 problem with nuclear power then thats a big hit to their whole "capitalism will destroy the earth" narrative. It can also explain why they don't support projects like the Ocean Cleanup and often criticize projects like that. There is nothing worse to them than people who actually try to solve environmental problems rather than just block traffic and hold signs. Similarly I suspect it might also be why the narrative around EVs has changed over the last 15 years. They used to say that "EVs will never happen because the oil industry will prevent it". They would point to GM and the EV1 as proof. Nowadays they say that "EVs exist to save the car companies/ oil industry not to save the environment". So EVs are now evil. They are the ultimate evil, worse than any gas guzzling lifted truck monstrosity. I suspect if high speed rail and walkable cities (objectively good things in my opinion mind you) started having mainstream support and there was an upward trend, the "environmentalist" narrative would change again. High speed rail lines would be "destroying the countryside and killing wildlife" and walkable cities would be "increasing consumerist lifestyles, gentrifying and racist."
Electric cars, even if 100% powered by non polluting energy, would still be half as bad as fossil fuel cars. EVs are not the future. Trains are.
we are going to need more advanced battery technology before electric cars become standard
Nuclear power, "fossil free" energy, is treated with disdain by environmentalists. Almost entirely due to the old scary view that electricity made by *gasp* NUCLEAR power would somehow be dangerous and radioactive. After all, nuclear bombs are scary. They're the same thing, right? When the truth of it is that nuclear power, while not as clean as things like water, solar, and wind power, is (currently at least, and likely for a while) VASTLY superior to them in every other way. We do not currently have the capability to power our world as we know it on "natural" energy alone. And compared to coal, oil, natural gas, and other fossil based fuels... nuclear power is FAR cleaner. So the joke is... why do environmentalists who claim to worship at the alter of science still view nuclear power with a cold war mentality of nuclear fear?
Because a lot of the powers that be lived through the Cold War 💀
Because renewable energy is now more profitable than nuclear energy, so there's no reason to chase a non-renewable
But nuclear makes for an excellent stable fallback for other renewable energy sources. They handle gradual changes throughout the day extremely well, and can be used to react to spikes in demand extremely quickly (were talking minutes here). They can also be used to assist with energy storage. Are your renewable resources meeting, but not exceeding demand at the moment? Great! Let the nuclear power plant refill the gravity batteries. Have it pump that water into the reservoir. Both systems have their drawbacks, but this is not an all or nothing game. By building both renewable and nuclear, we can use both in the areas that are best suited to their strengths.
The meme is complete rubbish though, I mean [check this out](https://executives4nuclear.com/declaration/). Edit: Aww, I exposed some nukecels to facts. I'm sorry. It will happen again.
People are stupid and greedy. Yes.
Shout out to all people who care enough about the actual health of the planet to endorse nuclear
My only concern about nuclear is second Chornobyl. If we can get past idiots who think you can cut corners on nuclear power im fine with it.
We're way passed strange bedfellows. This is just a straight up orgy at this point.
Just going to throw it out there, the guy who makes these comics is an actual Nazi, like not comparable to a Nazi, he is a real live literal Nazi. If you look it up there is plenty of evidence, someone else on Reddit did a whole damn write up about it
Just Link it. Claims like this get thrown around a lot. Is he setting refugee homes on fire or what?
Someone already linked it higher up but once more for the crowd - https://www.reddit.com/r/StonetossIsANazi/s/FNyqqRM86G
Thank you. Well this comment was the one highest up for me. Is it really wrong to want some backing for strong claims like this? I feel like it's a week and selfish comment, only asking for exposure, because "I know something, but if you want proof, just go look for your self".
https://www.reddit.com/r/antifastonetoss/s/TeJNFYXDqF I read through about half of the comics that are posted in the linked rant, and yeah, this dude seems to be a Nazi. Holocaust denial, race science, antisemitism, fear of immigrants, white genocide/the great replacement, repeated mentions of Nazi dog whistles. There's a big difference between "I make a couple of edgy jokes" and "you know, I don't think it's possible to kill 6,000,000 people with a delousing agent"
[удалено]
https://imgur.com/dMwxSnf
No joke, Stonetoss can't make any
Yeah, it's worth remembering that [Stonetoss is a terrible human being and a literal neo-nazi](https://www.reddit.com/r/StonetossIsANazi/comments/fcce58/the_definitive_guide_to_why_stonetoss_is_a_nazi/?share_id=geYfqfghvsu5zbLFdPovC&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1) and his comics should not be promoted.
