Thread by @Kaikenhuippu

Thread of the day: Techno-economically, #Nuclear could pretty much stop #climatechange. We need to stop lamenting how hard it is to build because it's politically unpopular (circular argument) and instead start making it more popular. Inherently it's an awesome tech. Here's why:

1/6 First, it is and has been the safest energy source in modern history, by far. This includes accidents, whole life/fuel-cycle and waste storage. The image of #nuclear being dangerous is a dangerous misconception. The most dangerous NPP is one that doesn’t get built!

2/6 The waste issue has been blown out of proportions. #Nuclear waste is the best: 1. It’s tiny. 2. It’s fully collected and accounted for 3. It’s recyclable/reusable. 4. It’s solid and easy to store. 5. It gets less harmful with time, much faster than people think.

3/6 Price. If we don’t discount the future generations, #nuclear lifetime costs are surprisingly low: abt 30 to 60 $/MWh, depending. Not much for reliable, low carbon energy that requires comparably small amount of storage, demand flexibility etc to keep a modern society humming

4/6 We won’t run out of #nuclear fuel. Uranium and thorium are plentiful. Even if it gets several times more expensive to extract uranium from the oceans (they have a lot!) than current mining, it will have relatively small impact on nuclear energy costs.

5/6 Small and/or advanced reactors can be used to decarbonize industrial/district heat, marine transportation, clean hydrogen and synfuel production etc quite affordably. Yet these technologies won’t be realised if #nuclear remains unpopular just because it is unpopular.

6/6 Manufacturing 200MWe SMR’s like we do passenger aeroplanes (~1,400/year) would decarbonize global electricity in dozen years or so (most might be used to clean up heat which is half of our energy use). Add #RE, efficiency and trad. nuclear, and we are stopping #climatechange!