
You don’t have to be “pro-nuclear” or “anti-nuclear.” - curtis
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/9/6/20852313/cnn-climate-town-hall-nuclear-power-energy
======
viburnum
Placing some bets on nuclear make sense (France gets 80% of electric
generation from nuclear) but counting on nuclear is risky because nobody can
make nuclear plants cost efficiently anymore. America should probably keep
trying on a small scale and if they can figure it, then ramp up. The big
problem is that nuclear is essentially a big government project, and America
is very bad at those.

~~~
ajross
> nobody can make nuclear plants cost efficiently anymore

Nobody ever could! Nuclear power generation, from its infancy, has been
_outrageously_ subsidized, both directly (i.e. DoE grants, government funding
of waste disposal) and indirectly (industrial-scale refining of fuel as a side
effect of the weapons industry). Once those sources dried up it just plain
stopped making sense.

At the end of the day it needs to stand on its own to make sense, and it
can't, especially when compared to its green (and largely unsubsidized!)
competitors. People who really want this to happen need to solve the technical
problems and then come back with a plan.

To riff on the title: it's not "anti nuclear" to be anti-pro-nuclear. Make it
work first before shouting about it on the internet.

~~~
graeme
Subsidized against what? It's main competitor, carbon, has the implicit
subsidy of not having to account for the externalities in the waste it
creates.

Against new green tech yes, it's a better argument.

~~~
ajross
> Against new green tech yes, it's a better argument.

Right, so I'll take cheap panels and turbines please. We should stop pushing
the luxury reactors. We can't afford them if we actually want to spend the
limited funds we have to save the planet.

------
jay_kyburz
This is bad writing for a lot of reason.

First the author tells us that if we consider ourselves pro or anti nuclear we
can't possibly have thought through the pros and cons of nuclear power. It
must be because we identify ourselves as left or right. Or green or not.

Then he tells us that if we _do_ have a policy position, we are probably wrong
because "its complicated". All of which I find mildly insulting.

Then he proceeds to look at nuclear "purely though the lens of climate
change", which as far as I'm concerned is not useful because many of the
reasons one might choose to be anti-nuclear are not climate change related.

~~~
belltaco
I found it good informative reading, compared to biased articles or comments
that cover only one side. These articles are written for the masses, not
people who have spent dozens of hours studying every nuance and came to an
opinion.

If such people do comment on the article, I'd rather hope they comment on
specifics rather than just say "writer is a snob, article sux".

~~~
jay_kyburz
My specific complaint with the article is that it's wrong and dangerous to
consider nuclear through a narrow lens and therefore not a balanced and
unbiased view.

~~~
belltaco
The title of the article is "A beginner’s guide to the debate over nuclear
power and climate change", and is about the various perspectives of the DNC
candidates in a specific 'Climate Change' debate.

Not sure how it's a problem that he's writing about it from a climate change
perspective, and even has a disclaimer that it doesn't have all the details
about the pro and anti nuclear debate.

>I’m not going to review all that history (it could fill a book); instead,
I’ll approach nuclear power purely through the lens of climate change.

~~~
jay_kyburz
Oh sorry, I thought that was obvious. It's a problem because you might read
the article and start thinking that nuclear energy could be a reasonable
solution to our climate change problem, but it can never be, for reasons that
the author decided are outside the scope of his article.

------
gnusty_gnurc
When Bernie/AOC lead with rhetoric like "climate change requires WWII levels
of mobilization", it strikes me odd that they think that level of change is
feasible, but that the unprecedented mobilization and centralization of
efforts can't be applied to nuclear technology. It's bizarre and makes me
think that it's a blatant political agenda much more than sensible application
of technology to solve problems in the world.

~~~
bjourne
What is bizarre about it? Not all options are equally good investments - some
are clearly preferable over others. Why insist on new nuclear power when so
much evidence shows it is not needed?

~~~
realusername
> Why insist on new nuclear power when so much evidence shows it is not
> needed?

Which evidence? IPCC reports nuclear as being highly needed.

