[Skybird]

Next climate savings.

Nuclear energy is emission free, and produces no CO2. BUT – the share of nuclear power in global power production is such that you would need ADDITONAL 1500 nuclear powerplants replacing an appropriate number of coal and gas powerplants of equal energy production to reduce global emission levels by a maximum of 12%.

1500!

Now consider the long building times, and the time for the political battles! Consider what I said above the limited availability of uran being enough for 60 years for the current level level of nuclear energy production! 1500 more powerplants…?

Even, more, nuclear powerplants do not produce heat energy that could be used for heating houses, they produce electricity. You still would need coal and gas bruning powerplants to produce warmth to heat houses, or you would need to raise electrically produced heating, which is one of the most uneconomical there is, letting demand for electricity explode even more, globally.

1500 new powerplants, and the according traffic of nuclear material. Secured and unsecured storage sites for thousands and thousands of tons of nuclear waste (in murmansk it is said nuke material from submarine reactors have been stolen). Rogue states. Pollution (Sellafield, anyone?). Wars with a chance to get nuclear facilities targeted. Terrorism, smugglers, robbery. Dwarfs states becoming nuclear powers – ypu cannot separate in principal the civilian use of nuke tech from the military use of it. These are risks that you do not need to put into financial numbers, they explain themselves.

The energy needed to build a nuclear reactor: it is immense if transforming all these steps and materials and efforts into energy calculation. A powerplant of modern security standards and technology levels would need to operate for 10-12 years before it has created the energy that was before put into building it. Then it must run for even more years before the financial investments have payed off – and then, after 20-25 years or so, you start talking about black number profits. And before, you have to add the years it took to actually construct the powerplant. Wowh!

Usually, all these things are not mentioned when media report about what somebody said in nuclear energy, and it does not seem to play a role in the currently growing demand for building more nuke plants. But these factors are solid realities, and it is stupid to ignore and to hide them, and shows an irresponsible lack of competence and long vision.

I am not hysterically afraid of the physical risks from nuclear power, but I am aware of the risks involved, and that certain problems remain unsolved. I am aware that we are running into a gap between energy demand and energy production, but while it is tempting to see nuclear tech as an answer, I limit this answer to let existing ones running longer indeed. Even in Germany, currently no energy company demands to build new reactors – economically, this is a no-brainer today, and practically cannot be compensated for. What they lobby for instead is exporting powerplants to foreign country that the want to talk into long credit deals and by that, lasting dependence, and they lobby for letting German powerplants run for longer than politically planned. NO energy company currently is enthusiastic about building new nuclear plants in germany – it simply does not pay off, economically.