3 ms·

What a depressing outcome. This could have powered hundreds of thousands of households, cheaply, without adding any CO2 to the atmosphere.

by natnat 3mo ago

asah 3mo ago
...or the evacuation of highly populated Long Island. Three Mile Island was a * big * deal - if that had happened on Long Island, it would've been unimaginable disaster and permanent stain on NYC. To many people, "three strikes you're out" - 3MI, Chernobyl and Fukushima was the final straw, reasoning that even the Japanese can't safely manage this technology, so "Homer Simpson" stands no chance. Meanwhile, even the country's leading experts have no politically viable strategy for disposing of the waste, including the risk of derailments, terrorism, etc. This isn't the world I want, but it's reality. IRL, people would rather die slowly from CO2 than live with the fear of 3MI/Chernobyl/Fukushima regardless of how rare they are (and they're not). I'm optimistic that modern reactor designs and reprocessing technologies can overcome these issues, but I can understand why voters go full NIMBY.
- fwipsy 3mo ago
  Funny coincidence, I just read this morning about how the risk of cancer from radiation is massively exaggerated[1]. I'm not convinced that the overall health risk from nuclear power is worse than the health risk from coal plants. [1]https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-lie-about-radiation/ https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-lie-about-radiation/
  - KennyBlanken 3mo ago
    Coal? You mean that thing that the US has been rapidly phasing out for two decades and currently represents about 10% of US electricity generation? Whereas wind and solar are around twice that, and skyrocketing?
    - fwipsy 3mo ago
      This reactor was decommissioned in 1994. Since we're discussing the safety of 30-year-old reactors, it seems to me to be appropriate to compare to 30-year-old alternatives.
    - helsinkiandrew 3mo ago
      > You mean that thing that the US has been rapidly phasing out for two decades Although the US Government is funding 2 new coal power plants. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-announces-850m-modernize-coal-capacity-build-new-plants/822109/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-announces-850m-moderniz...
- KennyBlanken 3mo ago
  You're missing at least three other major events. Sarov in 1997 Mayak Production Association in 2017 - nobody knows what happened to this day because Russia refuses to release any info about it but it was a huge release - over 100–300 TBq of ruthenium-106. There's the Nyonoksa explosion in 2019. Also, we might as well count Hanaford, because of massive amounts of radioactive material released starting in the 40's that continued until the plant was shut down. Furthermore, the site is costing us $2BN a year and will until roughly 2040. $2BN would be enough to install around 2GW of solar good for roughly 3–6 TWh/year. 450,000–500,000 "homes" worth of additional capacity.
  - JackFr 3mo ago
    The aggravating factor is that in the event of an incident there’s simply not a feasible means of evacuation.
  - chickenbig 3mo ago
    > three other major events What is the measure of major? The INES scale? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_and_Radiological_Event_Scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_and_Radi... > Sarov in 1997 One person died in the criticality accident in a weapons research lab. > Mayak Production Association in 2017 ... it was a huge release https://inis.iaea.org/records/ndb3s-s5507 https://inis.iaea.org/records/ndb3s-s5507 "In some regions, over 100 mBq/m³ were measured as one-day means. Although resulting exposure was far below radiological concern" > the Nyonoksa explosion Nuclear powered cruise missile. > we might as well count Hanaford https://madihilly.substack.com/p/hanford-what-a-waste https://madihilly.substack.com/p/hanford-what-a-waste
- wat10000 3mo ago
  The waste thing is weird. We're able to dispose of other highly toxic substances. One dangerous thing frequently mentioned about nuclear waste is that it remains dangerous for thousands of years. But many other dangerous substances remain dangerous forever. It seems like having a concrete span of time makes it scarier even though it's objectively better.
  - lukan 3mo ago
    Have you ever dealt with radioactive substances? "We're able to dispose of other highly toxic subst.ances." With this statement I don't think so, so maybe educate yourself about a topic before making objective statements? Chemical toxic substances can be processed into non toxic. They do not radiate through the walls, they do not make other materials also toxic by having it in the same room. Also ... the amount of radioactiv waste matters, it is not just a few barrels we have to handle. Have you at least done a search on how much radioactive waste there is? Spoiler, it is a big number and for some reasons even the most pro nuclear people don't want it buried in their backyard.
    - nebopolis 3mo ago
      There's a single mine (Giant Mine) in Canada that is contaminated with 200k+ tons of arsenic trioxide - which will literally remain poisonous forever since the poison is a stable element not an organic compound. The current plan is to try to keep it frozen because the dust is odorless, tasteless, water soluble, and located just outside of Yellowknife. That's the weight of more than half the amount of nuclear waste ever produced on the planet, in one relatively unremarkable industrial site. Nuclear waste can be reprocessed to reduce its volume, and the more "spicy" it is, inherently the less long lived it is. We could probably store all the nuclear waste in the world in a geologic repository on the canadian shield somewhere for the cost of actually cleaning up that one old gold mine to make it non toxic.
      - IAmBroom 3mo ago
        Most of your post is accurate, but: > Nuclear waste can be reprocessed to reduce its volume, and the more "spicy" it is, inherently the less long lived it is. That is only true of fission-ready amounts - that is, near-fuel-level radioactive levels that are "hot" with decay particles. Unprompted radioactive decay is the most stable process known to us currently; we base all our best clocks on it. 99.9% of nuclear waste is essentially either "slightly radioactive", or "suspected to be slightly radioactive" - and it won't change for a looong time.
