Reply #22: It is not that easy. [View All]

[Kellanved]

With the energy consumption rising, there is no other answer than nuclear at the moment. Not going nuclear means drastic cutbacks in power consumption.

Yet, natural uranium won't last forever; with increased use we'll see an oil-like(probably a lot faster) price-increase within the next few decades - and we'll see fast-breeders. AFAIK, there still is no "clean" and "safe" fast-breeder concept. Even if there were: breeders mean reprocessing and reprocessing is a lot dirtier than it sounds.

The other thing to consider with nuclear power is this: it means the government is taking power back into its own hands. There is no way for private companies to research nuclear power and to build such a plant without massive public financial and scientific aid.
Even after the construction, things like securing the plant, circumventing damage payments in the case of an accident (AKA being allowed to run a plant without insurance) and the disposal of the waste are impossible without 7/24 taxpayer support.
As the icing: new major plants (and nuclear means major in 95% of all cases) will require a new power grid. I don't see that one happening without public inventions.


On Edit:
As to the CO2 argument: rising consumption always means more CO2. No matter how the power was produced; it is in the nature of the beast.