this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
53 points (100.0% liked)
science
23377 readers
366 users here now
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
rule #1: be kind
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation
Maybe we should do more research on turning these hazardous products into safer, more stable substances. I'm no nuclear engineer, but it looks like the primary method is bombarding the isotopes with neutrons. How much energy does that take compared to the energy generated by the reactor?
It's a good goal, but last I heard we were very far off from that being economical compared to just throwing it in a hole forever (which is honestly pretty expensive).
If the problem is economic in nature then the solution is to change the system of economics until it fits material reality, not wait until material reality can fit into our arbitrary system of economics. I'm so sick of "economically viable" being the limiting factor to societal progress.
maybe nuclear energy isnt part of sociatal progress.
Don't see any reasons why it can't and plenty of reasons why it should.
Too expensive and thus a too heavy burden on society while much cheaper alternatives exist.
"expensive"
How? In what terms?
Because during my studies in conservation, the only barrier of "expensive" is monetary cost which is entirely societal systems of arbitrary monetary value which has nothing to do with the actual material or labor costs.
Is it actually a burden on society or simply a burden on the interests of private industry?
Man, shit gets really expensive sometimes. We can wish with all of our hearts that medicine, chemistry, physics, etc. get more viable, but that isn't how it works.
Things are only "expensive" because of our arbitrarily designed system of economics. Money is fake. We can change the rules to fit material reality.
We don't need the science to become viable, we need to change our rules of society to make the science accessible.
Not all things are expensive on a whim. Some things just use massive amounts of material, energy and work hours to be produced. I cannot just stop paying miners their already too low wages. I also cannot take energy for free. It is not like we have all minerals and energy in abundance and have automated the crap out of every production chain.
Miss me with this "capitalist realism" take. Money doesn't make things happen. We can restructure our economic system to not be in a stranglehold of arbitrary monetary value. In our current system that conflates monetary value with material value yes, things are expensive due to whims, specifically the whims of the owning class.
There are other incentives for why people labor than just getting paid.
Well, as I said: not ALL pricing is entirely made up. In particular, in a production chain it makes sense that the price increases with further processing. Why would I sell a gear for less than I paid for the metal I made it from? Why would a bicycle manufacturer sell the bike for less than they paid for the sum of its parts? You can reduce the profit to nothingness, but you still need to assure a living wage for all the people involved (as long as you have morals). That means that there at least is some rules that need to be followed in pricing. And complicated things tend to be expensive. A computer chip must always be more expensive than a gram of sand and that's not arbitrary.
I'm pretty sure that many unpleasant jobs like mining do require monetary recompensation if the task is not pleasant by itself. I can't imagine how else one would incentivize this kind of labor.
This right here is the entire flaw of monetary based economics. It always comes down to the profit incentive which drives people towards individualist, selfish behavior instead of thinking about the actual material efficiency or benefits.
This assumes that a "wage" is necessary and not a handicap put in place to force the masses to have to pay for access to necessities from an owning class who only serves to hoard resources for the purposes of selling it back for profit. People only need a wage because the owning class relegates necessities behind their system of private ownership and require payment before they allow people access to what should already be communal property.
People were doing unpleasant necessities for hundreds of thousands of years before money was even a concept. People understand that things need to be done if things are to exist. People like feeling useful in their community. So long as they are respected and provided for, they are more likely to be willing to labor for the sake of the community because they find fulfillment in hard work. Sure not everyone will, many would like to specialize in less physical labor, but there are more than enough who swear by "an honest day's work".
You still limit yourself by thinking these systems are immutable facts of life and not societal norms that can be changed.
When it comes to scientific endeavors, "expensive" very often means "we need a rare element" which is in fact, expensive in every sense of the word
There’s a word for that: a nuclear reactor!
You may be interested in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
Fusion power, if ever realized, also has a high neutron flux at a high neutron temperature, though it faces the same issue of “in the short term, it's more expensive than just storing waste in a hole”