6 ms·

It 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 t

by m101 4mo ago

It 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 ago
The 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 ago
  If 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 ago
  Not 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 ago
    When 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.
    - kieranmaine 4mo ago
      For UK specific electricity costs I'd recommend looking at https://www.electricitybills.uk/ https://www.electricitybills.uk/ The UK is a grid that is adding lots of renewables and building some nuclear plants, so the site provides good data around the costs for the added transmission, storage and subsidies (for both renewables and nuclear) needed for a renewables heavy grid supplemented with nuclear. * Forecast cost for 2030: https://www.electricitybills.uk/2030 https://www.electricitybills.uk/2030 * Source data is here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SHuFAtxxKUf3Q2b7usoTl8rwngv9YyFkunNVrwqqbAo/edit?gid=0#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SHuFAtxxKUf3Q2b7usoT...
  - WalterBright 4mo ago
    > we can turn off all coal, gas and oil plants while the sun shines. Those plants are not designed to be turned on and off, and both must be done gradually and carefully to avoid cracking the turbines.
    - crote 4mo ago
      Gas peaker plants are designed to be turned on and off regularly. They can go from cold shutdown to full load in less than an hour, with some able to do it in less than 10 minutes[0]. A decent bunch of that is going to be sheer inertia as you have to spin up a heavy chunk of metal. Keep that rotating (which is actually a good thing in renewable-heavy grids!) and it can be done even faster. Similarly, keeping some parts warm costs very little energy and allows even faster ramp=up. But that's actually not relevant because battery storage is far more attractive for that kind of short-term demand. The renewable grid will need gas plants which can fill in the gap left when it is both dark and wind-less - which due to meteorology is trivially known 72 hours in advance, leaving plenty of time to prepare the plant for use. [0]: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45956 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45956
    - dalyons 4mo ago
      And I’m supposed to care? Old tech will be pushed off the grid by cheap renewables, and rapid dispatch gas will remain. Sounds great.
  - Moldoteck 4mo ago
    it's perfectly fair. The goal is to have decarbonized electricity when you need it, not only randomly. Countries solve this with gas, see DE
LinXitoW 4mo ago
What choices make nuclear expensive that we could actually get rid of WITHOUT IMMEDIATELY increasing risk (which is low because of regulation)? Moreover, it's crazy that so much regulation was provably written in blood paid by workers and public after a company got greedy. Sure, let's build 50 AND reduce regulations. Finally, the biggest fucking thing: It is MORE expensive NOW than the green alternatives, AND green energy has proven over the years to actually keep it's promises of improvements, compared to fission and SMRs, which are always just 5 years away.
- m101 4mo ago
  The Gordian Knot and Jack Devanney's website is a goldmine of information which will address almost any question anybody has on the subject.
- MobiusHorizons 4mo ago
  Renewables have been incredibly effective at providing more capacity at good cost, but they still have drawbacks. Aside from the obvious variability everyone harps on, location does play a nontrivial role. Switzerland is not as good a candidate for solar or wind as many other countries due to constraints in usable land and availability (valleys have more shade than steppes for instance). I don’t think anyone needs to be saying no to renewables when they consider investing in nuclear. The two technologies serve very different purposes in an electric grid. Base load is still a problem even with battery storage, and it makes a lot of sense to have reliable power available that is not from fossil fuels to deal with that demand. There is plenty of fossil fuel based generation to replace, it doesn’t have to all be nuclear or renewables, in fact all one or the other doesn’t make much sense. It’s true nuclear is expensive. It’s also true a lot of that expense was the regulation that has made it so incredibly safe. It’s unlikely a cheaper but still safe enough compromise will be reached in countries with existing regulatory structures quickly, but there is certainly room to improve over time.
- m101 4mo ago
  https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/how-can-nrc-style-regulation-be-so https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/how-can-nrc-style-regula...
chinathrow 4mo ago
Can you elaborate why waste is not a problem?
- m101 4mo ago
  Ok, in my own words it's something like this: - nuclear waste, after a period of the order of ~10e2/3 years is only dangerous if ingested. So it's as dangerous as any other poisonous substance after that point. There is no need for radiation shielding from that point. - nuclear waste is very dense and so physical surface storage is cheap, and a solved problem (see: dry storage casks). We can fix leaks if/when they happen. Waste is concentrated - current nuclear power stations (light water reactors) burn about 3% of their fuel leaving 97% unused in waste. There are nuclear power solutions which would burn most of the fuel (leaving very little for waste). So if we developed these technologies (see molton salt reactors being one of them) then nuclear waste would no longer be called "waste" as it would suddently become an extremely valuable feedstock for use in reactors. - related to the prior point: why is it that we think we will not find a use for this very valuable and rare reasource in the future. We should think of nuclear "waste" storage as "rare element storage" which will be very useful under some states of the world. We just don't know how yet. - as with any technology it should also be compared to the alternative when considering it's fitness: waste from the alternatives is far worse
