Post #1238615

2026-04-14 08:48 UTC

@LovesTha Yeah, that's the thing. When I was studying nuclear energy in University (because I was a huge proponent of it) it was the 90s, and we should've built a shitload of nuclear reactors then. It made sense. But now? Nuclear rectors take ages to construct and they will not be as cheap as renewables. Nuclear reactors may still make sense for powering heavy industrial applications though.

Replies (3)

@curiously@mastodon.au 2026-04-14 11:55

@notjustbikes @LovesTha a critical part of nuclear power viability is the ancillary uses (having the capacity to build nuclear weapons or support nuclear powered infrastructure eg submarines or aircraft carriers). Ukraine has illustrated that the massive and expensive single target infrastructure counter acts a lots of these consideration (with asymmetric cost, vulnerability and localised contamination risk) Renewables with storage already win on cost, decentralized / defuse vulnerability, and load response capacity, and we are not yet at the bottom of the cost curve. I suspect the nuclear age is already historic.

Open ##1238621
@houba@spore.social 2026-04-14 17:47

@notjustbikes @LovesTha There was and interesting conversation between Robert Scheer and Thomas Bass (who wrote a book on Fukshima) I have not fully investigated the assertions from Thomas, but he posits that nuclear was never viable, it was only ever a subsidy to enable weapons, there are obviously other positive and negative outcomes from nuclear, but this seems credible from my cursory understanding. https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/8b142d79-e9a0-474f-a9b0-42ea71256169/bob-and-bass-june-26-2026.mp3

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@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai 2026-04-16 20:22

@notjustbikes @LovesTha It would probably make a whole lot of sense to use nuclear power to smelt aluminum. There may be other materials that could be smelted if the energy was basically free not that nuclear is even like that. Any process that would benefit from continuous blazing output probably would be better with a plant like that.

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