- busymom0 3mo ago
  Maybe this is a dumb question but couldn't we ship the waste to another planet (of course once we have rockets capable of doing so but that's not far imo).
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - georgemcbay 3mo ago
    We could fly it into the sun, the problem is that until we have a space elevator the only way we have of getting it out of the atmosphere is via rockets and a rocket explosion with a nuclear waste payload would be very bad.
    - xoxxala 3mo ago
      It would also be far cheaper to send that nuclear waste to Mars. It takes 55 times the energy to fly to the Sun than it does to go to Mars: https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/its-surprisingly-hard-to-go-to-the-sun/ https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/its-surprisingly-hard-to-g...
      - hollerith 3mo ago
        In addition, even sending it to Mars would be extremely expensive.
      - georgemcbay 3mo ago
        Sure but since we're talking about pie in the sky stuff requiring tech we don't yet have to begin with, putting it into the sun is a better permanent solution. I don't think Elon is ever going to colonize Mars, but other people may someday.
      - fakedang 3mo ago
        Shower thought: Why send it to Mars when we can send it to uninhabitable Venus? Even gravity might work in our favor.
- MostlyStable 3mo ago
  While I think you are accurately describing how people do/would react, the "big deal" you describe killed, injured, or caused adverse health effects for exactly zero people. It is possible that these are inevitable outcomes of human psychology, but a more rational world would have gone full steam ahead on nuclear power, even after all of the events you describe. A Chernobyl level accident every single year would have killed fewer people (by a few OOM) than particulate emissions from coal, and that's completely ignoring any climate effects. Our societies risk tolerance with nuclear is literally orders of magnitude disconnected from how we treat risk from any other source, and as a result we are all poorer, less healthy, and have injured the environment to a dramatically greater degree relative to a pro-nuclear alternative timeline.
  - otherme123 3mo ago
    >a more rational world would have gone full steam ahead on nuclear power Nuclear is not perfect, it has some drawbacks that totally justify not going "full steam ahead". Even if it is the cleanest energy possible and 100% safe guaranteed, it is also very concentrated (at least for now) that makes a plant shutting down for repairment/manteinance a problem, it is expensive to build, it takes forever to increase capacity, it creates dangerous residues, it is not very modulable. > and have injured the environment to a dramatically greater degree relative to a pro-nuclear alternative timeline. France is having a problem to install green energy, because their nuclear capacity is so big. The alternative pro-nuclear timeline might be using fossils as the modulable part forever by blocking solar and wind installations. >and as a result we are all poorer How? Nuclear is safe, but it is expensive. And it almost naturally lead to monopolies and oligopolies due to their size and complexity, allowing owners to have pricing power. In fact, the economics of building a nuclear plant don't work unless a state subsidizes (i.e. extra costs you won't find in the utility bill, but hidding in your taxes, ask the french) its build and insurance costs.
    - xienze 3mo ago
      > it is expensive to build, Is that because the building materials, engineering, and labor are super expensive or because of environmentalists throwing up legal and monetary roadblocks for decades? ("OK, if you can do a decade-long study on the impact of this plant AND make sure no Native American tribes declare a 100-mile area around your proposed site sacred AND you can design it in such a way that it emits less background radiation than a vacuum cleaner, maybe we can advance your proposal to the review stage, which will last a couple years. Too expensive, huh? Shame!") > it creates dangerous residues We have a perfectly good storage site (Yucca Mountain), but of course political and environmental opposition is what keeps it closed. > France is having a problem to install green energy, because their nuclear capacity is so big. The alternative pro-nuclear timeline might be using fossils as the modulable part forever by blocking solar and wind installations. I don't see how it reasonably follows that leaning heavily on nuclear power would cause France to decide that fossil fuels are somehow a better choice than renewables for that purpose. Pure speculation based on the common anti-nuclear belief that using nuclear power will retard the usage of renewables for some reason. You're kind of highlighting what's stalled nuclear energy for decades: demanding absolute, total perfection in the face of reality, which is that nuclear is and has been the _best_ overall option for baseload power generation.
- Animats 3mo ago
  Three Mile Island was expensive, but nobody was injured. TMI had a big, strong containment vessel. Although they had a meltdown, the containment did its job and held. Fukushima had too small a containment vessel. It was only slightly larger than the reactor pressure vessel, and it failed to contain the pressures of the meltdown. Chernobyl had no containment at all. Instead of all these "modular reactor" excuses for weaker containment vessels, such as NuScale, what's needed is more work on making very large pressure vessels cheaply. There's been progress in robotic welding of thick sections.
- exmadscientist 3mo ago
  > optimistic that modern reactor designs and reprocessing technologies can overcome these issues The obstacles aren't technical. They never really have been. The obstacles are human: political, bureaucratic, and corporate. It's not about "can we build a safe nuclear plant?". It's about "do you trust these bozos to build a safe nuclear plant?", remembering that if said bozos screw up, the damage is basically irreversible. That's the problem. LILCO Shoreham, for example, famously couldn't build backup gernerators that worked, until they exploded and had to be completely redesigned and replaced. Does that inspire confidence in the rest of their plant?
