"Just as environmentally friendly"? Since when did Wind power require long term storage of waste?
Nuclear power depends on public trust (which is reflected in politics). That trust was just about built up again after Chernobyl when Fukushima happened. Now we'll probably have to wait another 20-30 years (except in China and India, which as both actively pursuing nuclear energy).
>"Just as environmentally friendly"? Since when did Wind power require long term storage of waste?
Never claimed it did. However, the single property/factor of "does it require long term storage of waste" does not determine environmental friendliness, although it's certainly a factor. There are a multitude of factors that people base different weights on. Carbon emissions is a good starting point, and nuclear is even with wind on that one.
So, if wind energy doesn't create waste, doesn't require mining and enrichment and doesn't have a chance of causing a major environmental disaster, how can you claim nuclear energy is "just as environmentally friendly"?
What fantasy world do you live in where the components (both structural and electrical) of a wind turbine require no mining?
Either way though this whole discussion is just ridiculous. Nuclear isn't competing with wind, it's competing with fossil-fueled thermal generation. All of the wind energy that Denmark is producing per this article is less than 1/6th of a single Canadian nuclear power plant (Bruce N.G.S.).
Of course the construction material requires mining. My point was that there is no way you can plausibly claim that nuclear and wind power are equally environmentally friendly. I'm really tired of all the pro-nuclear people here that can't wait to trash any renewable energy as utopian and irrelevant while downplaying the downsides of nuclear power.
Nuclear power depends on public trust (which is reflected in politics). That trust was just about built up again after Chernobyl when Fukushima happened. Now we'll probably have to wait another 20-30 years (except in China and India, which as both actively pursuing nuclear energy).