~~~
bjourne
Which IPCC report recommends building new nuclear power plants in the US?

~~~
gnusty_gnurc
does the IPCC ever recommend exact allocations of power production per
country? It seems like their report on Mitigation Pathways suggests a really
wide range for nuclear, with the high overshoot pathway having an upper-bound
of 7x increase in nuclear generation, whereas 5x upper-bound for low
overshoot.

I find this line pretty interesting cause it suggests that people may very
well arbitrarily ignore nuclear: "There are large differences in nuclear power
between models and across pathways (Kim et al., 2014; Rogelj et al., 2018).
One of the reasons for this variation is that the future deployment of nuclear
can be constrained by societal preferences assumed in narratives underlying
the pathways (O’Neill et al., 2017; van Vuuren et al., 2017b)."

------
csours
Interesting idea: you can opt out of identity politics.

~~~
Whatarethese
People keep using this term. Is there a simplified no bullshit summary? I
don’t want to drown in a ridiculous Wikipedia article.

~~~
nickik
It simply means the process of politicians or normal people identifying with a
specific group (other then the nation as a whole) and making that groups
interest its primary concern rather then the nation or humanity as whole.

Or even simple the process of making policy turns into what are you and what
are you not, rather then what are your actions or lack their off.

I the simply fact that you are born gay, straight, polish or any other
identifiable group is what defines you and therefore defines your life.

------
rmrfrmrf
If it's really the case that the only way to make nuclear viable is to
_deregulate the industry_ , then Bernie is absolutely right that we need to
end reliance on nuclear power.

~~~
m0zg
You can't have the real, workable New Green Deal without nuclear power. Anyone
who says we're heading towards a climate catastrophe and is against 4th gen
nuclear (thorium) at the same time is a hypocrite. Here we have something both
sides of the aisle will support, irrespective even of their views on climate
change, let's get to work and if there are safety concerns, let's mount an
effort to address those. Once those are conclusively addressed, it will be
easier to deregulate the industry and make it cheaper to build nuclear power
plants. Thorium is abundant. There are now reactors that can utilize "nuclear
waste" as well, so that problem could be solved too, I'm pretty sure.

I would be willing to bet that it will be dramatically cheaper than $10T
"deals" floated so far. Shit, getting fusion to work with net energy gain will
likely cost less than $1T all in all (although it'll take time).

If done properly, we could finally end up with electricity that's "too cheap
to meter", and massively reduce the need for coal, oil, and gas, all without
having to hobble the entire domestic industries and force them to burn coal in
China instead.

~~~
skrause
"4th gen nuclear" that could utilize current waste is years or even decades
away from commercial availability. If you want to bet everything on a
potential future technology that doesn't currently exist why not choose
nuclear fusion? That will really solve all your waste and fuel problems...

~~~
m0zg
>> "4th gen nuclear" that could utilize current waste is years or even decades
away from commercial availability

It's not: [http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Russias-BN-800-unit-
ent...](http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Russias-BN-800-unit-enters-
commercial-operation-01111602.html)

I agree with you on fusion. But as a stop gap, thorium and 4th gen nuclear
sound awesome to me.

------
SubiculumCode
I have met with quite unreasonable (to my mind) fears about nuclear waste's
supposed deleterious effects on people and nature, even if stored in a remote
underground facility. Whenever people have gut reactions without evidence, the
conversation quickly becomes non-productive.

~~~
Jill_the_Pill
Someone's "remote" is always someone else's backyard.

~~~
all2
There have been a few [0][1] proposed storage facilities in the United States
that have been stalled because of local NIMBY votes.

