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If nuclear power is such a great idea, then why has it never become the dominant technology globally despite many decades of lobbying from the nuclear industry?

If nuclear power is such a great idea, then why has it never become the dominant technology globally despite many decades of lobbying from the nuclear industry? Technologies that are strictly superior tend to dominate in the long run. Yet, nuclear power has always remained a niche player even in countries where there was not a lot of strong, organised opposition. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that nuclear power suffers from a lot of issues that have never properly been solved. And despite claims to the contrary, it is certainly not completely safe. The fact that dozens of Russian soldiers in Ukraine recently suffered radiation poisoning after digging trenches in the Chernobyl exclusion zone just highlights how long-lasting the environmental impact of nuclear accidents is. Admittedly, they should have known better, but how many exclusion zones like that can we afford to have globally from future nuclear accidents that are virtually guaranteed to happen eventually?

theshrike79 5y ago
> why has it never become the dominant technology globally despite many decades of lobbying from the nuclear industry? Because the anti-nuclear lobby is more powerful? Also the oil/gas lobby has had people in pretty damn high positions affecting these things. Belgium had an ex-Gazprom consultant as their minister of energy. Who - to no-one's surprise - wanted to shut down nuclear plants and move to Russian gas while they build up renewables. Also the incident in Chernobyl was 99% a political problem, not a technical one. No-one dared to tell their superiors "no" or "I fucked up" or "I have a problem". This compared with the lack of notification caused most of the eventual deaths. Just telling everyone to take iodine for a few weeks and not eat any of the currently growing plants would've cut down the amount of cancers in the area by at least half.
- 7952 5y ago
  But humans are irrational and politics does exist. Poor communication and politics is a bigger challenge than engineering or technology. And if you actually want to build something then you have to work within the constraints of society. Sometimes you have to pick C# or Java even though you know that Lisp is the best. Getting something built is more important than technical idealism.
- opo 5y ago
  >...Also the incident in Chernobyl was 99% a political problem, not a technical one. The Chernobyl design was dangerous enough it would have been illegal to build in any other country.
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    Is always other's people fault
rootusrootus 5y ago
Because the government makes or breaks the commercial power industry, and we only have commercial nuclear power generation as a byproduct of weapons development, while environmental groups have been extremely successful using fear to make sure that new reactors are prohibitively expensive to build. I wonder what history will say about our environmental priorities. Will we be pilloried for doing more to harm the environment in a misguided attempt to save it?
jopsen 5y ago
Because nuclear is hard to finance. Our economy is better at financing smaller things, and iteratively optimize them. Which is probably why wind and solar are beating nuclear by now, the cost of building one unit is much lower. We get the economies of scale from building thousands of units. Nuclear is too expensive for capitalism to work it's wonders.

theshrike79 5y ago

> why has it never become the dominant technology globally despite many decades of lobbying from the nuclear industry? Because the anti-nuclear lobby is more powerful? Also the oil/gas lobby has had people in pretty damn high positions affecting these things. Belgium had an ex-Gazprom consultant as their minister of energy. Who - to no-one's surprise - wanted to shut down nuclear plants and move to Russian gas while they build up renewables. Also the incident in Chernobyl was 99% a political problem, not a technical one. No-one dared to tell their superiors "no" or "I fucked up" or "I have a problem". This compared with the lack of notification caused most of the eventual deaths. Just telling everyone to take iodine for a few weeks and not eat any of the currently growing plants would've cut down the amount of cancers in the area by at least half.

7952 5y ago
But humans are irrational and politics does exist. Poor communication and politics is a bigger challenge than engineering or technology. And if you actually want to build something then you have to work within the constraints of society. Sometimes you have to pick C# or Java even though you know that Lisp is the best. Getting something built is more important than technical idealism.
opo 5y ago
>...Also the incident in Chernobyl was 99% a political problem, not a technical one. The Chernobyl design was dangerous enough it would have been illegal to build in any other country.
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Is always other's people fault

rootusrootus 5y ago

Because the government makes or breaks the commercial power industry, and we only have commercial nuclear power generation as a byproduct of weapons development, while environmental groups have been extremely successful using fear to make sure that new reactors are prohibitively expensive to build. I wonder what history will say about our environmental priorities. Will we be pilloried for doing more to harm the environment in a misguided attempt to save it?

jopsen 5y ago

Because nuclear is hard to finance. Our economy is better at financing smaller things, and iteratively optimize them. Which is probably why wind and solar are beating nuclear by now, the cost of building one unit is much lower. We get the economies of scale from building thousands of units. Nuclear is too expensive for capitalism to work it's wonders.