  - lemoncucumber 4mo ago
    ~10e2/3 is a very unclear what of writing whatever number you're trying to write
    - m101 4mo ago
      100-1000 years order of magnitude. I can't remember exactly, but it's well within our ability to engineer and manage, rather than the signs that try to answer the "how do we communicate danger to later species" types of timelines
      - chinathrow 4mo ago
gpm 4mo ago
> - nuclear power is expensive by choice. It is not inherent to nuclear power Nuclear power is fundamentally expensive. It's large pieces of infrastructure, involving handling and securing extremely dangerous materials. Solar panels, wind, and batteries have all dropped in price so much that solar backed by batteries to create stable powers (and/or wind doing the same, or a mix), is in the vast majority of the world vastly cheaper than nuclear. > - nuclear energy comes in many forms. Not only high pressure reactors All of which are fundamentally expensive. > - 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 Every kw of nuclear production we create is resources we could have instead put into adding more than 1 kw of solar backed with batteries at this point. Moreover the other renewables would come online and displace fossil fuel usage faster. Thus spending money on nuclear results in a more polluted higher CO2 world, not the other way around. There was a time when nuclear was the cheapest way to build clean energy, that time has passed and isn't coming back. > - the harms from radiation exposure are mostly precisely zero, and require large exposure to be non-zero Many people have died from radiation exposure. Many people have gotten cancer from radiation exposure years later. Many many square kilometers of earth have been rendered uninhabitable by distribution of radioactive isotopes. This is misinformation and spreading it is frankly dangerous. A very healthy dose of respect is required whenever handling radioactive materials and people should not be told otherwise.
- shin_lao 4mo ago
  Could you please read the resources above that debunk the points you just made?
- yodelshady 4mo ago
  Batteries cost > $100 / kWh, the industry still considers that a target to brag about: https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-transport/lithium-ion-battery-pack-prices-fall-to-108-per-kilowatt-hour-despite-rising-metal-prices-bloombergnef/ https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-transport/lithium-ion-... This is WHOLESALE BOM price, which is about as useful as the price of uranium. That is horrifically expensive.
Forgeties79 4mo ago
> the harms from radiation exposure are mostly precisely zero You had me until this. “Mostly precisely”? What does that even mean man?
- lloeki 4mo ago
  I read it thusly: not "(mostly precisely) zero" but "mostly (precisely zero)" i.e in most reasonable cases the risk is exactly zero and conversely it takes extreme scenarios for the risk to be non-zero.
- m101 4mo ago
  The reason is that your body has mechanisms to fix the problems of radiation. For example, when you drop a stone in water would you say that you "break the surface of the water"? Our DNA is very similar - DNA damage occurs naturally. Our body has processes that fix DNA strand breaks. Radiation that occurs because of most exposure that has ever occurred is so minimal that the body's natural defences against radiation damange means that the harm is precisely zero. The body literally repaired itself much like that water surface repairs itself. Harm does occur however when the rate of radiation exposure exceeds our body's ability to repair itself. However this threshold is well above any threshold we regulate around. For more information the key words are "dna double strand breaks" and "LNT vs SNT"
SXX 4mo ago
Biggest problem is that people not aware of how many closed down or not built nuclear power plants been replaced with coal power plants. And coal kills more people in a week than all nuclear incidents killed in all history of humanity. Not even mention that coal power plants release more radioactive materials too.
- pfdietz 4mo ago
  Which nuclear plants were replaced with coal plants? If you say "German plants", I'll point out coal consumption for power generation in Germany has gone down since the decision to phase out nuclear. Coal consumption would likely have gone down even more with nuclear still being used, but that doesn't support your claim as stated.
  - jrflowers 4mo ago
    That’s a strange way of wording “Germany burns more coal today than they would be if they hadn’t replaced their nuclear power plants with coal power plants”. Jumbling up the word order doesn’t make Germany replacing their nuclear plants with coal plants a good thing.
    - pfdietz 4mo ago
      No, it's not a good thing, but it's also not an example of the claim that countries replaced nuclear with coal. Still waiting on those countries from the previous poster.
      - jrflowers 4mo ago
        What do you call it when you turn off a nuclear power plant and then turn on a coal power plant? This isn’t rocket surgery. If Germany eventually got more renewables, great. That does not retroactively mean that they didn’t replace nuclear with coal. That’s just replacing nuclear with coal and then doing something else afterward. It’s like if someone left their first wife and got married to someone else, then did that a second time, you wouldn’t say that, based on who they’re married to today, they left their first wife for their third. That intermediate step happened.
pfdietz 4mo ago
Yes, we know nuclear is actually super great, because of all the merchant nuclear plants that have been built around the world. Here is a complete list of those plants:
- m101 4mo ago
  Nuclear used to be built cheaply, before regulatory uncertainty made private construction effectively impossible: https://gordianknotbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/essays_nuke_nuke_was_cheap_v4.pdf https://gordianknotbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/essay...
  - pfdietz 4mo ago
    You can't look at the early plants built in the US that were "turnkey" plants. These were bid at prices not reflecting what they would cost to build, but what was necessary to compete with coal. The vendors took a bath on these plants.
locallost 4mo ago
I have a better list: * every dollar spent on building new nuclear will be put to use so late it effectively increases CO2 emissions * A country like Poland is the biggest emissions perpetrator in Europe, and the fact they are building nuclear means they will stay that way for literally decades * The fossil fuel exporter countries are pushing nuclear as their agenda. Why do you think that is? * Not a single country has a working permanent solution currently for waste storage. * The UK cannot clean up Sellafield at all. They had the bright idea to process waste and are now sitting in hundreds of billions of pounds of estimated costs to dispose of it.
- Moldoteck 4mo ago
  every $ spent on not building nuclear results in higher CO2 emissions due to gas firming. Germany plans gas expansion to firm renewables. * Antinuclear movement resulted in DK/DE having worse emissions vs France/Sweden even today. * Finland will give final authorization for Onkalo this summer https://qazinform.com/news/finland-set-to-launch-worlds-first-permanent-nuclear-waste-repository-09b951 https://qazinform.com/news/finland-set-to-launch-worlds-firs... Sweden already started construction at Fosmark. But ultimately conceptually it's not much different from Herfa Neurode * Most of Sellafield problems are from nuclear weapon test experiments with esoteric waste, not classic commercial reactor waste. Your list is kinda weak
  - locallost 4mo ago
    Germany replaced 2/3 of its coal use in 25 years while simultaneously inventing a whole new industry and a new way of thinking (some people still fail to understand it). This way of thinking has led to hundreds of gigawatts of new clean capacity per year in the last few years and continuously growing. This has already now been way more beneficial to mankind than nuclear has achieved in the last 60 years. The biggest problem in the world right now are people actively resisting this by wasting time and money. Poland could be on Germany's level right now for a fraction of the cost because Germany already did the heavy lifting for the whole world, but they refuse to do so on political and ideological grounds. This is a big problem, the biggest problem we have right now. But anyway: Danke Deutschland As for Finland and Onkalo, so my list is correct and there is no country in the world with a working permanent solution right now? Or have we invented time travel and are currently in later this summer period of the year? Most of Sellafield's problem are related to faulty thinking that we'll figure it out no big deal, which is the exact attitude I was commenting on. But sometimes you don't figure it out later as they found out. Don't let it happen to you.
Kon5ole 4mo ago
I feel the same frustration but for the opposite reason. I am entirely confident you must be misinformed, not me. I suggest you read actual bookkeeping statements from nuclear operators, national budget items, historical records about radiation incidents, nuclear deposits, agreement texts and the like, instead of reading books that can only be true if they adhere to the information in such sources. - nuclear power is expensive by choice. It is not inherent to nuclear power It it is inherent to nuclear power, because you really need to spend the money and effort to keep it safe. It's very dangerous. Here is where people usually say "but stats show it's killed fewer people per GWh generated than other sources". But that's not relevant at all. Nuclear power is dangerous entirely independently of that statistic. The reason so few have died is precisely that we spend all that money keeping it safe! A gun is dangerous even before you shoot someone with it. It's not safe because nobody has shot it yet. Science will tell you in detail what would happen if radioactive waste was spread in a populated area. There is so much information, please read up on it. So far it hasn't happened. Even Chernobyl was very far from a worst-case scenario. - nuclear waste is not a problem Of course it is. Malicious actors can kill millions with the amount of nuclear waste generated daily. The US gov spends millions per year guarding abandoned nuclear waste. They don't do it for no reason. Again, you need to realize that it is actually dangerous. That's why it's expensive. You need to spend LOTS of money to keep it safe. - the harms from radiation exposure are mostly precisely zero, and require large exposure to be non-zero Not even remotely true, some examples, from a very long list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident People have died from radiation exposure every decade since it was discovered. People die from minutes of exposure to barely visible amounts of radioactive elements. Please follow your inclination to be informed. Don't take my word, don't take Jacks, go to the records of actual events and base your opinion on that. My take - In 2026 we have developed a type of glass that can fetch electricity entirely for free from sunshine and store it in a container of the most abundant element on earth, or even use the surplus carbon from the atmosphere to generate synthetic fuel that can store energy for years. That's where we should spend time, money and effort.
- 4mo ago