- mpweiher 3mo ago
  Why would you evacuate Long Island? In Fukushima, there were no radiation deaths, and the long term effects of radiation on the population will be undetectable. The deaths that did occur were due to the unnecessary evacuations. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957582017300782 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095758201... So due to Radiophobia, not radiation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia The forced evacuation of 154,000 people ″was not justified by the relatively moderate radiation levels″, but was ordered because ″the government basically panicked″ https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/when-radiation-isnt-the-real-risk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/when-radiation-is... Personal note: the Fukushima accident turned me from a nuclear skeptic to a nuclear supporter. This happened quite a bit. At least for people who actually paid attention. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nu... And remember that this was all due to a historically unprecedented earthquake and Tsunami that killed 18000 people and caused half a trillion dollars in damage (in 2025 dollars). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tōhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tōhoku_earthquake_and_tsu... During that earthquake, more people died due to breaking dams than of radiation in that natural disaster. Are we dismantling our dams? There is no 100% safe technology. Nuclear power is the safest form of electricity generation we have, although solar and wind are so close that the differences don't really matter. According to this NASA study, nuclear power saved 1,8 million lives up to 2011, with many millions more lives saved in the future. https://www.giss.nasa.gov/pubs/abs/kh05000e.html https://www.giss.nasa.gov/pubs/abs/kh05000e.html On the flip-side, the most consequential negative health effects of Chernobyl and Fukushima came from turning off nuclear power plants and not building more. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421519303611 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151... If the US and the rest of Europe follow Germany's example they could lose the chance to prevent over 200,000 deaths and 14,000 MtCO2 emissions by 2035. https://www.sciencespo.fr/department-economics/sites/sciencespo.fr.department-economics/files/PEPES_2024_abstract_N_Qian_The%20Political%20Economic%20Determinants%20of%20Nuclear%20Power.pdf https://www.sciencespo.fr/department-economics/sites/science... We estimate that the decline in NPP caused by Chernobyl led to the loss of approximately 141 million expected life years in the U.S., 33 in the U.K. and 318 million globally And we absolutly know how to deal with the waste, and it's not particularly difficult. In fact, we have multiple ways of disposing of the small amounts of waste. NPPs are very secure against terrorism.
- 21asdffdsa12 3mo ago
  The problem is the technology being dependent on a highly sophisticated industrial environment, which is not allowed to go through phases of economic decline and knowledge loss. Nobody has distrust into the engineering, everyone distrusts the social component. Humans do not make for great material when it comes to forming sturdy, reliable organizations.
- rbanffy 3mo ago
  > even the Japanese can't safely manage this technology, Fukushima was a terrible design, where there is no passive failsafe - the reactor is still reacting after scram, and still getting hotter, but the heat no longer powers the cooling systems, which rely on external power that must be operating. It's not Chernobyl bad, but, if you shouldn't need anything external to the reactor to keep it safe if disconnected from everything outside.
KennyBlanken 3mo ago
Nuclear is not zero-carbon nor is it "cheap." It's the most expensive form of power generation. Meanwhile solar, wind, and BSS are the cheapest and continue to get cheaper as volume goes up and all the tech around them matures. More and more storage methods are being developed and put into use. Utilities and grid operators have lined up behind solar, wind, BSS, and HVDC transmission. That's what they are funding, installing, and buying power from. This has been a trend for a number of years now, around the world. That isn't some conspiracy or coincidence. The only place this is still considered a debated topic, or nuclear is considered preferential, is social media and forums like HN.
- boxed 3mo ago
  > Nuclear is not zero-carbon nor is it "cheap." 1994. > Meanwhile solar, wind, and BSS are the cheapest [...] 1994
- lnsru 3mo ago
  The thing is that educated people like HN users see very simple thing: 1 kW nuclear can be safely replaced with 20 kW well distributed renewables. While solar is dirt cheap wind isn’t. Especially offshore wind. And the math clearly shows advantages of nuclear.
  - defrost 3mo ago
    > And the math clearly shows advantages of nuclear. If that's the case and the advantages are so sharp and clearly defined, ... Then why did Australia's latest CSIRO (National Science body) energy options for the nations future report* clearly state that nuclear was not an economically pragmatic choice compared to renewables? Any chance "Nuclear V. {X}" is a qualified comparison with edge cases and nuance? * https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2025/july/2024-25-gencost-final-report https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2025/july/2024-25-genc...
    - lnsru 3mo ago
      I heard Australia is pretty sunny country. If that’s right they can go with solar and be alright. Sweden has less options for sure.
Animats 3mo ago
Not under LILCO management.[1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/28/nyregion/the-end-of-lilco-as-long-island-has-come-to-know-it.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/28/nyregion/the-end-of-lilco...
- sshprotocol 3mo ago
  https://archive.is/P0JM https://archive.is/P0JM

