Unfortunately, they’ll be considered heretics by the Cult of Climastrology, since most cult dogma is against using nuclear power
These ‘nuclear bros’ say they know how to solve climate change: nuclear
The typical “nuclear bro” is lurking in the comments section of a clean energy YouTube video, wondering why the creator didn’t mention #nuclear. He is marching in Central California to oppose the closing of the state’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. His Twitter name includes an emoji of an atom ??. He might even believe that 100 percent of the world’s electricity should come from nuclear power plants.
As a warming world searches for ever more abundant forms of clean energy, an increasingly loud internet subculture has emerged to make the case for nuclear. They are often — but not always — men. They include grass-roots organizers and famous techno-optimists like Bill Gates and Elon Musk. And they are uniformly convinced that the world is sleeping on nuclear energy.
It is. Even Warmists like Michael Mann want nuclear, and they’d get agreement with Skeptics and Republicans
Nuclear advocates often meet each other on the internet — on large shared WhatsApp groups, sharing news on the subreddit r/nuclear, or on Twitter. It’s also on the internet that they have earned the moniker “nuclear bro,” a catchall term of unknown origin that places men who are pro-nuclear alongside the likes of “Berniebros,” “Crypto bros,” and “brogrammers.”
The “nuclear bro” label — often wielded by environmentalists and others skeptical of nuclear power, some of whom are in return labeled “renewabros” — serves to cast nuclear supporters as all being of a particular type: young, white, millennial men with a singular focus on splitting atoms. It alludes to a few factors of “bro culture” that can make interacting with some nuclear bros frustrating and bizarre. The criticism is that these types of bros mansplain, refuse to accept other arguments, or otherwise harass their interlocutors.
Oh, good grief, the loonies are going to argue using social justice, not facts and science. Of course, they’ll never accept nuclear power, so, it doesn’t matter.
But while Cohen says he doesn’t adopt a “cultlike” enthusiasm for nuclear power — or any other source of energy — others are more dogmatic about the potential of nuclear.
“Occasionally I am met with skepticism about the existence of Nuclear Bros,” the climate writer David Roberts once said on Twitter. He then posted the screenshot of an email sent to him that began with “Hey dips***!!” and ended with “The answer to ALL our energy needs is in one word: THORIUM!!” (Thorium is an element that can be used to fuel nuclear reactors.)
Roberts is another big time climate cult member, but, I’ve seen him approve of nuclear. It’s a mountain to climb
Part of the battle over the “nuclear bro” label is that some nuclear supporters believe that renewables have been overhyped and that nuclear alone is the pathway to a clean energy transition.
This puts them at odds with groups who might be their natural allies — moderate environmental organizations who support an expansion of nuclear power along with growth in wind, solar, and geothermal power. It also sparks numerous online fights between supporters of renewables and supporters of nuclear.
And the fights get nasty, because the hardcore cultists will never, ever support nuclear. They’re nuts.
It’s a pretty interesting, and long, Washington Post article, well worth the read.
Until we get moonbase alpha set up to handle the waste, we can’t think of nuclear as having a long term path. It’s nowhere near as good as coal and natural gas for creating energy. We need to save our nuke power for those really good applications, like huge bombs.
Nonsense, the volume of nuclear waste is relatively small. Especially compared to the amount of chemically toxic waste that comes from fossil fueled plants, even the cleanest. For example, all of the spent fuel rods from commercial power plants is safely stored on site at those plants… since the day they opened. Try that with coal and your plant would be buried under ash in a year. Even natural gas byproducts go right into the air.
The waste problems are mainly the fault of NIMBY politicians like the late unlamented Dingy Harry Reid on Nevada who blocked the long term storage facility…
Anyone even slightly adept at basic math can figure out that wind and solar will never be more than niche sources, suitable for off grid aps, like remote cabins and boondocking campers.
I can build a house on that ash or even dump it into an old strip mine.
You left out, nuke waste is stored on site… for now. All of those sites are running out of room and 90% of them are long overdue for demolition. The demolished parts all have to be carted off and stored.
Perhaps future scientists will discover new uses for nuke waste and recycle all the old stuff at a profit.
All of the power plants in the United States produce roughly 2,200 tons, or 44,000 lb, of nuclear waste a year. With a specific gravity of 18.7, depleted uranium weighs 1,196.8 lb/ft³. 44,000 lb of nuclear waste takes up about 36.76 ft³. To give you an idea how much that is, a normal concrete mixer truck will haul 10 yd³ of concrete, or 270 ft³. All of the nuclear waste produced annually in the United States would easily fit in one concrete mixer!
Let’s assume that the waste is pelletized, in a roughly rounded shape, with a maximum size of one inch. That nuclear waste would then take up roughly 64 ft³. I have picked up that much volume, and more, in stone, in one front end loader bucket.
The amount of nuclear waste we produced could be easily handled, is we just weren’t stupid about it. Dig a deep hole, send the pelletized waste to a concrete plant, replace 64 ft³ of the roughly 170 ft³ of coarse aggregate, stone, in a 10 yd³ load with the pelletized waste, mixed it into a load of concrete, and dump it in the deep hole.
Alpha particles travel roughly 10 centimeters in the air, and barely at all in a dense medium like concrete. Beta particles travel a few yards in the air, and barely an inch in a dense medium, while gamma rays are stopped with less than a foot of concrete. Concrete, buried underground, below the frost line, will last for centuries; concrete mixed by the Romans still exists, and most of it is outdoors.
Thanks for some actual numbers. I knew they were small, just not how small.
But if they embraced nuclear then they wouldn’t have an excuse to make us buy EVs , and worse for them it would show that they actually believe what they preach…
The last nuclear plants built here cost 12 billion the next one will cost twice that.
Jimmi if nuclear power did provide safe cheap electricity then it would help to get people into EVs. Electricity generated by fossil fuels (whose global price has SKYROCKETED all because of Biden????) is more expensive than renewable generated electricity, often around 6 cents per kWh the contract price paid to Cape Wind or to Warren Buffett’s big AZ solar.
Wyoming’s big wind project expected to come on line in 2026 will be equivalent to 4 nuke plants in power at less than 1/2 the cost of 1 nuke that is the Chokecherry wind farm in case anyone wants to Google it
Nuclear power does provide “safe cheap electricity” and has for 50 years. More importantly it is reliable energy not bound by wind, sun or time of day. It would be a great boon to all our energy needs but there are people in the right places who make more money from bullshit power sources which are unable to provide the amount of electricity needed and do it reliably and efficiently and cheaply. Nuclear can. But the biden’s and pelosi’s aren’t invested in them so too bad.
You can Google Chokecherry all you want but don’t do it at night or on a calm day or they won’t have the power to respond. Nukes would.
Fact is Hairy we all know (though some like you refuse to admit) the only reliable sources of energy today are fossil and nuclear. They run all the time through all seasons and day and night.
Admit the truth then join us to figure better ways of using the best and cheapest sources. Stop the science fiction, go with what works.
MAGA