s21n

Yes, it's cooling down, very quickly.

There is no reactor anymore, it's just melted fuel that flowed into rooms under the reactor vessel but it cooled quickly and now it's just a warm rock.

Nuclear reactor is constructed in a way that the neutrons from fission are reflected back to the fuel to cause more reactions so the reaction rate is kept stable at a very high level. When the reactor was blown out by steam it lost most of it's power in seconds because the structures that kept the chain reaction running not existed anymore.

The conditions at the spot where the fuel is deposited may change due to environmental factors, for example when rainwater sinks into the fuel or it evaporates or runs off (water is a neutron moderator). That may cause temporary surge in fission reactions but it's still nowhere close to an operational reactor.

Why not?

“If you truly claim to represent the people of the future, Frank asks — people who have the exact same right to a livable planet that we do — doesn’t that mean you should be willing to kill in their defense? Not as a first choice, not as the only choice — but can you really take it off the table? ‘If your organization represents the people who will be born after us, well, that’s a heavy burden! It’s a real responsibility! You have to think like them! You have to do what they would do if they were here,’ Frank argues. ‘I don’t think they would countenance murder,’ retorts Mary, to which Frank replies, ‘Of course they would!’

The Ministry for the Future is thus a novel about bureaucracy, but it’s also about the possibility of a wide diversity of tactics in the name of a livable future that include fighting both inside and outside the system. Characters in the novel contemplate targeted assassination of politicians and CEOs, industrial sabotage of coal plants, intentionally bringing down airliners in the name of destroying commercial air travel, bioterrorism against industrial slaughterhouses — and they do more than contemplate them. How does it change what’s possible when we stop worrying so much about losing in the right way, and start thinking about winning in the wrong ways?” [1]

To be honest, I'm surprised we're not seeing more acts of eco-terrorism yet. There are only isolated incidents of infrastructure sabotage. [2] I think it will change if (when) we don't meet the 2030 emission targets.

1. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/of-course-they-would-on-...

2. https://theintercept.com/2019/10/04/dakota-access-pipeline-s...

We need nuclear because closing the gap between 80% and 100% clean energy will be much harder and more expensive without it. Comparing the cost of building energy sources today it may look that nuclear is more expensive than renewables, but that's because we are not counting the cost of the additional infrastructure needed by them, which rises exponentially with the share of renewables in the mix.

Also, no energy source is environmentally neutral. Building renewables and it's supporting infrastructure en masse will have a huge ecological impact. You can reduce that impact using nuclear energy (that also have it's impact on nature, but elsewhere). For example, nuclear power plants kill fish, wind turbines kill birds. By using both energy sources it's easier to limit building plants only in areas, where the impact will be low. We'll be still killing some birds and fish, but the chances that it's well within the ability of populations to recover will be much greater, than if we decided to focus on one source.

We need nuclear because it saves nature.

Recently there was a huge backlash in Poland over the translation of the anime series She-Ra and the Princesses of Power on Netflix [1]. There's a non-binary character named Double Trouble and the translators decided to change its gender to male and named it Kłopotowski (Mr Trouble).

All this despite the fact that we do have neutral pronouns in Polish. Unfortunately not everyone agrees on the use of neutral form because it was sometimes used as an insult. There are other options though, for example you can use the plural version (just like they/them in English) or Dukaj's pronoun (introduced in the hard science fiction novel Perfect Imperfection [2] by Jacek Dukaj, “a space opera to end all space operas”) which is similar to the neutral pronoun but replaces the “o” suffix with “u”: it was / ono było / onu byłu.

The discussion about the infelicitous translation started on social media [3][4] and eventually was covered by mainstream media. One of the translators gave an interview [5] and said that the reason for the unfortunate decision was organizational chaos and lack of information flow.

1. https://www.netflix.com/title/80179762

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Imperfection

3. https://www.facebook.com/MistycyzmPopkulturowy/photos/246543...

4. https://www.facebook.com/catusgeekus/posts/2450286248592517

5. https://wyborcza.pl/7,75410,25383618,awantura-o-meskie-konco... (paywall)

Yes, you can still reduce carbon footprint if you're not investing in nuclear. You can invest in renewables, energy efficiency, or reduce emissions in other industries.