What a depressing outcome. This could have powered hundreds of thousands of households, cheaply, without adding any CO2 to the atmosphere.

by natnat 3mo ago

What a depressing outcome. This could have powered hundreds of thousands of households, cheaply, without adding any CO2 to the atmosphere.

asah 3mo ago

...or the evacuation of highly populated Long Island. Three Mile Island was a * big * deal - if that had happened on Long Island, it would've been unimaginable disaster and permanent stain on NYC. To many people, "three strikes you're out" - 3MI, Chernobyl and Fukushima was the final straw, reasoning that even the Japanese can't safely manage this technology, so "Homer Simpson" stands no chance. Meanwhile, even the country's leading experts have no politically viable strategy for disposing of the waste, including the risk of derailments, terrorism, etc. This isn't the world I want, but it's reality. IRL, people would rather die slowly from CO2 than live with the fear of 3MI/Chernobyl/Fukushima regardless of how rare they are (and they're not). I'm optimistic that modern reactor designs and reprocessing technologies can overcome these issues, but I can understand why voters go full NIMBY.

fwipsy 3mo ago
Funny coincidence, I just read this morning about how the risk of cancer from radiation is massively exaggerated[1]. I'm not convinced that the overall health risk from nuclear power is worse than the health risk from coal plants. [1]https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-lie-about-radiation/ https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-lie-about-radiation/
- KennyBlanken 3mo ago
  Coal? You mean that thing that the US has been rapidly phasing out for two decades and currently represents about 10% of US electricity generation? Whereas wind and solar are around twice that, and skyrocketing?
  - fwipsy 3mo ago
    This reactor was decommissioned in 1994. Since we're discussing the safety of 30-year-old reactors, it seems to me to be appropriate to compare to 30-year-old alternatives.
  - helsinkiandrew 3mo ago
    > You mean that thing that the US has been rapidly phasing out for two decades Although the US Government is funding 2 new coal power plants. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-announces-850m-modernize-coal-capacity-build-new-plants/822109/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-announces-850m-moderniz...
KennyBlanken 3mo ago
You're missing at least three other major events. Sarov in 1997 Mayak Production Association in 2017 - nobody knows what happened to this day because Russia refuses to release any info about it but it was a huge release - over 100–300 TBq of ruthenium-106. There's the Nyonoksa explosion in 2019. Also, we might as well count Hanaford, because of massive amounts of radioactive material released starting in the 40's that continued until the plant was shut down. Furthermore, the site is costing us $2BN a year and will until roughly 2040. $2BN would be enough to install around 2GW of solar good for roughly 3–6 TWh/year. 450,000–500,000 "homes" worth of additional capacity.
- JackFr 3mo ago
  The aggravating factor is that in the event of an incident there’s simply not a feasible means of evacuation.
- chickenbig 3mo ago
  > three other major events What is the measure of major? The INES scale? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_and_Radiological_Event_Scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_and_Radi... > Sarov in 1997 One person died in the criticality accident in a weapons research lab. > Mayak Production Association in 2017 ... it was a huge release https://inis.iaea.org/records/ndb3s-s5507 https://inis.iaea.org/records/ndb3s-s5507 "In some regions, over 100 mBq/m³ were measured as one-day means. Although resulting exposure was far below radiological concern" > the Nyonoksa explosion Nuclear powered cruise missile. > we might as well count Hanaford https://madihilly.substack.com/p/hanford-what-a-waste https://madihilly.substack.com/p/hanford-what-a-waste
wat10000 3mo ago
The waste thing is weird. We're able to dispose of other highly toxic substances. One dangerous thing frequently mentioned about nuclear waste is that it remains dangerous for thousands of years. But many other dangerous substances remain dangerous forever. It seems like having a concrete span of time makes it scarier even though it's objectively better.
- lukan 3mo ago
  Have you ever dealt with radioactive substances? "We're able to dispose of other highly toxic subst.ances." With this statement I don't think so, so maybe educate yourself about a topic before making objective statements? Chemical toxic substances can be processed into non toxic. They do not radiate through the walls, they do not make other materials also toxic by having it in the same room. Also ... the amount of radioactiv waste matters, it is not just a few barrels we have to handle. Have you at least done a search on how much radioactive waste there is? Spoiler, it is a big number and for some reasons even the most pro nuclear people don't want it buried in their backyard.
  - nebopolis 3mo ago
