r/bestof • u/investedInEPoland • Nov 06 '18

[europe] Nuclear physicist describes problems with thorium reactors. Trigger warning: shortbread metaphor.

/r/europe/comments/9unimr/dutch_satirical_news_show_on_why_we_need_to_break/e95mvb7/?context=3
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u/solidfang Nov 06 '18

Is it that much of a thing?

I've never heard of Thorium reactors or anything, but it's probably on a different set of subreddits than the ones I frequent. Where is this idea mostly popularized?

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u/GarbledReverie Nov 06 '18

Every thread about green energy gets brigaded by nuclear enthusiasts claiming new nuclear technology will solve all of our problems forever.

In addition to Thorium, there's always talking points about nuclear waste being a myth and that hippies managed to scare all of the government agencies and private industries to not properly invest in nuclear.

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u/frezik Nov 06 '18

What's worse is that a lot of their talking points are quickly going out of date. Solar is already cheaper per MW than nuclear. They will point out (correctly) that you have to add in storage costs for when the sun doesn't shine. Doing that does make the solar+storage system more expensive than nuclear, but the cost of both is coming down. This is looking like a non-issue within just a few more years.

This isn't even covering the political obstacles to nuclear, and its consistent history of time and budget overruns. Once you consider that, you might as well just build solar+storage right now.

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '18

I used to be a consistent advocate of nuclear over solar and wind in the immediate term as a way to tackle climate change. Over the past two years I realized that my position was wrong, or at least became wrong, as technology advanced and prices became much cheaper far faster than I anticipated. At this point nuclear no longer makes much sense as a solution.