by m101 4mo ago

durandal1 4mo ago

The 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 ago
If 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 ago
Not 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 ago
  When 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.
  - kieranmaine 4mo ago
    For UK specific electricity costs I'd recommend looking at https://www.electricitybills.uk/ https://www.electricitybills.uk/ The UK is a grid that is adding lots of renewables and building some nuclear plants, so the site provides good data around the costs for the added transmission, storage and subsidies (for both renewables and nuclear) needed for a renewables heavy grid supplemented with nuclear. * Forecast cost for 2030: https://www.electricitybills.uk/2030 https://www.electricitybills.uk/2030 * Source data is here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SHuFAtxxKUf3Q2b7usoTl8rwngv9YyFkunNVrwqqbAo/edit?gid=0#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SHuFAtxxKUf3Q2b7usoT...
- WalterBright 4mo ago
  > we can turn off all coal, gas and oil plants while the sun shines. Those plants are not designed to be turned on and off, and both must be done gradually and carefully to avoid cracking the turbines.
  - crote 4mo ago
    Gas peaker plants are designed to be turned on and off regularly. They can go from cold shutdown to full load in less than an hour, with some able to do it in less than 10 minutes[0]. A decent bunch of that is going to be sheer inertia as you have to spin up a heavy chunk of metal. Keep that rotating (which is actually a good thing in renewable-heavy grids!) and it can be done even faster. Similarly, keeping some parts warm costs very little energy and allows even faster ramp=up. But that's actually not relevant because battery storage is far more attractive for that kind of short-term demand. The renewable grid will need gas plants which can fill in the gap left when it is both dark and wind-less - which due to meteorology is trivially known 72 hours in advance, leaving plenty of time to prepare the plant for use. [0]: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45956 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45956
  - dalyons 4mo ago
    And I’m supposed to care? Old tech will be pushed off the grid by cheap renewables, and rapid dispatch gas will remain. Sounds great.
- Moldoteck 4mo ago
  it's perfectly fair. The goal is to have decarbonized electricity when you need it, not only randomly. Countries solve this with gas, see DE

LinXitoW 4mo ago

What choices make nuclear expensive that we could actually get rid of WITHOUT IMMEDIATELY increasing risk (which is low because of regulation)? Moreover, it's crazy that so much regulation was provably written in blood paid by workers and public after a company got greedy. Sure, let's build 50 AND reduce regulations. Finally, the biggest fucking thing: It is MORE expensive NOW than the green alternatives, AND green energy has proven over the years to actually keep it's promises of improvements, compared to fission and SMRs, which are always just 5 years away.

m101 4mo ago
The Gordian Knot and Jack Devanney's website is a goldmine of information which will address almost any question anybody has on the subject.
MobiusHorizons 4mo ago
Renewables have been incredibly effective at providing more capacity at good cost, but they still have drawbacks. Aside from the obvious variability everyone harps on, location does play a nontrivial role. Switzerland is not as good a candidate for solar or wind as many other countries due to constraints in usable land and availability (valleys have more shade than steppes for instance). I don’t think anyone needs to be saying no to renewables when they consider investing in nuclear. The two technologies serve very different purposes in an electric grid. Base load is still a problem even with battery storage, and it makes a lot of sense to have reliable power available that is not from fossil fuels to deal with that demand. There is plenty of fossil fuel based generation to replace, it doesn’t have to all be nuclear or renewables, in fact all one or the other doesn’t make much sense. It’s true nuclear is expensive. It’s also true a lot of that expense was the regulation that has made it so incredibly safe. It’s unlikely a cheaper but still safe enough compromise will be reached in countries with existing regulatory structures quickly, but there is certainly room to improve over time.
m101 4mo ago
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/how-can-nrc-style-regulation-be-so https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/how-can-nrc-style-regula...

chinathrow 4mo ago

Can you elaborate why waste is not a problem?

m101 4mo ago
Ok, in my own words it's something like this: - nuclear waste, after a period of the order of ~10e2/3 years is only dangerous if ingested. So it's as dangerous as any other poisonous substance after that point. There is no need for radiation shielding from that point. - nuclear waste is very dense and so physical surface storage is cheap, and a solved problem (see: dry storage casks). We can fix leaks if/when they happen. Waste is concentrated - current nuclear power stations (light water reactors) burn about 3% of their fuel leaving 97% unused in waste. There are nuclear power solutions which would burn most of the fuel (leaving very little for waste). So if we developed these technologies (see molton salt reactors being one of them) then nuclear waste would no longer be called "waste" as it would suddently become an extremely valuable feedstock for use in reactors. - related to the prior point: why is it that we think we will not find a use for this very valuable and rare reasource in the future. We should think of nuclear "waste" storage as "rare element storage" which will be very useful under some states of the world. We just don't know how yet. - as with any technology it should also be compared to the alternative when considering it's fitness: waste from the alternatives is far worse
- lemoncucumber 4mo ago
  ~10e2/3 is a very unclear what of writing whatever number you're trying to write
  - m101 4mo ago
    100-1000 years order of magnitude. I can't remember exactly, but it's well within our ability to engineer and manage, rather than the signs that try to answer the "how do we communicate danger to later species" types of timelines
    - chinathrow 4mo ago

gpm 4mo ago

> - nuclear power is expensive by choice. It is not inherent to nuclear power Nuclear power is fundamentally expensive. It's large pieces of infrastructure, involving handling and securing extremely dangerous materials. Solar panels, wind, and batteries have all dropped in price so much that solar backed by batteries to create stable powers (and/or wind doing the same, or a mix), is in the vast majority of the world vastly cheaper than nuclear. > - nuclear energy comes in many forms. Not only high pressure reactors All of which are fundamentally expensive. > - 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 Every kw of nuclear production we create is resources we could have instead put into adding more than 1 kw of solar backed with batteries at this point. Moreover the other renewables would come online and displace fossil fuel usage faster. Thus spending money on nuclear results in a more polluted higher CO2 world, not the other way around. There was a time when nuclear was the cheapest way to build clean energy, that time has passed and isn't coming back. > - the harms from radiation exposure are mostly precisely zero, and require large exposure to be non-zero Many people have died from radiation exposure. Many people have gotten cancer from radiation exposure years later. Many many square kilometers of earth have been rendered uninhabitable by distribution of radioactive isotopes. This is misinformation and spreading it is frankly dangerous. A very healthy dose of respect is required whenever handling radioactive materials and people should not be told otherwise.