    There's a single mine (Giant Mine) in Canada that is contaminated with 200k+ tons of arsenic trioxide - which will literally remain poisonous forever since the poison is a stable element not an organic compound. The current plan is to try to keep it frozen because the dust is odorless, tasteless, water soluble, and located just outside of Yellowknife. That's the weight of more than half the amount of nuclear waste ever produced on the planet, in one relatively unremarkable industrial site. Nuclear waste can be reprocessed to reduce its volume, and the more "spicy" it is, inherently the less long lived it is. We could probably store all the nuclear waste in the world in a geologic repository on the canadian shield somewhere for the cost of actually cleaning up that one old gold mine to make it non toxic.
    - IAmBroom 3mo ago
      Most of your post is accurate, but: > Nuclear waste can be reprocessed to reduce its volume, and the more "spicy" it is, inherently the less long lived it is. That is only true of fission-ready amounts - that is, near-fuel-level radioactive levels that are "hot" with decay particles. Unprompted radioactive decay is the most stable process known to us currently; we base all our best clocks on it. 99.9% of nuclear waste is essentially either "slightly radioactive", or "suspected to be slightly radioactive" - and it won't change for a looong time.
busymom0 3mo ago
Maybe this is a dumb question but couldn't we ship the waste to another planet (of course once we have rockets capable of doing so but that's not far imo).
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- georgemcbay 3mo ago
  We could fly it into the sun, the problem is that until we have a space elevator the only way we have of getting it out of the atmosphere is via rockets and a rocket explosion with a nuclear waste payload would be very bad.
  - xoxxala 3mo ago
    It would also be far cheaper to send that nuclear waste to Mars. It takes 55 times the energy to fly to the Sun than it does to go to Mars: https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/its-surprisingly-hard-to-go-to-the-sun/ https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/its-surprisingly-hard-to-g...
    - hollerith 3mo ago
      In addition, even sending it to Mars would be extremely expensive.
    - georgemcbay 3mo ago
      Sure but since we're talking about pie in the sky stuff requiring tech we don't yet have to begin with, putting it into the sun is a better permanent solution. I don't think Elon is ever going to colonize Mars, but other people may someday.
    - fakedang 3mo ago
      Shower thought: Why send it to Mars when we can send it to uninhabitable Venus? Even gravity might work in our favor.
MostlyStable 3mo ago
While I think you are accurately describing how people do/would react, the "big deal" you describe killed, injured, or caused adverse health effects for exactly zero people. It is possible that these are inevitable outcomes of human psychology, but a more rational world would have gone full steam ahead on nuclear power, even after all of the events you describe. A Chernobyl level accident every single year would have killed fewer people (by a few OOM) than particulate emissions from coal, and that's completely ignoring any climate effects. Our societies risk tolerance with nuclear is literally orders of magnitude disconnected from how we treat risk from any other source, and as a result we are all poorer, less healthy, and have injured the environment to a dramatically greater degree relative to a pro-nuclear alternative timeline.
- otherme123 3mo ago
  >a more rational world would have gone full steam ahead on nuclear power Nuclear is not perfect, it has some drawbacks that totally justify not going "full steam ahead". Even if it is the cleanest energy possible and 100% safe guaranteed, it is also very concentrated (at least for now) that makes a plant shutting down for repairment/manteinance a problem, it is expensive to build, it takes forever to increase capacity, it creates dangerous residues, it is not very modulable. > and have injured the environment to a dramatically greater degree relative to a pro-nuclear alternative timeline. France is having a problem to install green energy, because their nuclear capacity is so big. The alternative pro-nuclear timeline might be using fossils as the modulable part forever by blocking solar and wind installations. >and as a result we are all poorer How? Nuclear is safe, but it is expensive. And it almost naturally lead to monopolies and oligopolies due to their size and complexity, allowing owners to have pricing power. In fact, the economics of building a nuclear plant don't work unless a state subsidizes (i.e. extra costs you won't find in the utility bill, but hidding in your taxes, ask the french) its build and insurance costs.
  - xienze 3mo ago
    > it is expensive to build, Is that because the building materials, engineering, and labor are super expensive or because of environmentalists throwing up legal and monetary roadblocks for decades? ("OK, if you can do a decade-long study on the impact of this plant AND make sure no Native American tribes declare a 100-mile area around your proposed site sacred AND you can design it in such a way that it emits less background radiation than a vacuum cleaner, maybe we can advance your proposal to the review stage, which will last a couple years. Too expensive, huh? Shame!") > it creates dangerous residues We have a perfectly good storage site (Yucca Mountain), but of course political and environmental opposition is what keeps it closed. > France is having a problem to install green energy, because their nuclear capacity is so big. The alternative pro-nuclear timeline might be using fossils as the modulable part forever by blocking solar and wind installations. I don't see how it reasonably follows that leaning heavily on nuclear power would cause France to decide that fossil fuels are somehow a better choice than renewables for that purpose. Pure speculation based on the common anti-nuclear belief that using nuclear power will retard the usage of renewables for some reason. You're kind of highlighting what's stalled nuclear energy for decades: demanding absolute, total perfection in the face of reality, which is that nuclear is and has been the _best_ overall option for baseload power generation.
