People are kind of missing the point of the meme. The point is that Nuclear is down there along with renewables in safety and efficiency. It’s lacking the egregious cover up in the original meme, even if it has legitimate concerns now. And due to society’s ever increasing demand for electricity, we will heavily benefit from having a more scalable solution that doesn’t require covering and potentially disrupting massive amounts of land before their operations can be scaled up to meet extraordinary demand. Wind turbines and solar panels don’t stop working when we can’t use their electricity either, so it’s not like we can build too many of them or we risk creating complications out of peak hours. Many electrical networks aren’t built to handle the loads. A nuclear reactor can be scaled down to use less fuel and put less strain on the electrical network when unneeded.
It should also be said that money can’t always be spent equally everywhere. And depending on the labor required, there is also a limit to how manageable infrastructure is when it scales. The people that maintain and build solar panels, hydro, wind turbines, and nuclear, are not the same people. And if we acknowledge that climate change is an existential crisis, we must put our eggs in every basket we can, to diversify the energy transition. All four of the safest and most efficient solutions we have should be tapped into. But nuclear is often skipped because of outdated conceptions and fear. It does cost a lot and takes a while to build, but it fits certain shapes in the puzzle that none of the others do as well as it does.
Some personal thoughts:
My own country (The Netherlands) has despite a very vocal anti-nuclear movement in the 20th century completely flipped now to where the only parties not in favor of Nuclear are the Greens, who at times quote the fear as a reason not to do it. As someone who treats climate change as truly existential for our country that lies below projected sea levels, it makes them look unreasonable and not taking the issue seriously. We have limited land too, and a housing crisis on top of it. So land usage is a big pain point for renewables, and even if the land is unused, it is often so close to civilization that it does affect people’s feelings of their surroundings when living near them, which might cause renewables to not make it as far as it could unrestricted. A nuclear reactor takes up fractions of the space, and can be relatively hidden from people.
All the other parties who heavily lean in to combating climate change at least acknowledge nuclear as an option that should (and are) being explored. And even the more climate skeptical parties see nuclear as something they could stand behind. Having broad support for certain actions is also important to actually getting things done. Our two new nuclear powered plants are expected to be running by 2035. Only ten years from now, ahead of our climate goals to be net-zero in 2040.
My own country (The Netherlands) has despite a very vocal anti-nuclear movement in the 20th century completely flipped now to where the only parties not in favor of Nuclear are the Greens, who at times quote the fear as a reason not to do it. As someone who treats climate change as truly existential for our country that lies below projected sea levels, it makes them look unreasonable and not taking the issue seriously.
I’m not from Netherlands, but very much belive this.
Most greens are very wierd. They claim to be against malnutrition and vitamin deficiency, but when it comes to solutions, they are against them(see golden rice). They are also mostly vegans, but when it comes to insulin, they would rather kill lots of pigs instead of scary-scary GMO yeast. Or when it comes to energy production, they rather would choose one with guaranteed dangers(coal has very nasty byproducts of burning) instead of potential.
I heard some greens in landlocked municipality(or whatever they call it in Britain) ruled against solar in favour of tidal. While same party in costal municipality ruled against of tidal.
I see biggest problem not in production, not in is it nuclear, but in is it buisness as usual. Capitalism knows no end to greed.
Most greens are very wierd. They claim to be against malnutrition and vitamin deficiency, but when it comes to solutions, they are against them(see golden rice). They are also mostly vegans, but when it comes to insulin, they would rather kill lots of pigs instead of scary-scary GMO yeast. Or when it comes to energy production, they rather would choose one with guaranteed dangers(coal has very nasty byproducts of burning) instead of potential.
I think this is probably because they represent a more dangerous and legitimate opposition to the powers that be, and, as a result, tend to be one of the most astroturfed groups on the planet. Couple that with a kind of extremism, where they will oppose golden rice or GMO yeast on the basis of evergreening IP laws (a fair complaint, imo), and then you can kind of see why they keep opposing things that are presented as solutions and keep getting hit with the terminally annoying “well, why don’t you have any solutions, then?” style of criticism.
People are kind of missing the point of the meme. The point is that Nuclear is down there along with renewables in safety and efficiency. It’s lacking the egregious cover up in the original meme, even if it has legitimate concerns now. And due to society’s ever increasing demand for electricity, we will heavily benefit from having a more scalable solution that doesn’t require covering and potentially disrupting massive amounts of land before their operations can be scaled up to meet extraordinary demand. Wind turbines and solar panels don’t stop working when we can’t use their electricity either, so it’s not like we can build too many of them or we risk creating complications out of peak hours. Many electrical networks aren’t built to handle the loads. A nuclear reactor can be scaled down to use less fuel and put less strain on the electrical network when unneeded.
It should also be said that money can’t always be spent equally everywhere. And depending on the labor required, there is also a limit to how manageable infrastructure is when it scales. The people that maintain and build solar panels, hydro, wind turbines, and nuclear, are not the same people. And if we acknowledge that climate change is an existential crisis, we must put our eggs in every basket we can, to diversify the energy transition. All four of the safest and most efficient solutions we have should be tapped into. But nuclear is often skipped because of outdated conceptions and fear. It does cost a lot and takes a while to build, but it fits certain shapes in the puzzle that none of the others do as well as it does.
Some personal thoughts: My own country (The Netherlands) has despite a very vocal anti-nuclear movement in the 20th century completely flipped now to where the only parties not in favor of Nuclear are the Greens, who at times quote the fear as a reason not to do it. As someone who treats climate change as truly existential for our country that lies below projected sea levels, it makes them look unreasonable and not taking the issue seriously. We have limited land too, and a housing crisis on top of it. So land usage is a big pain point for renewables, and even if the land is unused, it is often so close to civilization that it does affect people’s feelings of their surroundings when living near them, which might cause renewables to not make it as far as it could unrestricted. A nuclear reactor takes up fractions of the space, and can be relatively hidden from people.
All the other parties who heavily lean in to combating climate change at least acknowledge nuclear as an option that should (and are) being explored. And even the more climate skeptical parties see nuclear as something they could stand behind. Having broad support for certain actions is also important to actually getting things done. Our two new nuclear powered plants are expected to be running by 2035. Only ten years from now, ahead of our climate goals to be net-zero in 2040.
I’m not from Netherlands, but very much belive this.
Most greens are very wierd. They claim to be against malnutrition and vitamin deficiency, but when it comes to solutions, they are against them(see golden rice). They are also mostly vegans, but when it comes to insulin, they would rather kill lots of pigs instead of scary-scary GMO yeast. Or when it comes to energy production, they rather would choose one with guaranteed dangers(coal has very nasty byproducts of burning) instead of potential.
I heard some greens in landlocked municipality(or whatever they call it in Britain) ruled against solar in favour of tidal. While same party in costal municipality ruled against of tidal.
I see biggest problem not in production, not in is it nuclear, but in is it buisness as usual. Capitalism knows no end to greed.
I think this is probably because they represent a more dangerous and legitimate opposition to the powers that be, and, as a result, tend to be one of the most astroturfed groups on the planet. Couple that with a kind of extremism, where they will oppose golden rice or GMO yeast on the basis of evergreening IP laws (a fair complaint, imo), and then you can kind of see why they keep opposing things that are presented as solutions and keep getting hit with the terminally annoying “well, why don’t you have any solutions, then?” style of criticism.
Hard to disagree. Nature isn’t something to be patented.