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I'm pretty sure I could write a bot that would accurately simulate any nuclear energy topic on HN. The pro-nuclear people will argue any extreme incidents are

by jmyeet 4y ago

I'm pretty sure I could write a bot that would accurately simulate any nuclear energy topic on HN. The pro-nuclear people will argue any extreme incidents are just outliers that can be ignored, the high cost of construction is completely artificial and regulatory in nature, the high cost to build is just because we don't build enough of them, all the waste (from processing and from fuel) are solved problems, we need a base load in the grid and the time to build isn't an issue. The anti-nuclear people will point out the devastating failure modes, no nuclear plant has been built without massive government support, in places like the US the costs of nuclear clean up in case of accidents is actually capped by legislation so the government is bearing these costs too, if base load is real hydro power is better, fuel waste needs can't just be locked in a cave (eg for years or decades it needs to be actively cooled because it generates heat), transport of fuel and waste introduces risk of accidents and mamlfeasance, humans are terrible at managing long-term and low-probability high-impact risk, nobody wants to live near a nuclear power plant and that the plummetting cost of renewables make nuclear increasingly uneconomic. Rinse and repeat.

lbriner 4y ago
This is true but what is more shocking is that the powers-that-be in each of the major countries haven't been able to sit down and say: Nuclear option: Environment cost, land cost, resource cost, availability of materials etc. Renewables option: Requirement for the correct geography, unbalanced grid, storage options, increase of energy efficiency etc. Then at least work out that currently in situations a, b and c, only Nuclear is viable, whereas in situations d, e and f, renewables make sense. In almost all cases, it will need to be a mix and I'm unsure that anywhere has so many renewables that have a massive problem. Australia struggled with too much solar but their grid is still alive so in many countries, we could probably scale renewables more quickly for some capacity. Nuclear is longer term and might be needed where you don't have Norway's water or Iceland's geothermal, great. Why does everyone have to be an extremist on these discussions?
Gwypaas 4y ago
Sadly the problem is that HN is not up to date on current research and economics, nuclear proponents argue like it's 2005-10 and that nothing has changed. Similarly to how you are characterizing the arguments. At that time starting up another wave of nuclear was the best choice we ever made, because renewables was too far flung out to be a certain solution. If Olkiluoto 3, Flamanville, Vogtle and Virgil C. Summer had been completed on time with amazing efficiency we would be running nuclear today. The difference now, 10 years later, is that renewables have leapfrogged nuclear several times over and thus it does not make a sensible investment from either safety, economics or any other angle. Other than being a "known" choice because the grid has always been centralized and some people like the cool dangerous steam boiler technology of it. So what we need to do today is to draw the learnings of those nuclear attempts and not pour another €X00 billion into pride projects.
- rcxdude 4y ago
  Yup. If everyone had made 5x the investment in nuclear 10-15 years ago (which would have made nuclear cheaper per plant as well: a huge part of the massive costs and time overruns on plants is the fact that they're pretty much one-offs), we'd be in a much better place with regards to the climate, and it would have very likely been worth the super -high costs (though questionable if we'd had also 5x the number of nuclear disasters). But we'd still be having the huge shift to renewables we're having now, maybe just a little slower.
Turing_Machine 4y ago
> no nuclear plant has been built without massive government support Can you give me an example of a grid-scale solar plant that was built without massive government support? I don't know of any, off-hand.

by jmyeet 4y ago

lbriner 4y ago

This is true but what is more shocking is that the powers-that-be in each of the major countries haven't been able to sit down and say: Nuclear option: Environment cost, land cost, resource cost, availability of materials etc. Renewables option: Requirement for the correct geography, unbalanced grid, storage options, increase of energy efficiency etc. Then at least work out that currently in situations a, b and c, only Nuclear is viable, whereas in situations d, e and f, renewables make sense. In almost all cases, it will need to be a mix and I'm unsure that anywhere has so many renewables that have a massive problem. Australia struggled with too much solar but their grid is still alive so in many countries, we could probably scale renewables more quickly for some capacity. Nuclear is longer term and might be needed where you don't have Norway's water or Iceland's geothermal, great. Why does everyone have to be an extremist on these discussions?

Gwypaas 4y ago

Sadly the problem is that HN is not up to date on current research and economics, nuclear proponents argue like it's 2005-10 and that nothing has changed. Similarly to how you are characterizing the arguments. At that time starting up another wave of nuclear was the best choice we ever made, because renewables was too far flung out to be a certain solution. If Olkiluoto 3, Flamanville, Vogtle and Virgil C. Summer had been completed on time with amazing efficiency we would be running nuclear today. The difference now, 10 years later, is that renewables have leapfrogged nuclear several times over and thus it does not make a sensible investment from either safety, economics or any other angle. Other than being a "known" choice because the grid has always been centralized and some people like the cool dangerous steam boiler technology of it. So what we need to do today is to draw the learnings of those nuclear attempts and not pour another €X00 billion into pride projects.

rcxdude 4y ago
Yup. If everyone had made 5x the investment in nuclear 10-15 years ago (which would have made nuclear cheaper per plant as well: a huge part of the massive costs and time overruns on plants is the fact that they're pretty much one-offs), we'd be in a much better place with regards to the climate, and it would have very likely been worth the super -high costs (though questionable if we'd had also 5x the number of nuclear disasters). But we'd still be having the huge shift to renewables we're having now, maybe just a little slower.

Turing_Machine 4y ago

> no nuclear plant has been built without massive government support Can you give me an example of a grid-scale solar plant that was built without massive government support? I don't know of any, off-hand.