Proliferation. Nuclear waste. Long term storage of said waste. Dependence on raw materials that are only available in a few places. Lack of economic viability. Lack of clear timelines for development of new technologies. Monopolistic practices of proprietors. To name just the most important ones. Oh, and the old blowy uppy thing, of course.
Nuclear waste. Long term storage of said waste
Solved issue, caskets can be stored above ground and take up very little space, buried if it starts to take up too much surface space
Dependence on raw materials that are only available in a few places
Thorium rather than uranium fuel solves this
Lack of economic viability
Just not true
Lack of clear timelines for development of new technologies
Also not true
Oh, and the old blowy uppy thing, of course.
Seriously not an issue these days, we don’t build them and run them like the Soviet Union did anymore
An interesting watch: Thorium Reactors
I didn’t watch the whole thing but his dismissal of uranium 233 as “hard” to turn into a bomb is flat out wrong. It has many of the properties of plutonium 239 and would be perfectly fine for an implosion fusion/fission device. You just need to chemically reprocess the fuel from a reactor to get it, just like they did with plutonium. The first Soviet fusion bomb was uranium 233 instead of plutonium for christ sakes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-233
If you think nuclear waste is a “solved issue” you just show how little you understand the subject matter. So you’re going to store nuclear waste above ground for a couple of millennia? How’s that going to work out? And thorium reactors might some day become a viable technology. But that is at best decades away. That is not a solution for any present day problem. And what about all those old and aging legacy reactors that are being kept running beyond their design lifespan? Surely nothing can go wrong there.
But it doesn’t matter. Despite all the irrational exuberance of the nukebros it’s just not going to happen. The economics were never there and still aren’t.
So you’re going to store nuclear waste above ground for a couple of millennia?
Literally yes, it’s not just left out in the open air, they’re stored in specialized containers that use inert gas and concrete to block the radiation from getting out. They can also then be buried beneath the ground for extra protection
And thorium reactors might some day become a viable technology. But that is at best decades away.
It is most certainly not decades away at best unless fear mongering managed to slow research more than it already has done, but that’s not an issue with the technology at all
And what about all those old and aging legacy reactors that are being kept running beyond their design lifespan? Surely nothing can go wrong there.
You update them, which is how they’re operating beyond their initial designed lifespan. Current idea in the field is to replace aging uranium reactors with molten thorium as they’re apparently pretty simple to convert over
To quote you on this topic:
you just show how little you understand the subject matter