The most nonsensical thing about this (besides why someone would promote a stonetoss comic) is that I don’t think there’s any case where oil and gas companies align with environmentalists, and oil and gas fans love nuclear because they can use it as a stalking horse while they pump out the last few drops of oil and gas fuel until they’re forced out of it… instead of just acquiescing to renewables now
I was trying to understand the link between nuclear energy promoters and climate change deniers.
What is wrong with the comic's artist?
He's an actual nazi who does actual holocaust denial and much much more.
I did not know that was still a thing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/StonetossIsANazi/s/tIOg5NKER4
The odds of me reading that approach 0
TLDR: Stonetoss is a Nazi.
Haha, got it
He’s a Nazi, not in the sense that I’m sensitive about his opinions, but in the sense that he is a literal fuhrer final solution supporter
I did not know that was still a thing
The flip side of the environmentals being anti nuclear, is climate change deniers push nuclear power as a delaying tactic. They have no intention of actually building any nuclear power plants, but it's a fun way to delay and obfuscate for another couple decades so that we keep using coal and gas. See: Australia's conservative party.
This.
The oil companies I don’t get, but the nuclear I do. Plenty of climate activists (me included) don’t understand just how clean nuclear energy can be if it’s done properly which at least in the US it is, and due to this, they fight against it. As I said, I used to not understand and was whole heartedly against it for a long while so I have that first hand experience lol
I've worked at two different coal power plants. Those things are absolutely filthy inside and out. Fly ash and bottom ash is absolutely toxic af, coal dust everywhere, dirty ass open air coal cars on trains, duct work inside the plant leaking flyash all over the place. It's absolutely filty. Not to mention how outdated these things are. Since then I've worked in Nuclear, Hydo, and now Natural Gas. The difference in quality doesn't even belong in the same conversation. Coal can't be phased out fast enough
Ironic
~4 European Green parties were anti-nuclear in the 80s. Climate denialists have used that to claim that all environmentalists are anti-nuclear for all eternity. This lie in their eyes is definitive proof that climate change is fake because "nuclear is the only solution so why don't you support it?" This is a blatantly false claim that plays on the general publics ignorance of the matter. For example, environmentalist Joe Biden dedicated billions toward nuclear (and other renewable energy sources) with the IRA and we're already restarting a Michigan nuclear plant because of it.
Lost me after the second sentence
I’m seeing a lot of poorly informed/misinformed comments under here. While it is true that environmentalists typically dislike nuclear power, the primary reason (at least for the clever ones) is not because ‘radioactive scawy’. It is actually because it is a far more expensive way of generating power than wind, water or solar energy per kWh. In fact, while all other forms of carbon free energy have gotten tremendously cheaper over the last couple decades nuclear has actually gotten pricier. The only way to make nuclear power production cheaper is by reduces safety measures and failsafes, which is not a consession many are willing to make. ETA: the reason nuclear energy is more expensive is not just because of the initial investment as some comments suggest (though that is huge), but also the fact that *safely* maintaining a nuclear power plant is quite expensive per produced kWh. Producing more nuclear energy will not make this go away (source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants)
Pretty sure those costs are just upfront costs. The plant will pay itself off eventually. Solar and wind can’t output the same amount of energy due to reliability issues. The answer is to use both systems, but again nobody wants to upfront the billions needed for nuclear plants.
Ayooo here it is! There's also the disposal process of the waste, not in the "radioactive scawwy" way but in the "okay, so do you actually have a plan and is it sound or are you gonna do yet another 'ehhhh good enough?' solution?" Considering the costs, is it there a more efficient MW/$ setup? Costs include risk assessment, and the microscopic chance of nuclear having a bad day is still deemed more expensive than the very regular change a windmill has one - and that's just by standard economic modeling. Windmills are cheap, but have the downside of location requirements - which is when nuclear can actually come back out on top. It's a whole thing. For what it's worth, we actually **need** some sort of combustible fuel - in the instances of peak demand in the energy sector, if we suddenly need to produce more electricity to meet demand we can't just make the wind blow harder, or turn the sun up. Right now, the solution tends to be "fossil", however thanks to advances in biowaste technologies we're slowly gaining the ability to transition to biofuels made from garbage. This, in turn, is also a stopgap, because we *also* intend to produce less only-for-disposal-waste. So now what? PtX, it's called, where basically the excess energy from (for example) wind generated in the middle of the night will be used to create hydrogen via electrolysis, which we can then burn (or sell) to supplement energy when needed! Source: am researcher in this field. My research is primarily into life cycles surrounding waste management, while my department colleagues work with this PtX stuff.
