• federal reverse@feddit.orgM
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    1 month ago

    The only way to generate short-term profits from nuclear power is to take over a running reactor. But building these things takes a close-to-prohibitive amount of money in all Western countries. There must be motivations other than cost effectiveness.

    • Ooops@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      The motivation is getting money from lobbyists.

      And those don’t even need to be pro-nuclear lobbyists… fossil fuel ones will do to as every single “sure, we totally will build nuclear power and it will magically solve all our problems (even i fthe capacity is meaningless to actually solve anything)”-story helps to delay reneweable power.

      • federal reverse@feddit.orgM
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        1 month ago

        Weird how fossil fuel companies also managed to instrumentalize solar PV too. Iirc, both Shell and BP created solar departments which they then allowed to generate a low single-digit percentage of revenue. Thus, a) generating positive media coverage and b) not endangering their fossil core business.

        • Melchior@feddit.org
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          1 month ago

          Not at all. Renewables used to be so expensive, that they were basically not an option. That is no longer the case.

          Today nuclear is great as a new power plant takes a decade in planning, approving and building before it produces any power. So a decade more fossil fuels.

    • lettruthout@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Agreed that other motivations exist, but the companies building the reactors are the ones making the profit - not tax/rate payers