• PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    A lot of the anti-nuclear sentiment comes from the 80s when the concerns were a lot more valid (and likely before half the pro-nuclear people in this thread were born).

    But blaming people on social media for blocking progress on it is a stretch. They’re multi-billion dollar projects. Have any major governments or businesses actually proposed building more but then buckled to public pressure?

    Anyway, I’m glad this conversation has made it to Lemmy because I’ve long suspected the conspicuous popularly and regularity of posts like this on Reddit was the work of a mining lobby that can’t deny climate change anymore, but won’t tolerate profits falling.

    • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      My parents, who are boomers, are vocally anti nuclear because when they were children through young adulthood, had weekly nuclear drills. Stop, drop and roll. They thought it was ridiculous, and believe that all nuclear technology should be destroyed as it leads to nuclear weapons. They also strongly believe that the human race will make itself extinct in a nuclear war any moment now.

    • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Mining lobby? You realize that most of what is mined are the roughly 2 billion tons of iron ore annually. While uranium mining is what… 50,000 tons a year?

      • PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        There is no version of Earth where mining executives say “It’s fine, our profits are already profitable enough”.

        Astro-turf is cheap and uranium is expensive – something you conviently left out to focus purely on tonnage, which bears little relation to profitability.