But closing working nuclear reactors always leads to higher emissions. You can replace nuclear with renewables, but that means these new renewables would otherwise replace more fossil fuels.

Let's look at the bigger picture.

Ontario is one of only a few regions in the world that decarbonized their electricity generation. All of these regions did this with a combination of nuclear and hydro (and a small contribution of other renewables). Unfortunately you can't build hydro everywhere and you have to take into account that it's not environmentally neutral too.

On the other hand, Germany closed some of their nuclear power plants and invested billions in renewables, which resulted in very high energy prices too, but they are nowhere near meeting their emissions reduction targets, and are facing billion-euro fines for missing their targets. They are increasing their dependence on gas (this is inevitable because intermittent renewables like wind and solar require a power source that can be fired on demand, or a very expensive storage). Germany committed to end their reliance on coal by 2038, but they are still building coal power plants.

Another example is California. Just like Germany and Ontario, they had a fleet of nuclear reactors and planned to build more. But they decided to close about half of their nuclear power plants and invest in renewables instead. What happened is very high energy prices and emissions even a little higher than in Germany.

Should Pennsylvania subsidize nuclear energy as clean? Yes, because it's the only big source of clean energy in Pennsylvania. Renewables won't be able to fill the gap if nuclear gets closed. And we should be replacing fossil fuels, not one clean source with another. Nuclear is the biggest clean energy source in United States. It's bigger than all renewables put together, but it gets the least amount of subsidies and tax cuts. Even less than fossil fuels.

This is an example of a very bad science that should never be published.

Glyphosate interferes with the shikimate pathway by inhibiting the EPSP synthase enzyme. The shikimate pathway is not present in animals.

European Union follows the precautionary principle, that means it would ban a substance if there's a scientific uncertainty about the substance's safety (unlike US, where you'd have to prove that it's harmful). The problem is you can never be 100% certain about any substance's safety. And it's quite easy to convince the politicians that the safety concerns are bigger than they really are by using bad science and aggressive lobbying. Even so, the France's decision to ban glyphosate was very controversial in EU.

The growing share of renewables in the mix doesn't mean there's no place for nuclear in the future – it's a false dilemma fallacy. Also, Japan's solar panels may be visually imposing, but they constitute a tiny amount of total energy generation in Japan.

After Fukushima Daiichi disaster Japan shut down all it's reactors and switched to fossil fuels, not renewables, and this is the most tragic outcome of the disaster.

Neither nuclear nor renewables could entirely replace fossil fuels, we desperately need both. Hopefully Japan is restarting it's nuclear reactors (5 reactors were restarted in 2018) and investing in renewables, but I'm afraid it's still not enough.

Probably because it's not toxic or cancerogenic in the quantities that it is used.

It's less toxic (LD50) than table salt. There's no evidence that the glyphosate residues in food could cause cancer. It's even much safer for farmers than many other pesticides, despite the fact that farmers get in contact with much greater quantities. It's not linked to cancer in farmers, except in case of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, but even this link is weak, and debatable at least: https://plantoutofplace.com/2018/08/glyphosate-and-cancer-re...

The problem with nuclear waste is exaggerated. It can be safely stored in warehouses, there's no need to bury it. The fuel rods are solid, so there's no risk of leakage. Dry cask storage containers are made of steel and concrete, they stop all the radiation and can withstand plane crashes and earthquakes. You can't steal the fuel, it's too heavy to load it on a truck, and even if you found a suitable vehicle, you need to convoy it when they're shooting at you…

Our current solutions to short-term storage are perfectly adequate long-term solutions. And we don't even need to store it that long, because soon we'll need it to produce fuel for next generation reactors.

The real problem with nuclear waste management are impossible and unnecessary safety requirements.

The cost of waste management is already included in the cost of nuclear energy. The cost of energy storage is not included in the cost of renewables, thus they may appear as cheaper, and indeed they are – for now – because we currently don't need energy storage. But as the renewables penetration rises, the cost of energy storage will skyrocket: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611683/the-25-trillion-re...