4 ms·

So you’d prefer radioactivity and c02 in the air from coal to spent nuclear fuel in holding pools at nuclear power plants? Which potentially could be used as fu

So you’d prefer radioactivity and c02 in the air from coal to spent nuclear fuel in holding pools at nuclear power plants? Which potentially could be used as fuel again for a different type of reactor? This is literally the choice - something needs to be Baseload generation on a cloudy week with no wind.

notacoward 6y ago
> something needs to be Baseload generation on a cloudy week with no wind That's not the only solution. Texas is big enough that a lack of wind across the entire state is even less likely than the weather they've been having. Wind has held up better than oil and gas there, and properly weatherproofed wind would be even better. Texas also has rivers, and waves. There's still untapped potential in energy storage. Most significantly, better interconnection to other grids would be pretty helpful but has been foregone to protect Texas suppliers' profits. There really doesn't need to be that much non-renewable baseload generation in Texas. Also, why do you (and others) assume that anyone who mentions unsolved problems with nuclear must be flat-out against it? I for one am not. It can be part of a complete energy solution, but until some of those problems are solved it can't be a primary solution by itself. What I object to, mostly, is not nuclear power itself the simplistic "atomic energy please, this is a solved problem" hand wave. Contrary to the HN ethos, not every problem has a simple technical solution, and people who point that out wrt energy are not necessarily shills or dupes of the oil industry. It's a matter of being empirical about things and working them out instead of turning technologies into new religions.
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  I don't get why you think there's an open problem. 20% of US energy currently comes from nuclear. If waste is an open problem - what problem is it causing now? Would scaling nuclear related problems by a factor of five be better or worse than current energy problems? My view is that it would be better.
ianlevesque 6y ago
I guess the sarcasm was missed. We pollute more than nuclear does for coal already and somehow that's ok, but nuclear isn't.

notacoward 6y ago

> something needs to be Baseload generation on a cloudy week with no wind That's not the only solution. Texas is big enough that a lack of wind across the entire state is even less likely than the weather they've been having. Wind has held up better than oil and gas there, and properly weatherproofed wind would be even better. Texas also has rivers, and waves. There's still untapped potential in energy storage. Most significantly, better interconnection to other grids would be pretty helpful but has been foregone to protect Texas suppliers' profits. There really doesn't need to be that much non-renewable baseload generation in Texas. Also, why do you (and others) assume that anyone who mentions unsolved problems with nuclear must be flat-out against it? I for one am not. It can be part of a complete energy solution, but until some of those problems are solved it can't be a primary solution by itself. What I object to, mostly, is not nuclear power itself the simplistic "atomic energy please, this is a solved problem" hand wave. Contrary to the HN ethos, not every problem has a simple technical solution, and people who point that out wrt energy are not necessarily shills or dupes of the oil industry. It's a matter of being empirical about things and working them out instead of turning technologies into new religions.

ALittleLight 6y ago
I don't get why you think there's an open problem. 20% of US energy currently comes from nuclear. If waste is an open problem - what problem is it causing now? Would scaling nuclear related problems by a factor of five be better or worse than current energy problems? My view is that it would be better.

ianlevesque 6y ago

I guess the sarcasm was missed. We pollute more than nuclear does for coal already and somehow that's ok, but nuclear isn't.