Night Train to Wakanda: Felgraf: Night Train to Wakanda: The only thing "green" about nuclear energy is the glow it's waste makes everything around it light up with.

Eh.  It's possibly to deal with the waste safely and well, people just. Don't want to. I'm pretty pleased with the plan we have here in Finland. (The geologic storage is already BUILT and in use! And Finland's very old, geologically).

Interestingly rising sea levels also aren't a major concern here b/c Finland is.. well. Also rising. Or, rather, 'rebounding'. It's slowly been gaining height since the last ice-age because the kilometers of ice *pushed it down*.

Given that solar isn't super-viable here for a good chunk of the winter, when energy costs are going to be high, I'd rather have nuke power than coal or gas.

I had to look it up because it sounded so insane. It is in fact rising. Whether it's from ice melting or something else, who knows. I didn't read that far. So I'll take your word for it. That just sounds crazy to me.

The problem though, is plutonium, the cheapest, and longest lasting fuel rods, has a half life of almost 25,000 years. What's the life span of a steel or lead lined plastic barrel? And that's half life. Its radioactivity doesn't start to decay until around that point. In the IS where we have active fault lines practically running underneath nuclear plants like Diablo Canyon. It's just such a risk to the eco systems around it.

TheMaskedArmadillo: Way too many comments here to quote. Bottom line is, someone needs to go back and read "Atlas Shrugged " again...

guinsu: Felgraf: Night Train to Wakanda: And solar cells have become so efficient that you can get enough of them on the roofs of every new home and business to cover a significant portion of your needs. With 30% efficiency being commonplace and fast approaching 50% solar panel energy conversion efficiency. You could generate enough power in an overcast day to light up a major city converting all its buildings roofs to solar panels with that high efficiency. Even in the middle of a cloudy overcast day. But Finland also has the two months of summer of constant day light.

Finland also has unique access to geothermal energy it's completely eliminating the need of having a distributed power grid and just flat out boring geothermal plants in the basements of apartment buildings.

In short, radioactive waste produced by plants are dangerous. There are so many better alternatives. The problem is, as always, cost. How much does clean, safe, energy matter to a state budget that already operates in the red? Or a federal loan for a state that is already having troubles with clean water?

... The geologic storage is "Put waste in cast boron-steel container. Put THOSE containers in a corrosion-proof copper container. Place those in specific reopository  place it in the storage branch tunnel. (The tunnels are about 1 km underground. And given that Finland bassiicalllyyy sits directly on the bedrock, it's 1 km *IN THE BEDROCK*.), then backfill with clay. Then, when one of the branch tunnels underground is full, backfill the ENTIRE thing with clay and claybearing soil. Repeat on other tunnels. When site is full in approximately 100 years, fill the entire thing in." 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository#:~:text=The%20Onkalo%20spent%20nuclear%20fuel,the%20west%20coast%20of%20Finland

It is literally designed around geologic timescales. Like, it is designed for tens of thousands of years of storage. And it's "Finland will build this someday", it's already built, and already in use. Also, it is literally directly next to the nuclear plant. 

Also it's not about the efficiency of the solar panels that makes it hard for them to work up here. I'm not saying 'they don't work well here in the winter because it's overcast'. I am WELL aware of the efficiencies and improvements in solar panels, and it's exciting. (And stuff like Black Silicon is just neat.)

The problem is the efficiency doesn't really matter at the height of winter here, because of how long the day is.

At the height of winter, the sun doesn't rise until 9 AM and it sets at 3 PM. It's not "ooh the light isn't as strong", it's the sun is literally down below the horizon at 3 PM.

Now, the days have gotten a LITTLE longer agian, thankfully. Currently, the sun is rising at 8:45 AM and isn't setting until 4 PM.

It doesn't matter how efficient your solar panel is, it still isn't going to receive much light when the sun isn't up. And electricity use in the winter is HIGH in Finland, because a lot of heating is electric.

I am all for geothermal! I am all for increasing solar panel production and distribution! If it looks like I can get my research grant renewed (going from postdoc to independent researcher) and I'll be sticking around where I live for another 4-5 years, we'll probably try to install solar panels on top of the house that we're renting (and buy it!).

All that to say about solar and nukes, nothing about wind