Is this true? I googled "growth of nuclear power" and got some optimistic results!
Discussion
Only in countries outside the "Rainbow Curtain", but yes its true.
Quite a few otherwise-useless Third World governments have seen the direction the West is heading and decided to invest in building domestic nuclear energy instead.
Yes, I work at a nuclear laboratory and the technology has gotten exponentially more advanced, safe and efficient. The only hold back was regulatory action. Now with a Trump administration that is expected to no longer be an issue.
Small Modular Reactors are going to really take off soon.
Exponentially more safe?
There have already been more major orphan source incidents in the 2020s than the 2010s and we're not even at the decade's halfway point yet.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has previously estimated that approximately 375 sources are reported lost, stolen or abandoned each year, about one a day (Meserve 2000).
The actual number is higher because not all such losses of control are reported.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orphan_source_incidents
List of orphan source incidents
2020s
January 2023 โ Western Australian radioactive capsule incident: A capsule of caesium-137 went missing from a truck in Western Australia somewhere along a stretch of highway 1,400 kilometres long while being transported between a mine in the Pilbara region and a depot in Perth.[60] After an extensive search the ceramic source, with an activity of 19 GBq (0.51 Ci),[61] was recovered without incident six days after it was discovered missing.[62]
March 2023 โ A radiographic camera containing radioactive material went missing from a work truck belonging to the Statewide Maintenance Company in Houston, United States;[63] it was returned intact in May 2023.[64]
March 2023 โ Four iridium-192 sources (with radioactivity levels of 35.64, 7.61, 1.14 and 0.11 Ci) were stolen, along with the truck being used to transport them, in Salamanca, Guanajuato, Mexico. An alert covering seven central states was issued.[65][66] The sources were recovered six days later after an anonymous call.[67]
June 2023 - Two caesium-137 sources were reportedly stolen from a mining facility in Nazareno, Minas Gerais, Brazil, where they were being used in density measuring equipment. The National Nuclear Energy Commission has stated that these sources are 300,000 times weaker than the one involved in the 1987 Goiรขnia accident, with an activity of 5 mCi each (0.185 GBq), or 10 mCi combined (0.37 GBq).[68] On July 10, the two sources were found on a scrapyard in Sรฃo Paulo, 432 km away from their original location. They were sent to the Nuclear and Energy Research Institute for analysis to determine their integrity, dosage and usage conditions.[69]
May 2024 - Two Americium-241 sources were deposited at a swap shop at Electromagnetic Field Festival in Eastnor, Herefordshire. The sources were recovered for disposal by a participant at the festival.[70] These sources were rated to provide 3.5 ฮผCi.
July 2024 - A van containing five drums of Technetium-99 and Germanium-68 was stolen in Sรฃo Mateus, in eastern Sรฃo Paulo. Although the theft happened on the 1st of June, the National Nuclear Energy Commission only made this information public on the 5th of July. Authorities claim said sources have "an extremely low radioactive risk to the general population", and advise the public to keep their distance and call the police if any of the drums is found.[71] As of July 5th, one of the drums, blue in colour, was found open in an empty lot.[72]
Note: no known casualties in these incidents, luckily
We could stop prospecting for oil and gas. And stop inspecting welds in large steel structures. And stop medical imaging.
Because that's what those orphaned sources were actually needed for. Not for nuclear energy.
That data shows we in the West are panicking over nothingburgers more than ever before.
The only one of those services we currently need in North America is medical imaging, and even in that, if you're working with people who mishandle nuclear material and you can't stop them, you might want to quit.
Now google 375 orphan sources a year
In my country, radioactive coal fly ash is used as filler in prefab apartment construction. But its a natural radioactivity, you know.
I expect every modern apartment block in Australia thus creates more human exposure to radiation than ALL those orphaned sources combined.
The total isn't the issue, the worst parts are the issue.
The most radioactive apartment block in Australia should not be radioactive enough to use as a murder weapon.
The most radioactive orphan sources are a scary thing to imagine the deep state using to kill me.
There are tens of thousands of apartment blocks in Australia, exposing millions of people. But its only murder if its illegal, and its not illegal.
The deep state has innumerable ways to kill you. I don't worry about them using Co-60 to give me cancer. I worry about them planting "terrorist literature" on my phone via its closed-source modem, and locking me away for good.
I talked about my closed-source modem fears in my article about smartphones - where I also worry about that being another way to kill me with radiation ๐
Terrorist literature doesn't scare me so much because I am a terrorist anyway so it would be kinda fair
Yes. I post a ton of nuclear power shit. Scroll my feed for the last couple months and it's been nothing but great news.