> I just don't trust governments or corporations to maintain, inspect, manage and operate nuclear power plants at scale.
This is my biggest concern as well. However it needs to be balanced against the alternative, which is trusting governments and corporations to deal with climate change in other ways.
A reality check tells us:
1. Governments and corporations have not responded to climate change adequately so far and there is no evidence that this is about to change.
2. Even with the high profile accidents, nuclear power is something we know we can actually do, and has produced fewer excess deaths than coal.
> Governments and corporations have not responded to climate change adequately
This is something that's both true and untrue. On the face of it, it's absolutely true. But what are governments, really? They're a reflection of the people they govern. So governments haven't responded because it simply isn't a priority for most people.
I've long held the view that we'll only have a solution to climate change when it becomes economic to do so. The pandemic has only strengthened that view. We have millions of people who won't even mildly inconvenience themselves to help stop others (and themselves) from getting seriously ill or dying.
And you want those same people to do something about climate change?
By "economic" I mean we simply need cheaper sources of energy than fossil fuels. That could be because something else gets cheaper, fossil fuels due to scarcity simply get more expensive or some combination of the two.
The biggest hope for that currently seems to be solar, which has seen its price plummet in the last 20 years.
We already have the technology to make fuel from the air but there's no point burning fossil fuels to do that. If however your energy came from a cheaper source there is a price point where that would make sense. At that point, gas-guzzling vehicles become carbon-neutral.
> This is something that's both true and untrue. On the face of it, it's absolutely true. But what are governments, really? They're a reflection of the people they govern.
This is a pretty naive assumption. There's a pretty huge divergence in what the voting public wants and what governments actually do. For example, the US voting public overwhelmingly wants cannabis legalization, and that is not even remotely a legislative priority. It's delusional to think the government is going to act on the desires of the voting public for something as economically significant as carbon emissions.
> I've long held the view that we'll only have a solution to climate change when it becomes economic to do so.
It'll only be obviously economic to act long after the damage is done, this is the problem. We had enough trouble rallying the government for something as short-term and obvious as covid, good luck showing those with huge political power and vested interests in the status quo that their short term interests are going to be a disaster in a few decades.
Solar can't provide district heating. When temperatures reach -10, -20 celcius, a heat pump's COP is near 1.0, at which point its basically just a space heater.
Small Modular Nuclear Reactors are the perfect solution for Europe: there's plenty of water, typically cold temperatures, intelligent and stable populations, and high densities. Already nuclear plants around the continent provide heat for district heating systems.
Every major town and city in Europe should have a small modular nuclear power plant. We need to begin manufacturing these units in the dozens each year, ideally the hundreds for installation around the OECD.
In places like Australia the plant can also be used to directly power desalinisation and the water will also provide cooling. Otherwise, the major unsolvable issue for Nuclear is the need to provide a direct water source.
> This is my biggest concern as well. However it needs to be balanced against the alternative, which is trusting governments and corporations to deal with climate change in other ways.
Isn't the alternative actually looking into renewable energy sources?
Portraying things as either Nuclear or nothing is a false dillema, specially as we're seeing highly developed and industrialized countries such as Germany where renewables already cover close to half it's energy demands.
France, Sweden, Switzerland and parts of Canada had essentially green electricity for decades. Nuclear did that for the most part.
Germany has spent a long time, a huge amount of money and political will driving into renewables and they are not even close to done.
France in comparison was far, far faster in transition to nuclear any they did it in the 70/80s with basically 60s technology.
Had Germany started building as many nuclear reactors as they can as fast as they can and build them next to coal plants, they would be as Green as France in the next couple years easy.
However they decided to go to renewables and they are literally decades away from being able to run the country 100% on renewables reliability.
Any country that has actually decided to seriously and heavily transition to nuclear was able to do it very quickly.
> That is trusting governments and corporations to deal with climate change in other ways.
Again, that's a false dillema.
At best, Nuclear is being pushed as one of many possible alternative to fossil fuels, and one which has been discarded entailing both high costs (direct and externalities) and high risk.
