undefined | Better HN

0 pointsgodelski5y ago0 comments

> Saying Nuclear waste is not a problem is like saying taking a shit in your neighbors yard is not a problem.

The weird thing is that you're taking a shit in your neighbor's yard. I mean if they do it in their own yard it's weird, but there's nothing wrong with it. I mean this is what we do with dog shit.

The problem is that everyone shits. Sure, nuclear shit smells a lot more than solar shit or coal shit, but there's a hell of a lot less of it. We're talking a cat vs herd of rhinos. If I had to clean up one of the two I honestly don't care how much that cat's shit smells, I'm picking that job every single time. And you know what, the researchers seem to agree

> The analyses did not reveal any science-based evidence that nuclear energy does more harm to human health or to the environment than other electricity production technologies

0 comments

aszantu5y ago

The places where uranium is mined is uninhabitable afterwards :(

godelskiOP5y ago

Yeah, but because there is a giant hole in the ground, but that's not specific to uranium mining. Luckily 1) uranium is extremely energy dense so we don't have to mine as much of it and 2) people usually don't live where mines open up in the first place. If we're talking about uranium mining you may notice that Canada isn't particularly habitable to begin with. Though in situ mining is pretty popular with uranium because it is cheap and results in less contaminants.

Klinky5y ago

Just because it's energy dense after enrichment, doesn't mean it has high concentrations within mined ore. Most mines operate with only a fraction of a percentage of the ore being uranium, and only a fraction of a percentage of that is U-235, and viable for a nuclear reactor.

Some mines use ISL techniques which is similar to fracking. Canada does have Cigar Lake, the highest grade uranium mine in the world (15%), but due to the dangers of high uranium concentrations and the challenging geology, it has not been the easiest to extract.

This is to say, you don't just dig up some ore and stuff it in a reactor(it takes a lot of ore to power a reactor), nor is uranium mining a clean process.

adrianN5y ago

The places where lignite is mined look like this afterwards:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagebau_Garzweiler#/media/Date...

and are planned to become lakes (but at least in Germany nobody knows where the water is supposed to come from).

The places where coal is mined under ground need to run pumps forever or the surrounding cities are destroyed. The pumps in Germany's Ruhrgebiet consume about 70MW continuously. In a couple of decades the pumps will have consumed more energy than we got out of the coal.

And, of course, if we continue to burn coal in a couple of decades largeish parts of the globe might become uninhabitable to humans.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse