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Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants
- whycome 4mo agoBest way to provide power to a population over 10 million
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoAnd if the world goes to shit again, having a baseline for building an Alpine nuclear deterrent isn't the worst thing to have on soil.
- philipkglass 4mo agoSwitzerland has several operating nuclear reactors: https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.aspx?current=CH https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.... Switzerland also studied nuclear weapons production until 1988: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Military_nuclear_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland_and_weapons_of_mas... If the Swiss thought it was in the national interest to exit the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and crash-develop a nuclear deterrent, I think that they could achieve nuclear breakout quickly.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoHaving people skilled in running versus building.
- Moldoteck 4mo agoPWRs are unsuitable for that
- rz2k 4mo agoI wonder if they’ll stagger their waking hours so that electric power consumption matches the inflexible output of nuclear reactors.
- IAmBroom 4mo agoStorage is a thing.
- Arodex 4mo agoIf storage is a thing, then solar makes more sense.
- appplication 4mo agoIf only there were a supplemental daylight-based power source that precisely matched peak output to waking hours.
- Moldoteck 4mo agonuclear is very flexible, especially with ALFC upgrades
- iso1631 4mo agoBest way for who? Nuclear is vastly more expensive per MWh than renewables. It's better than pumping stuff out the ground sure, but that's about it.
- iso1631 4mo agoAnd as usual the nuclear brainwashed lobby on HN still think it's 1990 and nuclear is cost effective. It can't cope with peaks. It has to generate the same power 24/7 to be anywhere near economical at two-three times the cost of solar+storage, so it either needs massive storage or massive overprovision Lets say you have a peak demand of say 40GW but average demand of 600GWh a day (25GW), or 219TWh a year Lets also say you have to shut down a plant for a week a year for maintenence You need to build five, 10GW plants to meet your demand. They provide 5 * 10GW * 24 hours * 7 days * 51 weeks or 428TWh. If nuclear is $110 per MWh, that means it's going to cost you $47b a year to generate your power requirement, or $215 per MWh So you're needing to roll out storage, same as you do for wind and solar, or spend twice as much on overproducing.
- Moldoteck 4mo agoAh yes, everyone is brainwashed. Sure. We see today how non brainwashed is Germany that not only is a bad polluter but plans gas expansion to firm renewables. Nuclear requires far less overcapacity and transmission. You can cycle maintenance schedules and if country's demand is smaller, you build smaller units like Candu to make this rotation.
- iso1631 4mo agoNuclear generates the same power when demand is minimum as when its maximum. Take Germany for example. It requires a peak of 45GW of power and a trough of 30GW. That means that you need 45GW running 24/7, with 10% overcapacity for maintenence, so 50GW running 247, Nuclear's lack of dispatchability means it needs to generate 50GW to produce 35GW-days, meaning the cost per MWh is more like $150 per MWh rather than $30MWh for solar.
- mikelward 4mo agoI see what you did there.
- slackfan 4mo agoExcellent.
- reddalo 4mo agoI wish Italy did the same. We still have to deal with the consequences of a referendum hold not so long after che Chernobyl accident which made it illegal to build and operate nuclear power plants.
- stefantalpalaru 4mo ago[dead]
- Arodex 4mo agoIt is absolutely ridiculous: of all countries, Italy has totally the means to rely only on solar and batteries. You even have the industrial prowess to make it all in the country step by step, whereas nuclear reactors are such humongous engineering projects that building the capacity is very out of reach. Edit: and with the Mediterranean and rivers warming severely - and the latter even suffering from draught - how are you going to cool down your reactors? Nuclear in Italy is a non-starter.
- ziotom78 4mo ago> It is absolutely ridiculous: of all countries, Italy has totally the means to rely only on solar and batteries Do you have any trustable source for this?
- starbix 4mo agoThis is going to be a huge waste of time and money until we realize that building new nuclear power plants will be too expensive and too late, since we'll have figured out a renewable energy concept that'll handle the load by then. Instead we could also just join a French project, who have way more experience. We should focus on extending our hydro power storage capacity instead. There will be a referendum anyways, so I think it's unlikely the ban will actually be lifted.
- abecedarius 4mo ago"I expect they're too expensive" is a terrible reason to ban them, though.
- SiempreViernes 4mo agoThat's not why they were banned, and in any case lifting a ban on building something that nobody will build doesn't seem like good use of legislators time.
- mpweiher 4mo agoAt least one Kanton has already requested a new build. https://www.nuklearforum.ch/de/news/neues-kernkraftwerk-im-aargau-parlament-ueberweist-svp-motion/ https://www.nuklearforum.ch/de/news/neues-kernkraftwerk-im-a...
- gpm 4mo agoIt is when it's tied to "and I expect they're going to ask for giant subsidies from taxpayers". Which nuclear inevitably does, both in the form of direct requests for money and by refusing to pay for adequate insurance to compensate everyone who will be damaged in the event of a meltdown externalizing the risks.
- abecedarius 4mo agoIf you're in "everything not banned is subsidized"-land where absolutely everything is political, you need to work on getting out of that hole, not digging it deeper. (I wouldn't assume the Swiss are there yet, but I've only visited a couple times for a few weeks. Their politics seemed healthier than I've seen elsewhere, fwiw.)
- beanjuiceII 4mo agofantastic!
- orwin 4mo agoSwitzerland, Norway and Austria are probably the country that needs nuclear the less, but anything to start the discussion in other European countries is good. Probably not economically viable in Switzerland though.
- philipwhiuk 4mo agoThey can always sell the electricity
- this_user 4mo agoIt's far too expensive for that with how cheap renewables are making electricity. France is already struggling with that.
- orwin 4mo agoTechnically yes, but also no. The European electricity market have way, way to many rules and caveat to draw any conclusion, especially France with ARENH and other distortions. It's probably too expensive, because the best way to make nuclear cheap is to build it 'at scale', and here I mean, continuously. You need a company that will get a reactor out of the ground every year or so, continuously, to avoid loosing knowledge and build upon failures or success. I know three persons who work or used to work directly with nuke plants, one my age who is currently working in getting the newest french reactors off the ground, and two who are friends of my father, one who finished his career in China, and the other became a submarine welder. From the discussion I've listened to, and especially from the welder, the technical requirements are very high, knowledge and techniques have been lost and making nuke plants correctly nowadays on the first try would be a miracle (he is also very skeptical of the first wave of french reactors), you need to iterate and build knowledge, which isn't cheap.
- Chaosvex 4mo agoSure wish the UK could get some of this cheap renewable energy you're referencing.
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- bryanlarsen 4mo agoIt's a world-wide competition to generate the most expensive electricity! The record is currently held by Vogtle in Georgia US, but Ontario Canada is trying to take the crown by spending $500B on nuclear.
- anon7725 4mo agoIs there a cleaner, more consistent technology for baseload? At a certain point, dollars are funny money if you are destroying the environment to save a few now by generating baseload with a carbon-producing tech. Of course, let’s build the safest and most efficient nuclear that we can, but “its capex is too high” is not a compelling argument to me. And to be clear: renewables should form as much of the capacity as possible, but a reliable baseload is obviously still needed.
- bryanlarsen 4mo ago"Baseload" is load, not generation. It's not necessary -- for example the small northern grids that only have diesel generators operate fine even though they have no generators that don't have the capacity for quick cycling. Baseload was a cost optimization. Back in the day it was cheaper to build coal & nuclear plants that took days to power on. Somebody figured out that if a grid was built of a mix of those cheaper plants and more expensive plants that could start up quicker, it would lower costs. The typical grid was baseload coal and gas peakers. But ~20 years ago gas peakers became cheaper than baseload coal and any need or desire for baseload generation went away. China is building a lot of coal plants to complement their solar buildout. Notably these are not base load plants. Their new coal plants do not run 24/7, they only run at night. Similarly, many new nuclear plant designs are not base load designs; they are designs that can be safely and quickly turned on and off. P.S. the correct term for generation is "non-dispatchable", not "baseload"
- rayiner 4mo ago> Their new coal plants do not run 24/7, they only run at night That’s baseload! Baseload is load you can’t turn off: the minimum load that’s required in a 24 hour period. It can be fulfilled with non-dispatchable sources, but it need not be. In this case, China is building coal plants to address the baseload that doesn’t go away at night when the solar isn’t producing.
- Arodex 4mo agoLike the F-35 fighter jet, this is just another victory for lobbyists in the industry who will be able to siphon public money into over-budget, deadline busting white whale projects that will never recoup its costs. Especially nuclear. It is now economically non-viable.
- bit-anarchist 4mo agoWhat lobbyists? Concrete powder companies? Other governmental companies? Keep in mind similar things have been said about solar and wind previously.
- Arodex 4mo agoCivil engineering, power equipment (ABB is a big firm in Switzerland), Energy companies (the market is Switzerland is a constellation of local monopolies, who have already announced they won't invest their own huge money reserves in nuclear, it will have to be all public money and garanties), etc.
- bit-anarchist 4mo agoCivil engineering and power equipment companies also profit from other plants. In fact, there are specialized power companies for wind and solar. If private energy companies won't invest, then either don't invest public funding, or invest but with focus on developing long-term technologies. After all, the primary reason for nuclear being uneconomic today is lack of investment. If solar and wind can be made profitable, I don't see how nuclear is any different. Still, the positive note of this is the ban lift, not whether new reactor will actually be built. Can't speak for all countries, but lobbying for green energy in the USA, according to PACs, is higher than nuclear. I don't think Switzerland is different.
- dalyons 4mo ago> If solar and wind can be made profitable, I don't see how nuclear is any different. Nuclear is fundamentally way more complicated than wind and especially solar. Nuclear is 10s of kilometers of high pressure piping, 1000s of tons of concrete, exotic pressure welding. Solar on the other hand is brain dead simple and amenable to mass production in a way that nuclear can never be. As such, nuclear will never see the same scale of cost reductions.
- GL26 4mo agoNuclear energy is really the energy of the future, fission still has bright days ahead of it. the startup market for SMRs is going to boom once the core challenges will have been solved, sure that we will see many ETH founders go into that world
- Arodex 4mo agoEvery SMR startup is failing. The more they progress, the more they revise their costs upwards. SMR make as much sense as space datacenters. You can gaslight investors, you can gaslight HN, you can gaslight a national parliament full of lobbyists, but you can't gaslight thermodynamics.
- RealityVoid 4mo agoHow are SMR's "gaslighting themodynamics"? I mean, sure, I can accept that they're not economical with current tech, but it's not a frigging' perpetuum mobile, it's feasible technology.
- Arodex 4mo agoThermodynamics are the reason why SMR aren't, and will never, be economical. A bigger nuclear reactor will always undercut your price per watt.
- bbu 4mo agothat's just lifting the ban and is pure virtue signaling. none of the electricity producers in switzerland actually want build nuclear power plants, because they are way too expensive.
- flanked-evergl 4mo agoMuch cheaper to outsource all production and industry to China as Europe is doing.
- Moldoteck 4mo agoIf ppl vote positive, it'll probably be built just like Sweden is advancing despite Vatenfall initially being against
- nullbio 4mo agoAI made this inevitable. Every country will follow.
- jokteur 4mo agoThis still has to pass with the people in a referendum. The discourse on nuclear is still quite chaotic in politics in Switzerland. All left leaning parties and greens parties are strongly against nuclear. I am not expecting informed and civil discussions about this topic. Switzerland has a summer/winter energy problem. We have lots of potential of producing energy in the spring and summer (when our dams are full from the melting of snow and the sun is shining), and much less so in the winter. We can still improve 10 to 20% our hydro production, but that's it. All the water sheds are already well used and rely on our glaciers to replenish, which will become less predictable with climate change. We shouldn't completely closing the doors to all forms of nuclear technology. Obviously, we can't build blindy without any considerations. But we may need it on the second half of the century, especially if we are going to electrify all forms of transport. We can't be buying France's nuclear energy all the time.
- christkv 4mo agoYou could build the reactors inside the mountains to improve the security and effects of things like meltdowns.
- jokteur 4mo agoFunny thing you mention that. We had a nuclear meltdown in an experimental reactor in Lucens (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucens_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucens_reactor).
- IsTom 4mo agoIt raises cost, makes access difficult in case a recoverable accident happens and there's still possibility of groundwater contamination if things go wrong.
- fc417fc802 4mo ago> there's still possibility of groundwater contamination if things go wrong. That's going to depend on the geology.
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- khalic 4mo agoThose energy conglomerates are really desperate for public money aren't they? Sorry guys, solar and wind are cheaper
- firefax 4mo agoOne of the little gems the Russians pulled off in the twenty aughts when they were flooding nonprofits in the USA with dirty money was hijacking the green movement to promote fracking. (Because surely ANYTHING is better than those dastardly electrons or whatever the fuck radiation is made of) Switzerland, unlike the USA, seems capable of safely operating these plants, and with advances in breeder technology new plants doesn't nessecarily mean new mining operations, which often are quite harsh on the surrounding area.
- rsync 4mo ago“Switzerland, unlike the USA, seems capable of safely operating these plants …” I would have said that about the Japanese as well…
- firefax 4mo agojapan actually seems averse to any kind of change in a way they aren't. do swiss atms close at a certain time of day? do many takeout places want you to fax orders? there's a lot of things that go beyond "conservative" in japan in the risk averse sense into just being stuck in the 80s.
- pfannl 4mo agoKeeping the option open seems prudent. The hard part is winter reliability, not summer generation.
- Kon5ole 4mo agoCitizens should take note that no nuclear plants are ever built without many billions in state loans and guarantees. It's not a cheap source of electricity, it's a way for someone to get money from taxpayers to subsidize their business.
- doublepg23 4mo ago..as opposed to other green energy programs that received no government investment? ...or the externality-free fossil fuel industry?
- paytonjjones 4mo agoPor que no los dos?
- functionmouse 4mo agoIs that meaningfully different than modern coal and natural gas plants?
- eightysixfour 4mo agoEnergy security is something I expect the government to invest my tax dollars in especially energy generation that is resilient to international politics and reduced carbon emissions.
- Arodex 4mo agoThen nuclear isn't it. Switzerland has no uranium and no strong relationship with an uranium-producing country. They also regularly antagonise the EU (especially the far-right isolationisz SVP/UDC, which is... pro-nuclear, of course) which controls every way fission products could be brought inside Switzerland. The same far-right country is also the one who wanted to cap the population because "there isn't room anymore", but I guess there is now room for massive nuclear plants and the storage of fuel and spent fuel shrugs Nuclear will also boil over Swiss rivers and shallow lakes.
- suddenlybananas 4mo ago
- stefantalpalaru 4mo ago[dead]
- Arodex 4mo agoA long-form exploration of energy in Switzerland for those interested: https://www.heidi.news/explorations/black-out-le-talon-d-achille-electrique-de-la-suisse https://www.heidi.news/explorations/black-out-le-talon-d-ach...
- Zigurd 4mo agoThis is at best the concept of a vibe shift. Even if they started sprinting now, it would be 20 years before anyone would see the results of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear is so much more expensive than solar and wind that building one is certain to raise electricity prices.
- dukoid 4mo agoIt's why big oil loves it: We need to do nothing now because nuclear is coming "soon"
- Moldoteck 4mo agoBig oil loves to dismantle nuclear like in Germany and later push for gas expansion to firm renewables like in Germany. Big oil hates when countries like France/Sweden decarbonize in record time
- warumdarum 4mo agoSwiss will get nukes, denmark will get nukes, sweden will get nukes, finland will get..poland, ukraine, germany, armenia, georgia, armenia, turkey, vietnam, japan, south korea, emirates all gonna get, saudi already got.. [this list is incomplete, you can help to complete this list by doing a empire]. Ironically during the cold war a ton of countries went and became almost nuclear powers. Now thos world is so back baby and the reality denial and loud noises do nothing. Almost as if this plot device never had any connection to anything. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p6uxLHWVYRg&t=534s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p6uxLHWVYRg&t=534s
- ge96 4mo ago[dead]
- staticshock 4mo agoWhile I'm sold on the fact that modern nuclear can be built & administered safely in the face of natural disasters, and is a net good environmentally, I'm worried about corporate cronyism's corrosive effects on safety (a la Fukushima) and future instability in the form of cornered animals (e.g. Putin, Trump) acting erratically by bombing civilian infrastructure.
- t1234s 4mo agoSwitzerland seems like a country where they wouldn't have trouble hiring enough very responsible serious people capable of running nuclear plants. Aside from being able to acquire fuel is there any reason they are not near 100% nuclear?
- b112 4mo agoYes. Environmentalists. There are people which want the best we can do (eg, no Ng, coal, etc) in electricity generation. Sensible reductions, that sort of thing. Then there are those that just want no electricity to be used at all, ever, period. They'll complain about hydroelectric(carbon in cement production), about things which can happen with nuclear(accidents), about birds in windmills, about the production methods of making solar panels, and so on. To such people, doing anything is bad for the environment, so therefore, every type of power generation is bad. To listen to such people is, of course, madness, as is listening to all extremists. We should simply ignore them completely, but of course the news exists, fake protestors exist which are paid, and so on and so forth.
- DownGoat 4mo agoThey built their existing nuclear plant in order to hide their nuclear weapons program. So the point really wasn’t energy generation. Nuclear weapons is the main reason countries build nuclear power.
- Moldoteck 4mo agowhat a nonsense. Weapons are unrelated to PWR's due to parasitic isotopes. If you want wpn you build much cheaper enrichment facility just for that.
- arjie 4mo agoThey have a pretty small population, but wind will likely be intolerable because it will harm views[0]. Solar requires surface area as well. So that leaves hydro, which they'll have to pump during the summer months to ensure they have coverage for winter, or nuclear. Or fossil fuels, of course. Gas is still probably optimal for them. I suppose that's the nature of things. We all care very much about the climate, but we do care about our views more. 0: I personally like the look of wind turbines but I understand many don't. The appearance is likely why the Trump administration canceled such projects.
- nxy 4mo agoWhether people like it or not, nuclear power is the path forward for the foreseeable future; at least until nuclear fusion becomes a reality. With incoming AI/automation, ya’ll need all the power ya can get.
- embedding-shape 4mo agoYeah what the hell, I want tiny and small nuke-batteries so we can finally get cars and phones that doesn't need charging anymore, would solve a lot of problems and surely won't introduce any new ones.
- eimrine 4mo agoWhat you really need is 24/7 power supply, it might become a luxury to have uninterrupted electricity exactly as it is a luxury to have enough of fresh water.
- embedding-shape 4mo agoWhen you're in one place, you'll just have a battery+solar I bet, but for when on the go, maybe for days, having a tiny nuclear battery that lasts N years would be great.
- eimrine 4mo agoCheck "Burevestnik" nuclear rocket, seems Russian scientists have developed a compact nuclear battery if to subtract the rocket from the power device.
- embedding-shape 4mo ago> It is considered the first nuclear-powered missile and nuclear-powered aircraft Very interesting stuff, even though the origin probably means we won't get much details on it until decades later. Thanks a bunch for sharing!
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- mikaeluman 4mo agoThere is no prosperity without stable and cheap energy. Great news, just hoping the people understand this as well.
- megaman821 4mo agoRemindMe! -20 year
- Krasnol 4mo ago...but nobody wants to build it: https://www.bluewin.ch/de/news/schweiz/die-schweiz-kann-wieder-akw-bauen-doch-niemand-will-3275809.html https://www.bluewin.ch/de/news/schweiz/die-schweiz-kann-wied...
- lenerdenator 4mo agoTangentially related: the Swiss built a research-focused nuclear reactor in a cavern. It had a meltdown in 1969, and they were able to keep the decontamination/decommissioning efforts to a minimum by just entombing the thing in concrete. Honestly, so long as the water table isn't too close, that's not a terrible place to put a nuclear reactor. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucens_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucens_reactor
- tancop 4mo agoend non proliferation rules. its blocking nuclear adoption way more than environmental movements ever did esp in developing countries. and imo its better for a lot of countries to have nuclear weapons than just a few, if they have to exist at all.
- Archelaos 4mo agoThe pro-nuclear propaganda in this discussion reminds me of the tobacco companies that claimed smoking was harmless, or of Monsanto, which insisted that its pesticides were safe, and so on. It is always the same pattern: obvious facts are denied, doubts are exaggerated, legitimate concerns are downplayed, and blatant lies are spread. I wonder how many undercover lobbyists for the nuclear industry are active here on HN.
- olau 4mo agoProbably only few. Nuclear attracts dreamers. But would they pay the price, literally? Cost is the real reason nuclear is dying.
- Moldoteck 4mo agoFascinating how ppl mention pro nuclear propaganda when we already know the facts. France and Sweden have among the lowest emissions in EU and got them in 90's by building both ren and nuclear. Germany built only ren, DK built only ren and both have far worse emissions. The antinuclear lobby in Germany achieved a wonderful feat https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-025-01002-z https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-025-01002-z
- comrade1234 4mo agoSwitzerland is a small country. 3000 square kilometers of the earth is uninhabitable because of nuclear accidents. That would be almost 1/10 of Switzerland. Probably not a good idea.