> You can keep saying it’s a false dilemma, but that doesn’t make it so.
How exactly is the attempt to frame the problem as either adopting Nuclear or else climate change happens not a false dilemma? Are there no other energy sources? Should we intentionally turn a blind eye to real-world example of countries which are both phasing out Nuclear and lowering emissions towards zero?
> If you are satisfied with the alternatives and think they are on track without nuclear, that is a happy belief to hold.
Again with the false dilemma angle? You might have strong opinions regarding how fast the current phase-out is going, but you can't ignore the fact that some nations, like Germany, are managing to meet their targets while phasing out Nuclear. Even so, Nuclear is obviously not the only option to ramp up energy production to phase out fossil fuels.
> 2. Even with the high profile accidents, nuclear power is something we know we can actually do, and has produced fewer excess deaths than coal.
...can "we", do it, though? AFAIR (this is based on an internal study for a policy proposal done in 2015 by a minor Polish party, so take it with a grain of salt) one major issue is the lack of expertise. To build a nuclear power plant safely you need specialized and experienced engineers, and after a long lull in construction, most states don't have that many of those. And we would need _a lot_.
And Chernobyl is an interesting example here, because one of the reasons for its (and many other Soviet and Russian projects) low quality is that Soviet Union/Russia have been stuck in emergency mode since the Tsars. You just needed that many flats and that much power like two decades ago - so you winged it. Thus I am wary of industrial facilities handling hazardous materials that are built in emergency mode, and the only way I see EU building enough reactors in 10 years to handle our energy needs without _major_ cuts is by winging it quite a bit.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't - if we don't build reactors, nobody will go into engineering those, and the issue will persist. But I don't think we can stake our near-term future on them. That fight was lost a while ago.
France didn't have these engineers either, and 10-20 years later they were finishing 5 plants a year.
The US didn't have these people and build reactors incredibly fast as well.
With modern reactors, and not gigantic PWR. You actually build most of the nuclear components in factories. The actual CAPX part is mostly the same as a gas plant.
What you need is not technical engineers but many experiments people who have done it before.
So you start to build one reactors before its half finished move some people start a second and a third and so on. Its basic scaling.
France was able to it with terrible PWR designs from 60s, we have the opportunity to do it with amazingly small and save GenIV designs.
> And Chernobyl is an interesting example here, because one of the reasons for its (and many other Soviet and Russian projects) low quality is that Soviet Union/Russia have been stuck in emergency mode since the Tsars.
No sorry, that is nonsense. The reason for low quality was their political system.
> You just needed that many flats and that much power like two decades ago - so you winged it.
Äh no. Chernobyl was actually partly a design that allowed them to make materials for weapons. That is what their political system cared far more about then providing power to civilians.
> and the only way I see EU building enough reactors in 10 years to handle our energy needs without _major_ cuts is by winging it quite a bit.
No that wouldn't be how you do it. There are perfectly reasonable ways to do this without just having no standard.
> near-term future on them.
If near term future is 10-20 years we absolutely could.
Then I guess we're effed then. After all, if we can't trust non-government entities like Equifax with private records, why even go as far as trusting some other non-government entities to handle nuclear reactors?
We're all to die then, if we're to believe that letting climate change take its course is better than the occasional nuclear meltdown.
> Governments and corporations have not responded to climate change adequately so far and there is no evidence that this is about to change.
How else are they to fill their pockets with wealth taxed via inflation if there are no crises? There must always be a crisis looming to get people to part with their wealth.
> Even with the high profile accidents, nuclear power is something we know we can actually do, and has produced fewer excess deaths than coal.
Leadership knows full well that this is a fact. Think about that.
> Then I guess we're effed then. After all, if we can't trust non-government entities like Equifax with private records, why even go as far as trusting some other non-government entities to handle nuclear reactors?
The point is that the drawbacks of Nuclear far out weight it's benefits, and it's simply better all around to invest into energy sources which aren't as reliant on flawless management or execution to avoid catastrophic failure modes.
