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As it is we have an ever increasing "need" for electric. Additionally one way to move away from fossil fuels is to make as many things as possible electric. Cars, heating in buildings, cookers, anything that can be should be.
Ideally all these things could then be powered by renewable sources of electricity. But we aren't there yet. Some estimates say that we are 40 years from having enough. There are still way too many fossil fuel power stations. There is a limited supply of fuel for them, mostly coal, but also oil and gas. But the biggest issue is the immense pollution they already make and would only get worse if more things were electric.
Renewables have a reliability problem. It isn't sunny 24 hours a day for solar panel and there isn't constant wind for turbines. Tidal power is more predicable and usage is increasing, but isn't widley used yet. There needs to be a way to store energy while less is being generated to provide a constant supply.
The obvious, but not the only, way to store the energy is a battery. Rechargable battery technology has changed dramatically in a short time but extracting the raw materials can be devastating to the environment.
Fusion reactors may also be a solution. These would produce enormous amounts of energy using tiny amounts of fuel and little pollution. There is very promising research but actual power stations are not a reality yet. There is no way of knowing when we will have them and it probably won't be soon enough to help with climate change.
The important thing to remember is we have to move away from fossil fuels, other than the issues of breathing in all the pollution, the current climate crisis demands it. There is already going to be widespred disaster from the increase in average global temperature, so the less it increases the better. In addition to this coal power puts more mercury into the atmosphere than anything else. This will never go away.
So the best option we have at the moment is nuclear fission. This is the standard nuclear power station most people think of and a lot are worried about. Forget leaking barrels of glowing green goo dumped into lakes making three eyed fish. Nuclear power is not like most people think. And the waste isn't as much of an issue either.
Due to a number of factors nuclear power stations have become very expensive to build in a lot of countries which can be offputting. And public opinion generally has a negative view of them. They last for around 50 years once built. Most of the current technology was designed no later than the 70's.
The advantages are that the amount of fuel needed is miniscule and the waste isn't emitted into the air unlike fossil fuel electrical generation.
The vast majority of the radioactive waste can be stored on site, at the power station, and is only dangerous for a few decades. Only a very small proportion, maybe 5%, will be dangerous for longer. This long term waste is left to cool in water for up to 10 years then combined with glass and ceramics and encased in concrete and steel in dry casks and kept above ground.
Several ideas have been thought of for long term storage of the casks, one promising one is to bore holes into areas with no geological issues and drop the casks in. The transport casks that are used are virtually indestructable and would easily survive a head on collision with a train.
Current nuclear power is generated with uranium. The same basic design has been in use since the 50's. However another option would be thorium. There is much more of this and there would be less waste as it would be more efficient.
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