this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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The Climate Crisis
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The impacts and solutions of the Climate Crisis
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Nuclear is terrifying, but global warming is an existential nightmare. I'll take nuclear any day.
Nothing about nuclear power generation needs to be terrifying. The incidents that have scared people into thinking "nuclear is bad" all happened in poorly regulated (Chernobyl or 3-mile Island) or outdated (Fukushima) power stations. It's like saying that air travel is dangerous because a privately-owned vintage plane from the 1950s crashed. There are so many regulations, engineering controls, and governmental policies that keep nuclear power safe. The problem is that we're not putting enough resources into modernizing old plants and building new ones, and that's exactly because people are scared.