this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:

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Trump Orders Faster Build-Out of Nuclear Power Plants | Among a flurry of executive actions, Mr. Trump directed the nation’s nuclear safety regulator to speed up approvals for new reactors. (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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It's worth noting that he also fired many of the staff who know how to ensure that they're actually safe, as well as the staff who would approve financing.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

There you go again with that 100k years number which is a made up number. Fissile products from reactors decay in under 100 years. The only stays radioactive that long is plutonium. Which is not a fissile product or spent fuel.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

It's not made up. What the fuck? Why do you think geological storage is a thing? Are you really this uninformed?

German informational platform (translaw via DeepL):

There is still no final repository in Germany for the highly radioactive waste from the use of nuclear energy - around 27,000 cubic meters. The waste will continue to radiate for hundreds of thousands of years and could endanger people and the environment. Internationally, experts advocate storage in rock layers deep below the earth's surface.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-waste/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities

The nuclear industry has developed – and implemented – most of the necessary technologies required for the final disposal of all of the waste it produces. The remaining issue is one of public acceptance, and not of technological feasibility.

The amount of waste produced by the nuclear power industry is small relative to other industrial activities. 97% of the waste produced is classified as low- or intermediate-level waste (LLW or ILW). Such waste has been widely disposed of in near-surface repositories for many years. In France, where fuel is reprocessed, just 0.2% of all radioactive waste by volume is classified as high-level waste (HLW).a

  1. Nuclear waste is hazardous for tens of thousands of years. This clearly is unprecedented and poses a huge threat to our future generations

Many industries produce hazardous and toxic waste. All toxic waste needs to be dealt with safely, not just radioactive waste.

The radioactivity of nuclear waste naturally decays, and has a finite radiotoxic lifetime. Within a period of 1,000-10,000 years, the radioactivity of HLW decays to that of the originally mined ore. Its hazard then depends on how concentrated it is. By comparison, other industrial wastes (e.g. heavy metals, such as cadmium and mercury) remain hazardous indefinitely.

Most nuclear waste produced is hazardous, due to its radioactivity, for only a few tens of years and is routinely disposed of in near-surface disposal facilities (see above). Only a small volume of nuclear waste (~3% of the total) is long-lived and highly radioactive and requires isolation from the environment for many thousands of years.

International conventions define what is hazardous in terms of radiation dose, and national regulations limit allowable doses accordingly. Well-developed industry technology ensures that these regulations are met so that any hazardous waste is handled in a way it poses no risk to human health or the environment. Waste is converted into a stable form that is suitable for disposal. In the case of HLW, a multi-barrier approach, combining containment and geological disposal, ensures isolation of the waste from people and the environment for thousands of years.

High Level Waste makes up .2% of all waste generated by nuclear facilities, Plutonium being a minority of that. Geostorage was implimented because of military applications of plutonium that expired and had to be stored. Over a third of all nuclear waste in the US is military waste. But because Plutonium is part of high level waste all HLW is treated as if it's plutonium because of the overzealous safety standards. You can not produce plutonium from uranium in a fissile reaction. That's not how fission works. The actual fissile products from spent fuel decay below background radiation in under 100 years.

About 400,000 tonnes of used fuel has been discharged from reactors worldwide, with about one-third having been reprocessed.

The only misinformation I'm seeing in this conversation is you not understanding what nuclear waste actually is, how much is actually produced, and how long it persists. A process we are getting better and better at reducing the amount of waste every decade inspite of people like you trying to kill nuclear for no other reason than you buy into all of big oil's lies and misinformation about it.