• Lumisal@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Weird how y’all haven’t figured it out yet considering Finland has and Germany has had nuclear power plants for longer.

    But I suspect it’s more of a lack of wanting to do what’s needed for storage because ‘politics’ and boomers than it is because it’s not possible.

    • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Nobody has. Nuclear casks need maintenance for their life time. We haven’t invented any kind of nuclear proof forever material that’s immune to entropy. And every single one of these solutions people propose have flaws that render the solution not viable so for now we end up storing it all above ground

      Everything in life slowly degrades over time and the longer the life span of something the more it degrades. Especially when that contained is filled with something radioactive.

      There are lots of people who are justifiably not comfortable expecting a private company to continue a maintenance cycle that brings in zero profit and all costs for a few thousand years without cutting corners. I don’t like the idea of the Elon musks being the Smaug of nuclear waste

      • Lumisal@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I know there’s the joke that Finland doesn’t exist, but didn’t know people like you who took it seriously.

        https://yle.fi/a/3-10847558

        From 2019. Yes, we’ve figured out how to store it permanently. The country of 5 million somehow figured out what the hundreds of millions in Germany, USA, and others couldn’t.

        Or more accurately, actually did it. The solution has been known for awhile.

        Also, never said a private company had to do anything - that’s just a strawman you brought up.

          • Lumisal@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            That’s basically what Finland is doing, with a few extra steps.

            The whole waste thing isn’t an unsolved issue, it’s purely a political one.

        • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          So government then. Give the Responsibility to fund this all cost and zero profit social good endeavor to politicians like Trump or a Bolsonaro.

          Finland and a few other countries are testing this out. But unfortunately like every other solution, there ends up being some unforeseen problem. Time will tell. Which is part of why a lot of people are hesitant and not wanting to rush into these things.

          We also are finding other solutions in the meantime. Its not a bad thing if at the end of the day we don’t need nuclear.

    • Sniatch@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Could be that Finland is a big country with only 5,5 million people living there compared to 83million in germany. Easier to find a place.

      • Lumisal@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Yeah, and like most of Europe, that German population lives in cities, not random forests and mountains in the middle of nowhere where you could also do underground storage like Finland has done.

        Not to mention Germany has more land.

        • Sniatch@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Don’t you think it sounds crazy to build a underground storage just to have it closed for a million years. I just can’t understand why anybody would want that.

          • Lumisal@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Compared to Fossil fuels that’ll stay in the air for thousands of years while they essentially terraform the planet into something way less habitable for humans? How the hell is that more logical???

            Finland is a bit too north and cold for rapid deployment and storage of renewables. Although summer is excellent for solar, winter makes solar barely useful and can decrease some wind (newer designs help a lot with the snow issue).

            Germany is more stable, but electrical storage is still an issue, along with the larger population. Having planned at least 1 new power plant while decommissioning the older ones would have made a lot more sense while transitioning to 100% renewables. Spent nuclear fuel doesn’t use much space - the spent fuel can be stored underground in containers in deep bed rock in drilled shafts and then cemented over. It’s less effort and resources that what Germany’s many mining companies use extracting minerals or fossil fuels.

            Can’t do the same for all that pollution your damn lignite plants make though.

            • Sniatch@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              No, investing in nuclear costs sooo much money. Money that would be missed for building reneweables. If the conservatives wouldnt have blocked the renewable boom we had in 2012, we would be much further. Im glad were out of that nuclear stuff.

              • Forester@yiffit.netOP
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                7 months ago

                Well you see we kinda are failing at the whole mitigating climate change issue and we and we only have so many rare earth minerals to exploit for large scale battery storage banks. And every year we are burning more Fossil Fuels and shutting down more reactors and building no new modern designs and giving nuclear none of the funding the fossil fuel industry receives or the renewables industry receives.