I’m not sure if we’re allowed to ask questions on this sub. It seems mostly news articles but I figured I’d give it a go.
So Bruce Power in Ontario is planning to build the world’s biggest nuclear plant in the world (by expanding on an existing plant).
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/ontario-new-nuclear-build-1.6897701
BC is more well known for hydroelectric, but that particular source hasn’t really been greatly expanded on in decades and site-C is pretty controversial.
This got be thinking:
How do we in BC feel about nuclear power? Would you support one near where you live? Why or why not, and what other power options would you prefer?
We’d locate it where earthquakes - those not caused by fracking - have been historically very rare.
That’s just room-temperature-IQ smart.
Also, Nuke plants are pretty resilient, as long as they aren’t hit with a massive quake and then a massive tsunami.
Also, Nuke plants historically release LESS radioactive material over their lifetime than a coal plant; and it’s not even close. Go look.
It’s not a choice between nuclear and coal. Both suck. Nuclear “green” power besides the risk also leaves behind radio active waste for centuries that nobody wants to deal with. Go look.
saying nuclear and coal both suck is kind of like saying both a plate of shit and a plate of overcooked brussels spouts would suck to eat for dinner. In theory I don’t like either but one is significantly worse.
At least with nuclear waste it’s not loosely scattered in the atmosphere, doesn’t have a harmful effect as long as it’s properly stored, and in the future we will likely have better ways to deal with it.
It’s never properly stored, never. Nobody wants that stuff stored nearby them. There is not even any good experienced knowledge how to store that stuff stable long term. So far it’s all been temporary storages and quite a few of them have gone real bad. And we are doing nuclear for how many years now? This problem won’t go away. In fact it will multiply and become much bigger if we were to increase the number of nuclear plants.
also leaves behind radio active waste for centuries
97% of the waste produced from non-breeder reactors is what’s classified as low-level or intermediate-level waste. The low-level waste in particular is only dangerous for a few decades to a century on the outside. The containers for anything more hazardous (the ‘Type B’ casks) have never seen an accident which have breached it, and are designed to exist in pristine condition for over a thousand years without maintenance.
Modern disposal techniques of the Intermediate-level and high-level waste also includes vitrification. This involves embedding the waste within molten glass, which is incredibly resilient to environmental conditions over several millennia.
I’m on board. Good luck with the general population…
I would. Hell yeah! I honest-to-god want an SMR in my actual neighborhood just to have direct heat from a radiator water loop during the winter.
I mean, I live in Vancouver which expects a large earthquake at some point. Earthquakes are bad but seriously awful with a nuclear power plant nearby.
In general though, nuclear is probably one of the best options to help transition towards a renewable economy. (Not itself renewable but to my understanding, significantly less carbon intensive than gas, coal or oil, even including the mining and refining. But I could be wrong.)
Looking at Japan, earthquakes aren’t that big of a problem.
Tsunamis that take out the backup energy system and destroy all the surrounding infrastructure… that was the problem.
In my opinion, nuclear power plants should give away 5% of their energy to surrounding residents and provide district heating. That’s only fair to compensate for the reduction in property values.
To each their own! My takeaways from that were that serious accidents generally introduce unexpected complications, we got really lucky with Fukushima and taking chances with one of the most devastating natural phenomena might not be the most best gameplan.
We got lucky? Dude… Sure it can always be worse. Chernobyl could have been worse too.
But actually both of them are really bad in any case. Nothing you want to see repeated, ever.
Ontario is already like 40% nuclear. BC has regulations against nuclear technology in all forms as a non-nuclear province. They disallow hosting of missiles (not that we have any) and building of any power plants.
That being said, it’s probably time to take a good look at those regulations because they were probably designed in the 50s and we’ve built several generations of impeccably safe reactors since then.
Post-Fukushima improvements incorporate a lot of proofing against natural disasters in addition to even more passive nuclear safety. The Americans used the opportunity of the overhaul to ask for reactors to be designed to withstand artillery strikes and high levels of damage (read: deliberate plane crashes) without melting down.
Post-Fukushima improvements incorporate a lot of proofing against natural disasters in addition to even more passive nuclear safety.
The reactors we use in Canada are also already ridiculously safe compared to most
