3 ms·

As far as nuclear energy not seeing more widespread adoption, as readers of HN know, the fossil fuel industry is allowed to externalize costs while nuclear can’

As far as nuclear energy not seeing more widespread adoption, as readers of HN know, the fossil fuel industry is allowed to externalize costs while nuclear can’t as much for a variety of reasons (e.g., high profile nuclear disasters, etc.). If the true costs of fossil fuels could be better exposed, nuclear would be more competitive. That point is sort of tangential to the article but I wish the author had pointed that out in a sentence or two.

loup-vaillant 6y ago
Moreover, they gloss over the fact that Nuclear energy, despite its costs, compares very favourably to even renewable energy: compared to wind & solar, it emits several times less CO2, costs several time less (if you account for the batteries needed to store wind&solar energy), and even kills less (per unit of energy). Not renewable, so it won't last forever. But it sure can dampen the impending long term recession we'll get after Peak Oil. --- About externalization, it's even worse than most people think: it's not just about making others paying the costs, it's also about delaying payment. For instance, even if we were to stop greenhouse gas emissions right now, dividing our GDP by 2 or more overnight, we'll still get 1.5°C worth of warming in the future, with noticeable consequences already. Of course we won't do that, so the actual warming will be worse. Even more obvious, the depletion of various resources: oil, gas, beach sand, copper… What we should do, but almost certainly aren't doing, is computing the amortised costs of Global Warming (with population moving because it has become lethally hot in some regions, and lots of other "adjustments"), and the the amortized cost of the depletion of non-renewable resources of all kinds, that we won't be able to use at all at some point in the future; then writing that cost on our balance sheet. We'd probably notice we were heading to bankruptcy very fast if we wrote that amortized cost down.
- Schiendelman 6y ago
  “If you account for the batteries needed” - eeeek, this is anti-renewable propaganda. These systems are proliferating all over the world without batteries today. The scenarios people posit that lead to that kind of propaganda don’t really exist at scale.
  - loup-vaillant 6y ago
    "Batteries" was a shortcut for whatever storage mechanism we may come up with. Some of them are promising, and hopefully cheap enough to reduce the cost of "on demand" renewable energy. Right now, though, proper storage makes renewable much costlier than they otherwise look. Without enough storage, you get energy when you have sun or wind, not when the train must depart the station. So what happens in practice? We use other energies to compensate. Now if renewable end up partially replacing fossil fuels like coal or oil, that's good: every joule we get from the wind, we don't have to get it from coal. If however you compensate with nuclear plants, that's almost a one sided loss for the environment: you still need to maintain the nuke plants to guarantee minimum available power, but you use them less because renewables offload some energy from them. Carbon wise, this is a pure loss: you end up using more concrete & more steel to get energy from the wind (or the sun), and you don't even shut down nuke plants in return (or if you do, you end up trading nuclear for fossil, which is beyond ridiculous). Moreover, those nuke plants are now less profitable, since we need less total energy from them. If you want to reduce risks, that's not a good idea: less profit means less budget, and maintenance may suffer. The only advantage is a slight reduction in nuclear waste, and those are mostly not a problem (just bury them). Don't get me wrong, renewable energy is the future, one way or another. Nuclear power is only a stop-gap measure, it won't last forever — just like fossil fuel. Right now though, that's a stop-gap measure I welcome with open arms.

loup-vaillant 6y ago

Moreover, they gloss over the fact that Nuclear energy, despite its costs, compares very favourably to even renewable energy: compared to wind & solar, it emits several times less CO2, costs several time less (if you account for the batteries needed to store wind&solar energy), and even kills less (per unit of energy). Not renewable, so it won't last forever. But it sure can dampen the impending long term recession we'll get after Peak Oil. --- About externalization, it's even worse than most people think: it's not just about making others paying the costs, it's also about delaying payment. For instance, even if we were to stop greenhouse gas emissions right now, dividing our GDP by 2 or more overnight, we'll still get 1.5°C worth of warming in the future, with noticeable consequences already. Of course we won't do that, so the actual warming will be worse. Even more obvious, the depletion of various resources: oil, gas, beach sand, copper… What we should do, but almost certainly aren't doing, is computing the amortised costs of Global Warming (with population moving because it has become lethally hot in some regions, and lots of other "adjustments"), and the the amortized cost of the depletion of non-renewable resources of all kinds, that we won't be able to use at all at some point in the future; then writing that cost on our balance sheet. We'd probably notice we were heading to bankruptcy very fast if we wrote that amortized cost down.

Schiendelman 6y ago
“If you account for the batteries needed” - eeeek, this is anti-renewable propaganda. These systems are proliferating all over the world without batteries today. The scenarios people posit that lead to that kind of propaganda don’t really exist at scale.
- loup-vaillant 6y ago
  "Batteries" was a shortcut for whatever storage mechanism we may come up with. Some of them are promising, and hopefully cheap enough to reduce the cost of "on demand" renewable energy. Right now, though, proper storage makes renewable much costlier than they otherwise look. Without enough storage, you get energy when you have sun or wind, not when the train must depart the station. So what happens in practice? We use other energies to compensate. Now if renewable end up partially replacing fossil fuels like coal or oil, that's good: every joule we get from the wind, we don't have to get it from coal. If however you compensate with nuclear plants, that's almost a one sided loss for the environment: you still need to maintain the nuke plants to guarantee minimum available power, but you use them less because renewables offload some energy from them. Carbon wise, this is a pure loss: you end up using more concrete & more steel to get energy from the wind (or the sun), and you don't even shut down nuke plants in return (or if you do, you end up trading nuclear for fossil, which is beyond ridiculous). Moreover, those nuke plants are now less profitable, since we need less total energy from them. If you want to reduce risks, that's not a good idea: less profit means less budget, and maintenance may suffer. The only advantage is a slight reduction in nuclear waste, and those are mostly not a problem (just bury them). Don't get me wrong, renewable energy is the future, one way or another. Nuclear power is only a stop-gap measure, it won't last forever — just like fossil fuel. Right now though, that's a stop-gap measure I welcome with open arms.