“The answer is we don’t have a great long term solution for how we’re doing nuclear waste.”
Wrong answer.
My city rejected one of these data centers already. They were promised something like $30mil for their trouble and “the creation of
temporaryjobs!” Thank goodness they listened to the People and their own common sense and unanimously rejected the proposal.$30mil flat price and a few temporary jobs aren’t worth everyone’s energy costs going up, plus the noise pollution, plus the fact that they’re a fuck ugly eyesore—all for the foreseeable future.
Fuck these technobro assholes. Get the fuck outta our state!
Nuclear? Yes.
Data center? Absolutely not.
No nuclear without a plan of how the waste will be handled and disposed of. And “make the taxpayer foot the bill” is not it.
Nuclear energy would have bailed our asses out of climate catastrophy decades ago if not for oil propaganda after Chernobyl.
That waste can be safely disposed of, and even if it’s not perfect, it’s miles better than burning coal or other fossil fuels.
Did you even read the article? They don’t know what to do with the waste because no one will take it. They also want the taxpayer to foot the bill for its disposal even though this is a private project, not energy for the consumer.
I’m fine with nuclear if you factor in all of its associated expenses as part of its true costs. Reprocessing plants are expensive. Waste disposal is expensive. There’s a great storage facility in Finland that seems to have been done correctly, but it cost a fortune to build.
You also have to remember that people are greedy and they always cut corners on these kinds of projects. Nuclear looks great on paper, but humans get involved and you end up with problems like this:
https://theecologist.org/2025/jun/04/nuclear-power-leakage-scandal
Or this:
Or people brilliantly decide to build build the plant on a fault line:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_earthquake_vulnerability
Or they don’t think of every contingency and you end up with Fukushima.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident
Or people illegally dump the waste in the ocean rather than dispose of it properly and you end up with radioactive shrimp recalls every other week.
I also doubt nuclear would have bailed us out any faster than renewables have. Solar and wind are getting close to free, and the powers that be STILL are fighting over, subsidizing, and pushing oil on us.
Don’t misunderstand me, oil and gas are horrific environmental disasters. I just don’t think nuclear power is a magical solution either.
I did not. Your comment said no nuclear, and I just assumed you had meant at all and not just for datacenters.
Nuclear energy is a net positive.
I have seen enough about it over the years to not need to read this article to know that it is the cheapest and cleanest and has been for a long time. The initial investment and ROI is extremely steep, but once the infrastructure is there, it leads by miles.
Solar and wind are likely catching up, and that’s also a great thing, but nuclear energy and it’s designs have also improved in that time.
You can link humans fucking shit up all day, but that has to apply to every other source of energy too. There are plenty of negatives when considering wind and solar if you factor in human greed. Take that out of the equation and you’ve got a clear winner.