- AFF87 4mo agoCombined with Italy's change of heart, hopefully approved and put into law before July 2026, this is going to mark the revival of nuclear energy in Europe. Here for it
- m101 4mo agoIt is depressing reading hacker news threads on nuclear power because of just how misinformed so many people still are. These things are all true, and it's on the reader for not knowing: - nuclear power is expensive by choice. It is not inherent to nuclear power - nuclear waste is not a problem - nuclear energy comes in many forms. Not only high pressure reactors - we are all going to be poorer, and live in a more polluted, higher CO2 world, because of all the people that choose to not inform themselves about the truth on nuclear - the harms from radiation exposure are mostly precisely zero, and require large exposure to be non-zero There really is no excuse for people to be misinformed. If you actually want to understand this issue start here, but there are many other sources out there that can also help: gordianknotbook.com Or the substack: substack.com/@jackdevanney
- durandal1 4mo agoThe only fair way to compare the cost to solar and wind, is if wind and solar producers would have to make power guarantees 24/7 and cover the cost of the production gaps (hint: this makes solar and wind very expensive).
- m101 4mo agoIf only that were not just the start of the issue. Regulation means nuclear is probably an order of magnitude more expensive than it could be.
- Matumio 4mo agoNot sure if that's fair. Sometimes the sun actually does shine, and while you won't get rich selling energy during that time, having electricity available essentially for free during some of the peak hours is worth something. Someone will eventually find a use for free energy. If nothing else, at least we can turn off all coal, gas and oil plants while the sun shines.
- m101 4mo agoWhen the sun shines sure you can power down other power stations, but you still need to maintain them and have them around for when the sun doesn't shine. So when you have lots of intermittent energy it means that you actually cannot shelve your old technology - you still have to maintain it, but now you're paying for the maintenance over less capacity used. This is only one of the reasons why prices are going up in heavy renewable grids.
- jurgenaut23 4mo agoLots of people in this thread look at this as a pro/anti-nuclear debate. But few people consider the fact that the first election from the said nuclear plant will be produced 25 years from now in the very best case. Plus, nuclear plants have a huge cooling problem during summertime.
- Moldoteck 4mo agoThey don't have a huge cooling problem. It's a nonsense repeated again and again without understanding the details. In France it impacts 0.2% of annual production to save fish during a period of high overcapacity that France is eager to export. It happens only in plants without cooling tower (except Garone for it's specifics). Even if nuclear comes after 25y it's still welcome - much better than Germany building gas plants to firm renewables
- Danox 4mo agoProbably in preparation for Thorium Reactors which the Danes and the Swiss are currently working on.
- 4ggr0 4mo agomy summarized thoughts when reading through this comment section and being swiss myself - have y'all ever heard of solar and wind[0]? i know that battery storage is a challenge, but hey, we constantly glaze ourselves as having great universities, lots of wealth, stability, precise engineering etc. so let's put our strength into battery storage. invest in research towards it. research it ourselves. build out renewable energy. sponsor such things in foreign places we steal, ehrm, i mean, trade resources from. this whole nuclear debate feels like a defeat. well, we tried, seems too hard, let's got back to ye' olden times. i am also aware that we use french nuclear power as a backbone constantly and still boast as being so advanced and green, but that's also helping my point. [0]or fusion, or just a different way to boil water without creating waste we have to bury in a mountain and think about how we want to make sure that nobody every accidentally opens the toxic caves in the next thousands of years.
- Moldoteck 4mo agoWe've heard of Germany going antinuclear and being one of the worst polluters while planning to expand gas to firm renewables because storage is not a simple challenge. The only countries that really tried are France and Sweden and the result was stellar.
