"Renewables and resilience keep bills down and create far more jobs. Cutting-out fossil fuel pollution cleans our air, improving health and quality of life."
UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell at the Green Growth Summit
this post was submitted on 16 May 2026
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The damage caused by the demonization of nuclear power is simply incomprehensible.
It's just too costy now even higher than renewables with storage. https://www.lazard.com/media/eijnqja3/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2025.pdf
A significant part of that cost was lobbied by fossil fuel to kill nuclear. The navy is actually quite good at building nuclear reactors for a reasonable cost. They don't have to deal with the same amount of red tape though since they put it on a boat.
Its not exactly a matter of "it costs too much", as it is a matter of "do we want the Earth to still be habitable by 2100?"
IMO the money that should be pumped into fighting climate change should dwarf both world wars, the cost of the entire cold war, and every nation should spend more money on it, than their own militaries.
This isn't happening, so we're extremely likely to meet our end. We'll find that cost of safer energy, such as nuclear, wasn't such a great cost in the end, when extinction was the alternative.
I was actually about to comment, is nuclear power really clean? Radioactive waste seems like a pretty significant byproduct to me
Nuclear doesn't contribute to the climate change and is very safe when handled properly.
Radioactive waste has a very limited area of effect, most especially when its transported to large underground man made caverns located in areas that are intentionally chosen for their relative isolation from both civilization and wildlife.
Compare that to fossil fuels such as oil or coal that, not only burn and spread their radioactive isotopes throughout the atmosphere globally, but also damage our atmosphere beyond repair (in a time period that humans require to survive).
Nuclear energy is preferential over fossil fuels BY FAR.
Nuclear waste is made out to be scarier than it really is. The area it takes up is tiny compared to the massive ash ponds of coal plants that are far more toxic. The waste also still has commercial value, which is why it's mostly sitting around in storage pools. It's dangerous, but not significantly more so than other types of waste or things like electrical substations.
Fun fact. Including all accidents, nuclear power released way less radioactivity than coal burning. There's only a little radioactivity in the coal, but we burn a lot of it.
sure... that is why fukushima and pripyat are completely safe to live in... it is less radiation than all of the coal in the world *facepalm*
The radiation emitted by coal power plants is well documented, raising Cancer rates in the surrounding areas. And that's the normal operation, not a large scale accident like Chernobyl.
With regards to deaths per Wh, including disasters, nuclear is safer than all fossil fuels, hydro and wind, only pv is safer.
Most nuclear power we have today was designed as a bomb factory (or derived from that design). The power output was almost an afterthought.
There are a lot of newer designs that are a massive improvements on the old. Some "eat" the radioactive waste of older plants. Other use pathways that don't produce long term nuclear waste. They also don't produce material suitable for atomic weapons.
Unfortunately, the anti-nuclear movement kicked in just as those designs were set to enter construction. We've lost decades of improvements that they should have gained. Even worse, a lot of the engineers have now retired or passed. It will take a decade or 2 to rebuild the knowledge base to suitable levels.
Basically, nuclear could be incredibly clean and safe. Short sited governments, and knee jerk reactions killed it. It should be part of the solution, but it's now likely too late to bring it back in at the levels required.