this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
396 points (88.8% liked)
Political Memes
5570 readers
2086 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This video goes into exactly what isotopes are produced in a nuclear reactor after one cycle (all that's legally allowed).
94% of the Uranium put into a reactor comes out after one cycle as waste. All because 1% of that waste is plutonium. Which is an incredibly dense nuclear fuel. That 1% of plutonium, if burned, can outperform the remaining 94% of uranium.
As if that were the only thing it could be used for.
The point is, 94.8% of nuclear waste is unburnt uranium, 1% is plutonium, and the rest isn't that dangerous long term.
There's no need to bury waste for hundreds of thousands of years, if you just remove and burn the stuff that is dangerous long term.
And if burning plutonium for fuel is such a deal breaker, we can switch from the uranium fuel cycle over to the thorium fuel cycle. But that one too faces opposition, because most of the opposition is coming from the fossil fuel industry. They hate nuclear with a passion, because it decouples electricity from oil and natural gas. Which wind and solar currently do not.