[0] [https://strangesounds.org/2014/06/us-nuclear-waste-
storage-m...](https://strangesounds.org/2014/06/us-nuclear-waste-storage-map-
this-map-shows-current-plants-storing-nuclear-waste-in-the-united-states-and-
there-are-many-around.html)

[1] [https://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-
politics/s...](https://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-
politics/storing-nuclear-waste-would-only-net-wyoming-million-
annually-/article_f38dee4e-9c16-5fae-bcbf-4c261250e406.html)

~~~
all2
To be clear, I'm not attempting to pass judgement on people who vote this way.
I would also vote "no" if someone wanted to store nuclear waste near my home.
I'm only pointing out that storage is hard.

------
wazoox
The main argument against nuclear is that it absolutely requires a highly
educated, well organized society and workforce. If something really serious
disrupts our elaborated, complex societies, then nuclear plants will become
really dangerous.

With looming climate change, energy crisis, overpopulation and other problems,
you can't be sure that we'll be in a stable enough world long enough to be
completely safe.

~~~
BurningFrog
This, like most anti nuclear arguments, is a standard that is _NEVER_ applied
to other industries.

~~~
blub
Which other industry can make an area uninhabitable for many decades?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Chemical processing plants? Water management?

------
delinka
> You don't have to be "pro-X"or "anti-X"

But don't we? We have to be completely polarized on every topic. How else will
the binary political system survive?

OK, onward without the sarcasm ... This same kind of critical thinking must be
applied to every issue, or we'll just end up in the dark ages again.

------
elchief
How do plants deal with rising water from floods, or falling water from drying
out, or overly hot cooling water from high temperatures? These are all in our
future. I'm genuinely curious and not trying to troll

------
kjar
Sorry folks give up the ghost nuclear was dead at least 3 decades ago. Solar
and wind are the future. We don’t have a decade to build a new nuclear plant,
in that plan we’d need a time machine going backa decade to abate climate
change that’s now locked in. I’ll spare you all the risks and externalities,
it’s just dumb. Again sorry.

~~~
aeternum
You don't think we will need more power than solar and wind can provide in 10
years? Our energy consumption has historically only increased, even with
strong conversation campaigns, we should assume this trend will continue.

~~~
icebraining
> Our energy consumption has historically only increased

From what I can tell, energy consumption per capita is lower today than 30
years ago in many developed countries, including the US. While the rest of the
world is far from reaching those levels of use, it may point to a cap in the
need for more power.

------
fnord77
50 years ago they said we would have fusion power plants in 50 years.

------
AstralStorm
Carbon neutral is a fancy way of saying "let's pollute the same as we do now".
Generally achieved via fake offsets, as we do not have the technology to
offset something like US pollution.

Even EU ETS (the most developed offset system) is much too slow to cause major
dent in the problem.

Where most climate predictions require us to _stop altogether_ to avoid most
painful results of climate change.

~~~
PeterStuer
Context: very small western EU country.

Over here we are:

\- cutting down the very few square kilometers of forest we have because the
EU declared that everyone has to be carbon neutral or pay fines, and 'wood
pellets' are considered 'renewable' energy sources by the administration. The
cabinet minister in charge has admitted to the absurdity but stated he is not
going to stop the practice as this would lead to being fined.

\- keeping open severely damaged aging nuclear plants even when under the
protest of several neighboring countries recognizing the dangers. The person
in charge of this matter at the energy minister's cabinet just moved through
he revolving door and got a very cozy 'job' at the company that owns and
operates the plants. The energy minister was not amused as it is customary to
await the next elections before cashing in and this person moved in a
potential election preamble period.

\- The nuclear test facility operated by the government has once more run out
of storage space for nuclear waste. In the 'good old days' they just dumped
all the waste in the North Sea (it's still there), but now they have to store
it. The cement vats they have been using were leaking in the past, and now
they have ran out of space for storing them as the piles keep on growing.

Nuclear might be sound in theory, but humans just can't handle the
responsibility in practice. And the one answer a neoliberal market economy
based socio-economic system is incapable of providing is abstinence, as it is
systemically antithetical to it and outside of its potential solution space.

~~~
Luc
I suppose you didn't mention the country in an attempt to not get criticized?

Because if you're talking about Belgium, half of what you said is plainly
wrong.

~~~
cure
Which half? Please elaborate.

~~~
PeterStuer
I'm curious as well

