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It's always troubled me that the green folks wanting to eliminate fossil fuels will turn their head away from nuclear energy, pretending that the fate of Chernobyl is emblematic of all nuclear energy plants. OPEC has the monopoly on oil and the R&D into green forms of energy aren't happening fast enough, especially when you eliminate nuclear as an option.
My position is as follows.
- oil and gas, in a world where its consumption will drop noticeably in the future, is now becoming a weapon, or a means of terrorism in some hands. This means that it is necessary to look for an alternative and diversify the supply of this resource, in order to reduce the effect of economic terror to zero. As you can see, on the market only 1 semi-monopolist begins to "show" what he can do if his conditions are not met, and has already exponentially inflated the gas price over $ 2,000. Such suppliers should simply be removed from the market.
- NPP is a rather controversial decision. On the one hand, it is a highly efficient source of electricity. On the other hand, over the past decades there has been a huge number of very serious accidents. Each nuclear power plant is a potential global collapse. And given that cheap and affordable electricity for some entities is an inconvenient competitor, and they have no moral principles, NPPs can become the next means of terror. It is enough to stop the nuclear power plant - and entire regions will be without electricity, the collapse of production, logistics and other things. But this may not seem enough, and people who swarmed the idea of world terrorism, and who easily use chemical warfare agents against citizens of other countries, will commit a full-fledged terrorist attack at nuclear power plants without unnecessary torment of conscience. And this is already tens of thousands of lives, millions of kilometers of territories polluted for centuries ... No, this is not paranoia. This is a simple statement of what will happen if no alternative paths are found.
- Solar, tidal, wind, and other technologies - may well become the alternative that will provide the required amount of energy, without significant risks. For this, a good step would be a legislative norm - taxes on the production and sale of oil and gas for the development of more efficient green technologies. Just imagine what will happen if today's efficiency of mass-produced solar panels becomes 2-3 times more efficient and the price falls? Who will need oil and gas in such volumes?
I don't really think that nuclear is as dangerous as people think it is.
Chernobyl isn't emblematic of nuclear energy, although it's something a lot of people think about on this topic. Keep in mind, what happened in Chernobyl was during the Soviet era with low safety standards and ancient technology. We're light years ahead of what we had then, and I don't think the small risk of accidents outweigh the amount of energy you can produce. Realistically, nuclear waste is the only downside, but oil production produces a lot of waste within itself. Oil results in larger CO2 emissions as well, so the trade off isn't that bad.