I also think that Nuclear Fission can play a large part in electrical energy generation in the future. The fact is, it's the cheapest form of long-term sustainable energy. At the moment, solar is only cost-effective when it receives heavy government subsidies. Meanwhile, solar panels tend to be less "green" than generally thought because of the fact that they need to be doped with heavy and toxic metals, including arsenic, cadmium, selenium, gallium, etc. Many of these metals are also very rare and have a possibility of running out.
Solar thermal is a much better proposition. It requires very simple technology (parabolic support structure, something shiny, and some sort of heat engine like a steam engine or a stirling engine). These could be made just about anywhere, and for a fairly low price. Ultimately with solar thermal v. nuclear it depends on the economics of each.
To elaborate on why I like nuclear: Nuclear is a nearly limitless source of energy that uses simple technologies that exist today. It generates power cheaply, reliably, and safely. The radiation released into the environment by a nuclear power plant is actually less than the radiation released by a coal plant, by about an order of magnitude. The radiation fear in general is very much overstated- the only really radioactive areas of a nuclear plant is the Uranium in the core and the areas immediately outside of it. The rest is "radioactive" in a very low sense. Not much more so than natural Uranium, and natural uranium is not significantly more dangerous than lead- well, it's chemically rather reactive, but I don't see why anyone would be dealing with a block of chemically pure Uranium not in oxide form.
The only serious nuclear incident relating to power in the entire history of nuclear reactors is Chernobyl. Quite literally, they did everything wrong.
Everything. Any one of dozens of things (Including staffing the plant with coal plant operators, taking out every single one of the control rods, designing a reactor in such a way as if it got a little hotter it would get a lot hotter (Called a positive void coefficient), and many other things) that, if even one were fixed, would make the blowout not happen. A concrete containment building, like the ones that have been standard in US reactors since the 50's, would have reduced radiation in the surrounding areas to approximately zero.
Today, they have almost been universally fixed. I'm sure there are plenty of regulations specifying who can work in the control room of a nuclear power plant (and if there aren't, there would be in a technocratic society). Reactors are designed with a negative void coefficient, which basically means that a Chernobyl-style meltdown is impossible. There are always many ways to scram a nuclear reactor, and the coming Generation IV, IV+, and V nuclear reactors promise increased safety, as well as the ability to act as both breeder reactors to turn Thorium-232 into fissile Uranium, in the case of the
Molten Salt Reactor, a design I particularly like.
Needless to say, I like nuclear power. But solar thermal is perfectly workable too, and in the future both will probably be used.
- By Tainari88
- By QatzelOk