shin_lao 4mo ago
Could you please read the resources above that debunk the points you just made?
yodelshady 4mo ago
Batteries cost > $100 / kWh, the industry still considers that a target to brag about: https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-transport/lithium-ion-battery-pack-prices-fall-to-108-per-kilowatt-hour-despite-rising-metal-prices-bloombergnef/ https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-transport/lithium-ion-... This is WHOLESALE BOM price, which is about as useful as the price of uranium. That is horrifically expensive.

Forgeties79 4mo ago

> the harms from radiation exposure are mostly precisely zero You had me until this. “Mostly precisely”? What does that even mean man?

lloeki 4mo ago
I read it thusly: not "(mostly precisely) zero" but "mostly (precisely zero)" i.e in most reasonable cases the risk is exactly zero and conversely it takes extreme scenarios for the risk to be non-zero.
m101 4mo ago
The reason is that your body has mechanisms to fix the problems of radiation. For example, when you drop a stone in water would you say that you "break the surface of the water"? Our DNA is very similar - DNA damage occurs naturally. Our body has processes that fix DNA strand breaks. Radiation that occurs because of most exposure that has ever occurred is so minimal that the body's natural defences against radiation damange means that the harm is precisely zero. The body literally repaired itself much like that water surface repairs itself. Harm does occur however when the rate of radiation exposure exceeds our body's ability to repair itself. However this threshold is well above any threshold we regulate around. For more information the key words are "dna double strand breaks" and "LNT vs SNT"

SXX 4mo ago

Biggest problem is that people not aware of how many closed down or not built nuclear power plants been replaced with coal power plants. And coal kills more people in a week than all nuclear incidents killed in all history of humanity. Not even mention that coal power plants release more radioactive materials too.

pfdietz 4mo ago
Which nuclear plants were replaced with coal plants? If you say "German plants", I'll point out coal consumption for power generation in Germany has gone down since the decision to phase out nuclear. Coal consumption would likely have gone down even more with nuclear still being used, but that doesn't support your claim as stated.
- jrflowers 4mo ago
  That’s a strange way of wording “Germany burns more coal today than they would be if they hadn’t replaced their nuclear power plants with coal power plants”. Jumbling up the word order doesn’t make Germany replacing their nuclear plants with coal plants a good thing.
  - pfdietz 4mo ago
    No, it's not a good thing, but it's also not an example of the claim that countries replaced nuclear with coal. Still waiting on those countries from the previous poster.
    - jrflowers 4mo ago
      What do you call it when you turn off a nuclear power plant and then turn on a coal power plant? This isn’t rocket surgery. If Germany eventually got more renewables, great. That does not retroactively mean that they didn’t replace nuclear with coal. That’s just replacing nuclear with coal and then doing something else afterward. It’s like if someone left their first wife and got married to someone else, then did that a second time, you wouldn’t say that, based on who they’re married to today, they left their first wife for their third. That intermediate step happened.

pfdietz 4mo ago

Yes, we know nuclear is actually super great, because of all the merchant nuclear plants that have been built around the world. Here is a complete list of those plants:

m101 4mo ago
Nuclear used to be built cheaply, before regulatory uncertainty made private construction effectively impossible: https://gordianknotbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/essays_nuke_nuke_was_cheap_v4.pdf https://gordianknotbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/essay...
- pfdietz 4mo ago
  You can't look at the early plants built in the US that were "turnkey" plants. These were bid at prices not reflecting what they would cost to build, but what was necessary to compete with coal. The vendors took a bath on these plants.

locallost 4mo ago

I have a better list: * every dollar spent on building new nuclear will be put to use so late it effectively increases CO2 emissions * A country like Poland is the biggest emissions perpetrator in Europe, and the fact they are building nuclear means they will stay that way for literally decades * The fossil fuel exporter countries are pushing nuclear as their agenda. Why do you think that is? * Not a single country has a working permanent solution currently for waste storage. * The UK cannot clean up Sellafield at all. They had the bright idea to process waste and are now sitting in hundreds of billions of pounds of estimated costs to dispose of it.