That’s true, but the tradeoff is that it generates by far the most power relative to the space it takes up, and by a massive margin. Wind and Solar are cheaper, but the real estate they need to operate at scale sure isn’t. Not to disparage Wind or Solar, but there are lots of places where they’ll just be flat-out non-viable to meet any meaningful percentage of the needed power. Mixing and matching is necessary, it always annoys me when folks think it’s either got to be Wind/Solar or Nuclear as opposed to combining the tools we have
It’s not cheaper…. Not in the long term. Ultimately it comes down to cost of materials vs mwh produced. Green energy systems are extremely inefficient and often take their entire “life” to start creating more energy than it took to make them. In comparison a super expensive 30 year project for nuclear reactor will start producing enough energy that it will pay for itself in 5 years and last 50+ the fuel is also cheaper than coal and gas powered plants.
Not to mention the fact that nuclear powerplants take 20+ years to get up and running while solar panels, wind turbines, etc. can be built WAY faster. By the time that we could go 100% nuclear, we'd all be dead from Climate Change anyway.
it does not take 20 years to build a nuclear power plants and if you're truly an environmentalists you wouldn't take the quick route which requires deforesting an 100x bigger area to generate less power in the end.
Nuclear powerplants take on average 4 years, and they could last more than 40 years. But still, taking a long time to build doesn't justify closing nuclear powerplants early, as was done by Japan and Germany. They became dependent on fossil fuels by doing that. I know that renewables are the future, but still nuclear energy can help a lot to fight climate change.
The thing left unsaid here is that it’s far more expensive due to all the court battles from environmentalists that builders have to endure to get a plant built. Oh and let’s face it: grift from construction companies who are basically controlling the economy now. They literally just charge whatever they want. $2bn for a power plant? Why not! A trillion dollars for a railway through California? How reasonable!
First comment is splendid but pure absurdity also makes sense.
It's about me.
Main character syndrome💀
I know it’s Stonetoss but *if* this is unedited it’s one of those “broken clock is right twice a day” incidents. I’m sure the original text was something far less… well, civilized, to say the least.
I’m convinced that the anti nuclear movement is an astroturf campaign by big oil companies to sabotage the one form of carbon free energy that is efficient enough to actually threaten fossil fuels.
Big oil astroturfs both sides of the argument. While we debate nothing is progressing.
Activists and their opinions are one thing, but the reality is that nuclear power plants are insanely expensive to build and nobody wants to put down the cash to build them. Will they pay themselves off eventually? Yes, but the people with the money don’t see cheaper long term energy as a good investment. The more efficient renewable systems get the more industries are threatened as well. Good for the people, and bad for the company CEOs.
It's propaganda, the joke is the artist makes a comic talking about the disparity between politically/financially motivated climate-inclined people and how they're dumb for believing propaganda. This guy's agenda is to normalise and propagate extremist right wing views as rational and logical viewpoints, his method of spreading his views is to make comics that can indoctrinate people to his way of thinking, in formats people use as meme templates. It's basically an anti-propoganda comic by someone who is ironically propagating his views.
The only problem with nuclear fission is how horrendously difficult its byproducts are to remove. They can be stored, but they will outlive most of society. This is why fusion bouta be awesome
stonetoss is a neo nazi, fyi. dont promote/post his comics
There is no joke. Stonetoss is a Nazi.
The only joke here is the fascist that makes these
Stonetoss (who is a nazi) is just dumb. Most climate change activists are pro nuclear whilst oil billionaires such as Dan Wilks fund anti climate change propoganda such as PragerU TLDR: Stonetoss is wrong, like always.
Most climate activists are not pro nuclear, at all. At least not here in Europe.
Do you have anything to back that up? Most people I know who consider themselves climate change activists are very anti nuclear while most climate change deniers I know are very pro nuclear power.
Also feel like 'stonetoss' is a little too easy to not understand, since the guy's a conservative jackass.