It's like with cars vs. airplanes. Most people learned to live with the comparatively high risk of driving a car, yet often have a (silent) fear of flying Boeing/Airbus even though they are much safer. Psychological effect of high-profile airplane accidents vs. small scale (but much more numerous) car deaths.
The list of e.g. hydroelectric accidents is very long and deadly, but they are not as "spectacular". How many people are aware of Banqiao Dam failure, which killed 250 000 people and with that single-handedly exceeded the death toll of all nuclear accidents combined?
There's actually several studies of energy sources and their "deaths per TWh" and nuclear usually comes out as the safest.
> It's like with cars vs. airplanes. Most people learned to live with the comparatively high risk of driving a car, yet often have a (silent) fear of flying Boeing/Airbus even though they are much safer.
I don't feel this is a serious comparison, let alone conveys the tradeoffs that need to be considered.
The risk on the table is pretty much the NIMBY rationale: if you're arguing about risks and given that it's unthinkable to presume that there is zero chance of experiencing problems on any type of power plant, do you prefer to deal with a technology whose failure mode does not have any significant impact or do you wish to deal with a technology whose failure modes involve the need to create and manage exclusion zones with a radius of dozens of km which persist for decades on end? This is particularly relevant as we consider that the bulk of energy demands come from densely occupied urban regions.
And regarding safety, this sort of risk assessment stats used to push Nuclear as a safe alternative fails to take into account the strategic importance of a power plant and how they are automatically targets in any national security scenario. Thus extrapolating peace time statistics, which are already quite bad, also fails to adequately classify the full risks of relying on nuclear.
Let me spell it out: more people will die and suffer if we don't support nuclear. There is no way to fix it with renewables. It would just waste the time and amplify the damages.
Thereby no one should rightfully speculate or disagree? That's pretty fallacious.
Also, that Wikipedia page you just looked up doesn't really make a good case for your assertion.
> [...] although nobody has died or is expected to die from radiation effects [of Fukishima].
The number of deaths related to Nuclear accidents doesn't even exceed the single-digit thousands, and after Chernobyl the number of deaths related to other accidents doesn't even exceed 20.
On the other hand, virtually every globalist governmental entity (if we're gonna go by appeals to authority and majority here) believes that climate change will soon be related to hundreds of thousands of deaths per year.
> Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.
So no, the migration away from nuclear doesn't close the case on why places like California moved away from nuclear.
There could be a Chernobyl every year and, if we are to believe the likes of the WHO and the UN, it still wouldn't approach the number of deaths resulting from climate change.
> Thereby no one should rightfully speculate or disagree? That's pretty fallacious.
It's one thing to state that you personally believe in something. It's an entirely different thing to try to pass off a personal opinion and baseless assertions as some kind of established consensus, particluarly as they fly in the face of reality.
> Also, that Wikipedia page you just looked up doesn't really make a good case for your assertion.
It presents solid enough cases to motivate the current global phase-out of Nuclear power.
And, unlike the GP's personal assertion, it does provide a rationale based on facts and real-world experience assessed and considered by decision-makers.
If you have a genuine curiosity about the subject and you're interested in getting up to speed on the topic, you may start by reading up on this as well.
> It's one thing to state that you personally believe in something. It's an entirely different thing to try to pass off a personal opinion and baseless assertions as some kind of established consensus, particluarly as they fly in the face of reality.
That's exactly what you are doing. To be honest, I can't tell if you're serious because all you are doing is making statements and then just linking to pages without citing any particular fact.
> If you have a genuine curiosity about the subject and you're interested in getting up to speed on the topic, you may start by reading up on this as well.
If you had a point to make, it wouldn't take someone reading a whole page to compare what is essentially two arguments around quantitative figures. You'd be able to state a counterargument with some form of rationale. Just linking to a page and telling me to "get started" by "reading up" doesn't cut it. This is a discussion forum, and it's really not polite to just tell people they are wrong and not explain why. Nobody has time to read an entire encyclopedia entry to figure out why you are right and everyone else is wrong.
