Relatively, yes, and not to mean somewhat. For the amount of power generated, the spent fuel/water is really not that significant.
Nothing is purely clean. Making solar panels and batteries isn’t clean; it’s just that coal and natural gas are extremely dirty on a mass scale, environmentally speaking.
If we could get the ‘big scare’ concept of Nuclear under control, we could make some systems that are even cleaner. There’s no apetite for that though.
Relatively, yes, and not to mean somewhat. For the amount of power generated, the spent fuel/water is really not that significant.
Absolutely speaking, controlling nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years is impossible and any rationalization when cheaper and regenerative options exist is idiotic.
deep enough, below the water table. (if it even exists where you pick a location) no big deal. There’s worse things down there already than moderately low level radioactive metals. It’s not like we aren’t fracking underneath peoples homes now. releasing dangerous gasses, causing earthquakes, yada yada. That’s the other good part about the deep desert: it’s already inhospitable enough that people don’t gather there uniformly in great numbers. If you buy up some land and cordon it off, it’s not really screwing with people. What if you put it deep in the Sahara?
When drilling is suddenly OK, then forego the nuclear reactor and go straight to geothermal.
Geo is a great idea, sadly they have trouble getting it to scale, and locating hot enough pockets proves elusive. If you’re in volcanic areas, medium-sized geothermal is amazing. IIRC Iceland uses it to great effect but it doesn’t work just anywhere. We can’t drill so deep that it gets hot enough to make a difference; you need to find a spot where the crust is already thin.
Now that’s not to be confused with geothermal at the house level for heatpumps, that is straight up awesome but works on a very different concept and can’t really scale at all… well it would be nice if all these fucking datacenters would use that instead of evaporative loops. but that’s a different story.
edit 2 looking at the carbon footprint of concrete, you’d spend more carbon drilling the hole and getting the waste to the hole than the plug you used to fill it. and you’d be able to store decades of terawatts of energy refuse in that hole
Relatively, yes, and not to mean somewhat. For the amount of power generated, the spent fuel/water is really not that significant.
Nothing is purely clean. Making solar panels and batteries isn’t clean; it’s just that coal and natural gas are extremely dirty on a mass scale, environmentally speaking.
If we could get the ‘big scare’ concept of Nuclear under control, we could make some systems that are even cleaner. There’s no apetite for that though.
Absolutely speaking, controlling nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years is impossible and any rationalization when cheaper and regenerative options exist is idiotic.
Purchase 10 sq miles iround a mine Fill below any water table, fill with concrete
Deep drill past aquifers drop waste in hole.
Not cheap, but you can really do that.
Ignoring options with the benefits of 24x7 steady state generation is far more idiotic.
And that concrete is 100% carbon neutral and will never be affected by earthquakes.
When drilling is suddenly OK, then forego the nuclear reactor and go straight to geothermal.
Tell that to your nuclear waste buddies who oppose geothermal.
deep enough, below the water table. (if it even exists where you pick a location) no big deal. There’s worse things down there already than moderately low level radioactive metals. It’s not like we aren’t fracking underneath peoples homes now. releasing dangerous gasses, causing earthquakes, yada yada. That’s the other good part about the deep desert: it’s already inhospitable enough that people don’t gather there uniformly in great numbers. If you buy up some land and cordon it off, it’s not really screwing with people. What if you put it deep in the Sahara?
Geo is a great idea, sadly they have trouble getting it to scale, and locating hot enough pockets proves elusive. If you’re in volcanic areas, medium-sized geothermal is amazing. IIRC Iceland uses it to great effect but it doesn’t work just anywhere. We can’t drill so deep that it gets hot enough to make a difference; you need to find a spot where the crust is already thin.
Now that’s not to be confused with geothermal at the house level for heatpumps, that is straight up awesome but works on a very different concept and can’t really scale at all… well it would be nice if all these fucking datacenters would use that instead of evaporative loops. but that’s a different story.