Moldoteck 4mo ago
every $ spent on not building nuclear results in higher CO2 emissions due to gas firming. Germany plans gas expansion to firm renewables. * Antinuclear movement resulted in DK/DE having worse emissions vs France/Sweden even today. * Finland will give final authorization for Onkalo this summer https://qazinform.com/news/finland-set-to-launch-worlds-first-permanent-nuclear-waste-repository-09b951 https://qazinform.com/news/finland-set-to-launch-worlds-firs... Sweden already started construction at Fosmark. But ultimately conceptually it's not much different from Herfa Neurode * Most of Sellafield problems are from nuclear weapon test experiments with esoteric waste, not classic commercial reactor waste. Your list is kinda weak
- locallost 4mo ago
  Germany replaced 2/3 of its coal use in 25 years while simultaneously inventing a whole new industry and a new way of thinking (some people still fail to understand it). This way of thinking has led to hundreds of gigawatts of new clean capacity per year in the last few years and continuously growing. This has already now been way more beneficial to mankind than nuclear has achieved in the last 60 years. The biggest problem in the world right now are people actively resisting this by wasting time and money. Poland could be on Germany's level right now for a fraction of the cost because Germany already did the heavy lifting for the whole world, but they refuse to do so on political and ideological grounds. This is a big problem, the biggest problem we have right now. But anyway: Danke Deutschland As for Finland and Onkalo, so my list is correct and there is no country in the world with a working permanent solution right now? Or have we invented time travel and are currently in later this summer period of the year? Most of Sellafield's problem are related to faulty thinking that we'll figure it out no big deal, which is the exact attitude I was commenting on. But sometimes you don't figure it out later as they found out. Don't let it happen to you.

Kon5ole 4mo ago

I feel the same frustration but for the opposite reason. I am entirely confident you must be misinformed, not me. I suggest you read actual bookkeeping statements from nuclear operators, national budget items, historical records about radiation incidents, nuclear deposits, agreement texts and the like, instead of reading books that can only be true if they adhere to the information in such sources. - nuclear power is expensive by choice. It is not inherent to nuclear power It it is inherent to nuclear power, because you really need to spend the money and effort to keep it safe. It's very dangerous. Here is where people usually say "but stats show it's killed fewer people per GWh generated than other sources". But that's not relevant at all. Nuclear power is dangerous entirely independently of that statistic. The reason so few have died is precisely that we spend all that money keeping it safe! A gun is dangerous even before you shoot someone with it. It's not safe because nobody has shot it yet. Science will tell you in detail what would happen if radioactive waste was spread in a populated area. There is so much information, please read up on it. So far it hasn't happened. Even Chernobyl was very far from a worst-case scenario. - nuclear waste is not a problem Of course it is. Malicious actors can kill millions with the amount of nuclear waste generated daily. The US gov spends millions per year guarding abandoned nuclear waste. They don't do it for no reason. Again, you need to realize that it is actually dangerous. That's why it's expensive. You need to spend LOTS of money to keep it safe. - the harms from radiation exposure are mostly precisely zero, and require large exposure to be non-zero Not even remotely true, some examples, from a very long list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goiânia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident People have died from radiation exposure every decade since it was discovered. People die from minutes of exposure to barely visible amounts of radioactive elements. Please follow your inclination to be informed. Don't take my word, don't take Jacks, go to the records of actual events and base your opinion on that. My take - In 2026 we have developed a type of glass that can fetch electricity entirely for free from sunshine and store it in a container of the most abundant element on earth, or even use the surplus carbon from the atmosphere to generate synthetic fuel that can store energy for years. That's where we should spend time, money and effort.

4mo ago