Animats 3mo ago
Three Mile Island was expensive, but nobody was injured. TMI had a big, strong containment vessel. Although they had a meltdown, the containment did its job and held. Fukushima had too small a containment vessel. It was only slightly larger than the reactor pressure vessel, and it failed to contain the pressures of the meltdown. Chernobyl had no containment at all. Instead of all these "modular reactor" excuses for weaker containment vessels, such as NuScale, what's needed is more work on making very large pressure vessels cheaply. There's been progress in robotic welding of thick sections.
exmadscientist 3mo ago
> optimistic that modern reactor designs and reprocessing technologies can overcome these issues The obstacles aren't technical. They never really have been. The obstacles are human: political, bureaucratic, and corporate. It's not about "can we build a safe nuclear plant?". It's about "do you trust these bozos to build a safe nuclear plant?", remembering that if said bozos screw up, the damage is basically irreversible. That's the problem. LILCO Shoreham, for example, famously couldn't build backup gernerators that worked, until they exploded and had to be completely redesigned and replaced. Does that inspire confidence in the rest of their plant?
mpweiher 3mo ago
Why would you evacuate Long Island? In Fukushima, there were no radiation deaths, and the long term effects of radiation on the population will be undetectable. The deaths that did occur were due to the unnecessary evacuations. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957582017300782 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095758201... So due to Radiophobia, not radiation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia The forced evacuation of 154,000 people ″was not justified by the relatively moderate radiation levels″, but was ordered because ″the government basically panicked″ https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/when-radiation-isnt-the-real-risk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/when-radiation-is... Personal note: the Fukushima accident turned me from a nuclear skeptic to a nuclear supporter. This happened quite a bit. At least for people who actually paid attention. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nu... And remember that this was all due to a historically unprecedented earthquake and Tsunami that killed 18000 people and caused half a trillion dollars in damage (in 2025 dollars). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tōhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tōhoku_earthquake_and_tsu... During that earthquake, more people died due to breaking dams than of radiation in that natural disaster. Are we dismantling our dams? There is no 100% safe technology. Nuclear power is the safest form of electricity generation we have, although solar and wind are so close that the differences don't really matter. According to this NASA study, nuclear power saved 1,8 million lives up to 2011, with many millions more lives saved in the future. https://www.giss.nasa.gov/pubs/abs/kh05000e.html https://www.giss.nasa.gov/pubs/abs/kh05000e.html On the flip-side, the most consequential negative health effects of Chernobyl and Fukushima came from turning off nuclear power plants and not building more. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421519303611 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151... If the US and the rest of Europe follow Germany's example they could lose the chance to prevent over 200,000 deaths and 14,000 MtCO2 emissions by 2035. https://www.sciencespo.fr/department-economics/sites/sciencespo.fr.department-economics/files/PEPES_2024_abstract_N_Qian_The%20Political%20Economic%20Determinants%20of%20Nuclear%20Power.pdf https://www.sciencespo.fr/department-economics/sites/science... We estimate that the decline in NPP caused by Chernobyl led to the loss of approximately 141 million expected life years in the U.S., 33 in the U.K. and 318 million globally And we absolutly know how to deal with the waste, and it's not particularly difficult. In fact, we have multiple ways of disposing of the small amounts of waste. NPPs are very secure against terrorism.
21asdffdsa12 3mo ago
The problem is the technology being dependent on a highly sophisticated industrial environment, which is not allowed to go through phases of economic decline and knowledge loss. Nobody has distrust into the engineering, everyone distrusts the social component. Humans do not make for great material when it comes to forming sturdy, reliable organizations.
rbanffy 3mo ago
> even the Japanese can't safely manage this technology, Fukushima was a terrible design, where there is no passive failsafe - the reactor is still reacting after scram, and still getting hotter, but the heat no longer powers the cooling systems, which rely on external power that must be operating. It's not Chernobyl bad, but, if you shouldn't need anything external to the reactor to keep it safe if disconnected from everything outside.

