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But... why? Building a new nuclear reactor takes decades, is insanely expensive compared to every other power source, is inflexible and relies on uranium that is tradionally sourced from Russia.
Running it creates even more expensive byproducts requiring expensive extremely-long-term storage.
I honestly don't get it.
Although I can get behind Progressive Slovakia's stance of letting the market deal with it, because there is literally no market for these things.
Those byproducts are still viable as fuel and can be sent to second- and third-stage reactors rather than being locked away in a cement vault somewhere. Also, Australia has an absolute shitload of uranium out in the outback, which is kind of a win-win since it's far from civilization and largely uninhabitable anyway. If the fuel actually gets used until it's spent, nuclear is extremely clean and very safe.
Even if these reactors are built and used and we get the uranium from better sources, there's still the teeny tiny problem of nuclear being insanely expensive per kWh.
That's not been my experience. I live near one of the largest nuclear plants in the world and I pay a pittance for electricity compared to other areas I've lived.
Edit: Just checked my bill. I pay 8 cents per kWh, which is magnificent compared to the 12-14 I paid at my old place.
You cannot take your very localised and anecdotal experience and draw conclusions about energy cost as a whole. There are many reasons why your electricity now is cheaper than at a different place at a different time.
Besides, nuclear is very expensive compared to other energy sources, it is however often heavily subsidised. Wikipedia has a nice summary on the cost of various electricity sources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity
The issue is that uranium is so cheap nobody wants to use non-virgin fuel. You could recycle the uranium, or use breeder reactors, but both of those have political issues. The current usage of uranium is extremely wasteful and produces lots of unnecessary waste, but I’m not totally convinced that this will change anytime soon.
I agree that it won't change anytime soon. Even if the laws changed overnight it would be decades before we had a full pipeline. That said, I don't consider that a reason not to pursue the research and development of one, or to stop the construction of nuclear plants that's already in progress.
You can get uranium from many sources, and it’s really cheap. Actually, the low price is the reason why we produce as much nuclear waste as we do, as there’s little incentive to use all the energy in the uranium. That said, the amount of waste produced is very low compated to any other category of waste. It’s very overblown.
Nuclear is insanely expensive, but what’s the alternative backups for renewables? Coal, that’s what. Gas is too expensive without Russian supply. Battery storage on a scale of more than 5 minutes is an unsolved problem. To bring the irony full circle coal plants are actually very radioactive.
Hope they do !