Fukushima Dreams: [patreon.com]
What I have never liked about nuclear fission as an energy source is the fact that it leave peices of the world uninhabitable for hundreds even thousands of years when things go wrong and wrong they do seem to go. On top of the catastrophic failures they leave us with the low and high level waste that needs to be put somewhere safe for a very very long time, for high level waste there does not seem to be such a place.
These problems have done destroyed public trust in fission inspite of the fact that new safe less waste producing breeder reactors exist. Other than in China almost no new nuclear reactors have been built in the last 20 years and I doubt any will be.
Fusion is that magic technology that is likely to elude us for at least 1/2 a century more and who knows just how safe it actually will be until we actually build the a commercial one and operate it for awhile.
It's all a matter of scale. Other human activities are causing far more devastating long term damage to our environment. Nuclear waste can be recycled, the first plant will be operating by 2025. I don't think nuclear power is the magic bullet it was once touted as, and fusion isn't going to change that. Used wisely nuclear power has its place in the greater scheme of things, sadly "used wisely" seems to be asking way too much of the species.
Keep the radioactive material and steam on site and tax the stock holders for storage costs capping electricity rates prohibiting rate increases
Thanks for the cogent argument. I'm a (lay) science nerd. I recognize the dangesrs of nuclear fission & hope for a breakthrough in fusion. I support renewable sources of power. I realize that we, as a civilization cannot do without enormous amounts of power of some type or another. I realize that there is no such thing as "clean coal". As you stated, complicated.