alt Hacker NewsI fully understand that waste management of fission reactors is a Very Big Deal. But I still stand behind the argument that opposing nuclear power in the 70s and onward is possibly the biggest own goal the environmental movement has ever achieved.
At worst, nuclear waste contaminates a discrete section of the Earth. Climate change affects literally everywhere. The correct answer would have been to aggressively roll out fission power 40-50 years ago and then pursue renewables. You can argue that other solutions would make fission power obsolete, but we would have been in a much better spot if it'd at least been a stepping stone off fossil fuels. Instead, we have 40-50 years of shrieking and FUD from environmentalists over an issue that can be kept under control with proper regulation. The US Navy has operated reactors for over 60 years without incident, proving it can be done with proper oversight.
TL;DR nuclear has issues, but I'd take it over coal every day and twice on Sundays, at least until something better can scale.
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Back then, it affected everyone in two ways, which were the things Greenpeace campaigned against: nuclear weapons, especially overland testing, and dumping waste at sea.
Chernobyl took out Welsh farming for years, and in a few places decades, because it spread a thin layer of bioaccumulative poison over the whole of Europe.
I agree. I think the correct environmentalist position at that time wouldn't have been to oppose nuclear, but to advocate for improvements, streamlined approvals of improved designs, and public investment or incentives.
I wasn't really commenting on the merits of 20th century environmentalist movements, more raising the general point that fission power has inherent costs which weren't reflected by narrow 1950s analyses of how much energy was extractable from U-235. Operation of a fission plant requires much more capex and opex than it would if we didn't care about cleanliness (waste management), security (fissile material theft prevention), or safety (meltdown prevention).
Fusion power is more complex to invent and practically depends on modern technologies that didn't exist 50 years ago, but once the first demonstration plants are operational, marginal costs to deploy and operate more should be much lower and ultimately become very low at scale.
A lot of housing politics from 'old school' environmentalist groups are a pretty big own goal as well.
Denser urban living is pretty energy efficient, and forcing lengthy commutes on people because of NIMBYism is a huge waste.