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Nuclear Power Was Once Shunned at Climate Talks. Now, It’s a Rising Star. (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by Sine_Fine_Belli@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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[-] leisesprecher@feddit.org 15 points 3 weeks ago

Batteries can be made from literal saltwater nowadays.

Otherwise, lithium mining is certainly not exactly good for the environment, but can be managed. Uranium (even the non-fissile) is pretty toxic and can contaminate the whole area.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

What happened to the Navajo Nation due to uranium mining is disgusting and it's what made me turn away from supporting the idea of nuclear power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_and_the_Navajo_people

[-] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

The early and mid 20th century was the era of thousands of Superfund sites. This particular incident doesn't seem any worse than average. We're still dealing with the toxic aftermath of mining and processing all sorts of minerals with no regard for the environment during that time. Is uranium actually any worse than any other mineral in that sense?

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

I'm not sure "it's no more a local environmental catastrophe and healthcare nightmare than other forms of mining" is exactly a good argument to do it. And as I showed in another link, we have 90 more years of uranium to power the reactors we currently have, so we better hope we come up with some new way to power reactors quickly considering how long it takes to build one plant with the current technology we can come up with.

[-] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 weeks ago

You did not show any such thing in your other link, rather the exact opposite.

By your logic about environmental impact, we should then stop ALL mining and processing activities because they caused pollution a century ago. That's obviously not realistic, practical, nor even helpful. It should be based on the technology and environmental impact of today.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

Are you claiming uranium mining no longer causes environmental and health problems on a local level? That's quite a claim.

It's also not true.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3653646/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK201047/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020320626

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK201052/

I admit, I am only smart enough to understand the abstracts of the papers and I did not read every link in its entirety, but this does not sound like a solved issue by any means.

I just went to the conclusion of this long paper, which essentially says "we just don't know enough to assess how bad it could be, but it could be bad," and I think the final sentence is especially prescient:

Our engineered solutions may well become the contaminated sites of the future.

https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1228_web.pdf

Now, if your argument is that it is necessary to cause damage to the local environment and cause a lot of early, painful deaths, I would again say that is not a good argument.

[-] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 weeks ago

I did not make any claim. As I said in my first comment, I have no idea what the environmental impact of uranium mining is. My point in the previous comment is merely that using an example from the 1950s is useless as we can find similar environmental disasters for any mineral we were mining in that era.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

Okay, well now you have a lot more evidence that mining uranium is a really bad idea. Do you agree?

[-] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 weeks ago

Will get back to you once I've had a chance to read through them, but I have no reason to think you're mistaken.

this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024

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