- Handrail 4mo agoI'm amazed that the main debate on how clean or dangerous nuclear energy is still circles around the plants themselves and storage of spent energy. I believe that glaring oversight here is that enriched nuclear fuel doesn't grow on trees. Somehow no one ever seems to talk about how efficient and clean the mining of these rare earths is and in which countries that happens. Nuclear being a clean energy is a myth as far as I know. Actually relevant information would be how the necessary mining for uranium etc. compares to coal. I suspect it is only slightly better
- itishappy 4mo agoKeep in mind that the energy density of nuclear fuel is astronomically higher than that of coal, so even if the processes were equivalently wasteful (and I'm fairly certain they are not) coal would still cause significantly more damage. The process also differ significantly: Uranium is often pumped out of the ground after being chemically extracted. Coal is almost always carted out after being blasted.
- DarkUranium 4mo agoSolar isn't exactly squeaky clean either. Look into things like lithium mining (for batteries; yes, I am aware that other options exist, but lithium is still a very common one). That one is straight up nasty.
- mortoc 4mo agoNuclear lifecycle calculations include mining. The human cost is terrible, but a separate problem (we could theoretically have ethical mining practices that don't produce more CO2). Here's some numbers I was able to find on total carbon lifecycle for the energy types: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_annex-iii.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5... - Coal is 68x more CO2 than Nuclear https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/LCA_final.pdf https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/LCA_final.pdf - Coal is 165x more CO2 than Nuclear https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy - Coal is 161x more CO2 than Nuclear
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- thelastgallon 4mo agoTwo things to keep in mind when thinking about nuclear 1) Has the lowest deaths/TWH: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... 2) Any country that is not US absolutely needs to invest in nuclear technology. This is for your own security. In addition to providing energy security, it also provides physical security (with a bit more work). Without nuclear, your country will remain vulnerable to: 1) Direct attacks 2) Sanctions which destroy your economy and quality of life of your citizens 3) Fossil fuel disruptions, either intentional or malicious With nuclear + solar, you have an unbeatable combination of all forms of security. Every country wastes lots and lots of money on many useless initiatives. Nuclear might seem costly, but security is somewhat important. The rest of the world on clean energy will ultimately help people in US, because there will be less foreign adventures and oil will be a lot cheaper when all that demand is destroyed, supply chains are not disrupted by these wars.
- matheusmoreira 4mo agoThis. Any country without nuclear weapons is at the mercy of those that do. It's just strategic. Might as well get some clean energy out of it.
- boguscoder 4mo agoYou made it sound like any country that wants nuclear weapons can get them.. just look at Iran. I think existing nuclear weapons club is very interested in keeping membership pretty tight
- rogerrogerr 4mo agoThis seems clearly not very true; Iran didn’t seem very at the mercy of the US this year. There is a ton of resistance to actually using nuclear weapons, seemingly making them practically irrelevant.
- slow_typist 4mo agoAlso, for a single Country getting the capabilities might be a plus but if some 100+ countries have nuclear weapons, all countries are in a worse position than today. This is a sub zero sum game.
- thelastgallon 4mo agoAll countries should also invest in nuclear submarines, not just for security, but also as a source of power. Imagine having ports all around the country where a sub can plug in and provide power. Instead of building massive ports to ship stored energy (coal, oil, gas) from somewhere else in the world, its much easier to just have a plug in port and access nuclear energy. All countries have their own fleet, but can also tap into a global fleet. There is a small problem with clean energy, long term seasonal storage and disruptive events. Germans have a word for it. Dunkelflaute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute With EV batteries as an enormous reservoir of energy storage (dump all excess production when electricity is priced negative; use the EV batteries instead of peaker plants) and nuclear subs, the transition to clean energy can be complete.
- LtdJorge 4mo agoWell, current nuclear subs are, roughly, in the order of 200MW thermal and 30MW electric. That's good for moving a submarine but pretty low for a city. There's already a wind turbine (DEC 26MW) capable of 36MW, which is crazy.
- thelastgallon 4mo agoDon't worry about nuclear waste. Its a solved problem. Musk can take it with him on his weekly trips to Mars which he should be starting anytime soon.
- Moldoteck 4mo agoNo, it'll be stored in TerraDura just like in Onkalo or like Germany has biggest facility for toxic chemicals on the planet
- dadjoker 4mo ago[dead]
- pelasaco 4mo ago[dead]
- KeiferWise 4mo agoEveryone here is arguing about solar vs nuclear like it's an either-or thing. everyone in the energy industry (who's not biased) knows that a healthy mix of different fuel types depending on various factors is the way to go.
- Moldoteck 4mo agoIt's exactly this way now - Switzerland has a healthy mix