> This includes the complete chain from uranium mining to waste disposal.
Yes, but that's just the CO2 emissions and completely ignores the financial cost of tearing down the plants and maintain the waste site. The teardown for a nuclear site can easily reach dozens of billions of dollars, and the forever costs (literal translation of the German word Ewigkeitskosten) even more. Many countries have some sort of trust fund, but these are nowhere near enough to cover the costs (which is conveniently ignored by politicians because if they would do something about it, nuclear power would not be cost-efficient any more).
> You make a good point in that it takes a long time to build and certify new nuclear power plants. This is one more reason why we need to start building them now rather when we realize that we are still burning too much coal, gas and oil in 2030.
Why build nuclear plants at all and load our children with the debt of having to take care of even more nuclear waste than we already have? I mean, in the US you have enough deserts to bury that stuff until the sun explodes, and if some accident happens it will stay contained... but Europe is too geologically unstable and most importantly way too densely settled and Russia isn't a destination either, geopolitical tensions aside the permafrost is thawing and just dumping stuff into the Arctic Ocean should be out of the question.
Also, nuclear plants need nuclear fuel, which is difficult to mine, creates a lot of toxic waste and most importantly nearly three quarters of the world's production originate from one or another kind of dictatorship, kingdoms and other barely functioning governments [1]. What use is it to discontinue oil and gas from Russia and OPEC if all it does is tying us to the next bunch of dictators?
The base night load can be handled by geothermal, wind and water (dams, tidal energy) - the most important thing is to create solid trans-European power lines that can handle shifting energy all around the continent. For the daily peak load, add solar to the mix.
The reason why it still is a good idea to do this is climate change. The cost of not doing anything is much greater than the cost of building new nuclear plants. There are no technical problems with storing waste - it's entirely political. The technically most suitable storage sites in Germany were dismissed for state politics reasons. Instead they chose a technically unsuitable site - Gorleben - which then turned out to be surprisingly unsuitable.
Yes, but that's just the CO2 emissions and completely ignores the financial cost of tearing down the plants and maintain the waste site. The teardown for a nuclear site can easily reach dozens of billions of dollars, and the forever costs (literal translation of the German word Ewigkeitskosten) even more. Many countries have some sort of trust fund, but these are nowhere near enough to cover the costs (which is conveniently ignored by politicians because if they would do something about it, nuclear power would not be cost-efficient any more).
> You make a good point in that it takes a long time to build and certify new nuclear power plants. This is one more reason why we need to start building them now rather when we realize that we are still burning too much coal, gas and oil in 2030.
Why build nuclear plants at all and load our children with the debt of having to take care of even more nuclear waste than we already have? I mean, in the US you have enough deserts to bury that stuff until the sun explodes, and if some accident happens it will stay contained... but Europe is too geologically unstable and most importantly way too densely settled and Russia isn't a destination either, geopolitical tensions aside the permafrost is thawing and just dumping stuff into the Arctic Ocean should be out of the question.
Also, nuclear plants need nuclear fuel, which is difficult to mine, creates a lot of toxic waste and most importantly nearly three quarters of the world's production originate from one or another kind of dictatorship, kingdoms and other barely functioning governments [1]. What use is it to discontinue oil and gas from Russia and OPEC if all it does is tying us to the next bunch of dictators?
The base night load can be handled by geothermal, wind and water (dams, tidal energy) - the most important thing is to create solid trans-European power lines that can handle shifting energy all around the continent. For the daily peak load, add solar to the mix.
[1]: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/uranium-p...