KennyBlanken 3mo ago

Nuclear is not zero-carbon nor is it "cheap." It's the most expensive form of power generation. Meanwhile solar, wind, and BSS are the cheapest and continue to get cheaper as volume goes up and all the tech around them matures. More and more storage methods are being developed and put into use. Utilities and grid operators have lined up behind solar, wind, BSS, and HVDC transmission. That's what they are funding, installing, and buying power from. This has been a trend for a number of years now, around the world. That isn't some conspiracy or coincidence. The only place this is still considered a debated topic, or nuclear is considered preferential, is social media and forums like HN.

boxed 3mo ago
> Nuclear is not zero-carbon nor is it "cheap." 1994. > Meanwhile solar, wind, and BSS are the cheapest [...] 1994
lnsru 3mo ago
The thing is that educated people like HN users see very simple thing: 1 kW nuclear can be safely replaced with 20 kW well distributed renewables. While solar is dirt cheap wind isn’t. Especially offshore wind. And the math clearly shows advantages of nuclear.
- defrost 3mo ago
  > And the math clearly shows advantages of nuclear. If that's the case and the advantages are so sharp and clearly defined, ... Then why did Australia's latest CSIRO (National Science body) energy options for the nations future report* clearly state that nuclear was not an economically pragmatic choice compared to renewables? Any chance "Nuclear V. {X}" is a qualified comparison with edge cases and nuance? * https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2025/july/2024-25-gencost-final-report https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2025/july/2024-25-genc...
  - lnsru 3mo ago
    I heard Australia is pretty sunny country. If that’s right they can go with solar and be alright. Sweden has less options for sure.

Animats 3mo ago

Not under LILCO management.[1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/28/nyregion/the-end-of-lilco-as-long-island-has-come-to-know-it.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/28/nyregion/the-end-of-lilco...

sshprotocol 3mo ago
https://archive.is/P0JM https://archive.is/P0JM