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While it was a net benefit to close this specific plant, fossil fuel power plants pump radioactive particles into the environment along with other pollutants.

Oh good info. I am Pro Nuclear and Pro renewable. I think modern reactors have a real place in our future grid, but yeah old leaky reactors we should get rid of.

I trust nuclear can be built safely, problem is I don't trust the humans building, maintaining, and running it to not cut corners. I flat out didn't trust nuclear that's run for profit as shareholders will demand cost cutting to maximize profits, and I didn't know if I'd trust publication funded nuclear to stay properly funded.

I'm pro nuclear based on the science, but I'm anti nuclear based on humanity. Nuclear absolutely can be run safely, but as soon as there's a for profit motive, corporations will try to maximize profits by cutting corners. As long as there's that conflict I don't blame people for being afraid.

You got it. I've had this discussion and the anti nuclear boils down to "somewhat, somehow, something, someone, maybe, possibly, perhaps may go wrong. Anything built by man could fail". There's no logic, just fear.

Modern is a misnomer. Most of our plants are 30+ years old. After 3 Mile Island, nuclear development ground to a halt in the US. No new nuclear power began development after 1979 except 2 new reactors at the existing Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia that were approved in 2009.

And only one reactor at Indian Point came online in the 60s. Units 2 and 3 came online 12 and 14 years after unit one. And unit 1 was decommissioned in 1974 as it is, shortly after unit 2 came online.

In any case, why not fix the issue rather than just shutting the plant?

And that does not make the headline "inflammatory." It is accurate. People just assume that nuclear will be magically replaced by renewables. But you can't just do that. You can draw a direct line from the closure of Indian Point to the construction of 3 natural gas turbine plants.

Three natural gas-fired power plants have been introduced over the past three years to help support the electric supply needed by New York City that Indian Point had been providing: Bayonne Energy Center II (120 MW), CPV Valley Energy Center (678 MW), and Cricket Valley Energy Center (1,020 MW).

Besides the text of the article, there is the issue that environmentalist fear-mongering about nuclear energy caused extreme hesitance to build a new plant and that has lead directly to greenhouse gas emissions increases.

Indeed, we are not immune to propaganda.

I'm 112% for replacing old outdated and unsafe infrastructure.

However, a new, updated, far safer plant will not get built to replace this one. Or any that close in the US until some people die off or shit really hits the fan energy-wise and people get more desperate. This is the least favorable time to build "safe" things.

This plant needed to be closed, but something has to replace it. And unless people start forcing renewables, shit like this is just the norm. Plant closes, nothing replaces it except fossil fuels, emissions go up.

additionally when the older plants are well maintained they are much safer than they’re made out to be.

This one was leaking radioactive matter into the river upstream of NYC...

Even just primary fluid leaking into secondary is a giant issue.

Radioactive matter in the river means containment leaked to primary, then leaked to secondary...

If you don't know why that is so bad, you really shouldn't be talking about how safe nuclear power is. Because even tho you're right, you don't know why.

As long as they are run by corporations, they will not be well maintained.

Depends on where you're talking about. In Australia the right wing are using nuclear as a diversion to slow down the transition to renewables, so they can stay on gas and coal longer.

There's no nuclear power in Australia, and the time needed to create the industry, train or poach workers, create a plant and get it up and running makes no environmental or economical sense compared to what they are already set to achieve with wind, solar and storage.

If you've already got nuclear up and running, use it, but each new plant needs to be compared to the alternatives for that specific location, and the track record of the nuclear industry and government in that location.

There's a legitimate argument that we can't grow our way out of climate change, and the real solution to our emissions problem is degrowth and descaling of our obscene rates of consumption. In that sense, had they been closing the plant with the expectation of drastically reducing energy demand, it might have made sense.

Its not as though nuclear energy produces no waste, just extremely low levels of CO2 waste. But if you're just going to replace energy demand (and continue to grow energy supply) with new coal/gas consumption, who are you fooling except yourselves?

Environmentalists have only come around to nuclear in the last half-decade or so. For a long time after 3MI and Chernobyl, nuclear was the devil.

After Fukushima there was a pretty widespread movement to get rid of nuclear power.

They probably definitely wanted it closed. To bad they didn't guess the likely alternatives that would take its place, an push for that too...

One of the biggest environmental groups in the world is vehemently anti nuclear

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/fighting-climate-chaos/issues/nuclear/

Germany's electric energy emissions steadily went down despite exiting nuclear power because Germany actually invests in renewables.

Because it was leaking radioactive matter into the river upstream of one of the most densely populated areas in this hemisphere...