A new report has assessed the feasibility of deploying small modular nuclear reactors to meet increasing energy demands around the world. The findings don't look so good for this particular form of energy production.

[T]he report’s executive summary certainly gets to the heart of their findings.

“The rhetoric from small modular reactor (SMR) advocates is loud and persistent: This time will be different because the cost overruns and schedule delays that have plagued large reactor construction projects will not be repeated with the new designs,” says the report. “But the few SMRs that have been built (or have been started) paint a different picture – one that looks startlingly similar to the past. Significant construction delays are still the norm and costs have continued to climb.”

  • areyouevenreal@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    I’m not here to call out people arguing for or against one or another type of energy generation. I’m complaining about the discourse about this being about long term hypotheticals and optimal solutions when we should be in emergency mode.

    Remind me what type of thinking leads to climate change, and pretty much every pollution issue we have now? Short term thinking that didn’t take into account long term consequences. If we aren’t careful we could actually make things worse by chasing things like lithium battery technology.

    Trying to come up with short term solutions to climate changes is fine, but you have to thinking about the long term as well.

    I also don’t think you give enough credit to the people who are criticising nuclear, they are talking about the short term. “Renewables” are cheaper in the short term. The thing is solar panels, wind turbines, and so on is that they don’t last forever, recycling the equipment is problematic, and manufacturing them is an environmental crisis in its own right.

    Nuclear in its current form is a medium term solution with its own shortcomings around waste storage, and the materials needed to construct and fuel a reactor.

    This is all still probably better than fossil fuels but we are talking about the difference between getting shot (fossil fuels) or getting stabbed (nuclear/“renewables”).

    But I’m neither. I’m arguing for practicality and immediate action. Because we need it now, not because I just finished reading the Dune books and have some really neat ideas about generation ships.

    Immediate action? We needed yesterday’s action, but rushing things today isn’t going to make up for it. In fact probably the best thing you can do right now is stop having kids. Bring the population down. Ideally this needed doing decades ago too. If we don’t do it then nature will do it for us, which is probably inevitable at this point anyway.