> That's exactly what you are doing. To be honest, I can't tell if you're serious because all you are doing is making statements and then just linking to pages without citing any particular fact.
No, not really. You might feel the need to ignore any of the sources I've cited, or even try to refute anything mentioned in them, but you can't pretend that the facts I've pointed out are baseless or even personal assertions.
This sort of position is particularly undefendable considering that you're purposely turning a blind eye to the baseless and completely unrealistic assertion that sparked this thread.
So,if you have any intention of actually discussing the topic, please stick to the facts instead of playing games trying to shift burdens away from your claims.
> If you had a point to make, it wouldn't take someone reading a whole page (...)
Please don't try to pretend that well-supported and referenced facts are free to be ignored just because you either don't like them or prefer to ignore them.
The summation of what you are saying is that I am wrong because lots of people with power made an opposing decision and that I should just read a Wikipedia page because reasons.
That's asinine. I could just as easily give you an Amazon listing for an entire book making a case for nuclear energy, tell you to just read that without giving an explanation of why, and that really wouldn't be much different from what you are telling me. It proves nothing.
Why are you even on HN if you want to avoid real discussion? Do you know why I and nearly everyone else here includes snippets from the pages they link to? It's because no one has time to read that shit if they have no context.
Can you even make a single point to back up your position? What you've shared is barely even a citation; a citation is usually in tandem with a piece of information or an abstract of the source being cited. You shared a hyperlink. Goodie for you.
You know what, I don't even really care if you are right because you wrote as if I'm a dunce who should "get started" learning about the facts around the subject. Are you kidding me? You turned a blind eye to my points and then have the gall to say imply I'm ignorant because you have a Wikipedia page? You're being a total jerk.
Instead of reducing what I said to a "personal opinion" that I am trying to "pass off" that is "baseless", you could have respectfully disagreed even without a reason and included that Wikipedia page, and there was a chance I might have read it. But you had to be a jerk. If you still don't get this, then you're on the wrong website.
That page simply describes how the environmental case against nuclear power was made before climate change began to be taken seriously.
If we didn’t have to worry about the impacts of climate change, I’d agree with phasing out nuclear.
But we do.
“These pieces of criticism have however largely been quelled by the IPCC which indicated in 2014 that nuclear energy was a low carbon energy production technology, comparable to wind and lower than solar in that regard.[135]”
At the point in time I think I am really ambivalent about nuclear Energy. Its not just Chernobyl but Fukushima incident that illustrates how minuscule error in our calculation can create a debacle. As more countries starts to enjoy nuclear energy the risk will further increas. And Imo the main problem is we can't even control the nuclear meltdown waste and whole world might have to suffer the consequence which can be problematic (One example I can remember is how China was complaining when Japan decided to release those waste nuclear water).
Is there guarantee way to construct safe nuclear plant? I am asking because I don't know the state of arts regarding nuclear power plant (I have started to hear about Thorium and don't know about safety and google is not the friend here unfortunately). If there are natural disasters etc., is nuclear plant robust against meltdown? Can we calculate the risk before hand?
A blanket assertion that "drawbacks far outweigh benefits" with no rational argument behind it is not helpful in this discussion. The article you are replying to makes the case that it is, and while you have a right to disagree, and are even welcome to go ahead and make your case, you are not adding any value to this discussion by saying "clearly this is wrong" and just leaving it at that.
Is that really worse then the current geopolitical situation where you are indirectly trusting 3rd party governments (e.g north korea) not to start a nuclear war?
This is my biggest concern as well. However it needs to be balanced against the alternative, which is trusting governments and corporations to deal with climate change in other ways.
A reality check tells us:
1. Governments and corporations have not responded to climate change adequately so far and there is no evidence that this is about to change.
2. Even with the high profile accidents, nuclear power is something we know we can actually do, and has produced fewer excess deaths than coal.
It’s far from ideal, but it is here and it works.