
Nuclear energy is a vital part of solving the climate crisis - ericdanielski
https://archive.is/0bVPq
======
s5ma6n
Nuclear energy has the _lowest_ death rate (deaths per TWh of any type of
energy generation technique/source [1][2][3]. It is the obvious answer to the
climate crisis but unfortunately the cultural and public effects are blocking
the way for this solution. Unfortunately, facts do not change our minds.

I believe the best approach is to show people gradually that newer generation
reactors are much safer and better than older generations. Just to give an
example, the technology of reactors at Chernobyl is from 1953.

Newer reactor technologies are much safer and there are some types of reactors
that they even use spent fuel rather than enriched fuel that all other types
of reactors use. I believe Bill Gates also has invested some resources in this
'traveling wave reactors'[4].

[1] [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-
energy-p...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-
production-per-twh) [2] [https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-
by-ener...](https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-
source.html) [3] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/climate-
ch...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/climate-change-
nuclear-power.html) [4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower)

~~~
WhompingWindows
Cost, cost, cost. Point to a cost-effective, new-build nuclear in the USA and
SHOW me that it's more cost-effective than renewables or LNG.

Until we have a carbon tax or a massive policy shift in favor of extremely
capital-intensive new-build nuclear, we will continue on our current path of
renewables, batteries, and LNG dominating the grid.

I'm all for nuclear, by the way, but let's not pretend that cultural attitudes
(which haven't dented GOP denialism) and misinformed lefty greens (which
haven't ended fracking or coal) are to blame here. Nuclear is just way too
expensive and hard to do in the USA, it's as simple as dollars and cents.

~~~
briwang2050
I wrote the second article (nextbigfuture) referenced in the nuclear safety
citations.

It is irrelevant that the recent nuclear reactor projects in the USA and
Europe are expensive. A weighted average of cost and completion times for
global nuclear reactor construction would be dominated by the 90% of the
nuclear reactors built by China, Russia, South Korea and India.

Do you based your analysis on the price cars based upon the price of a Rolls
Royce? Do you price bridges based upon the cost of the Bay Bridge? Tunnels
based upon the Big Dig? Rockets based upon the Space Launch System?

Also, nuclear got expensive because constantly increasing regulations and
bureaucracy drove up costs in the USA. Reactors without accidents built in
China and South Korea for 4 times less. Also, the systemic failure of large
construction projects in the US. Skycrapers, bridges, subways and highway
costs went up. High-speed rail in California versus China for costs and
completions.

China generates as much electricity this year as USA and Europe combined.
China will double again within 20 years. Natural gas will dominate US energy
mix.

The solar and wind will not scale well beyond 10%. The US will need massive
buildout of energy storage and massive energy grid modifications. This will
run into the big project incompetence of the USA.

~~~
bryanlarsen
China builds all of it's large infrastructure projects like high speed rail
for about a third of what it costs in the States. It might be regulations and
bureaucracy accounting for that difference, but it's not specific to nuclear.

------
ricw
Have we not learnt our lesson? Nearly 70 years of massive global subsidies
have gone by and yet the nuclear industry has not been able to produce
anything competitive, let alone anything that doesn’t require government
guarantees / externalisation of costs.

I love the idea of nuclear, but it just hasn’t worked out. Solar and wind
already are cheaper than anything else out there, and they are still regularly
falling in cost. We can invest our money better elsewhere.

The nuclear age has come and passed.

~~~
Accujack
Your post is an anthology of myths and incorrect information.

Some facts:

* Nuclear energy has received less than 50% of the subsidies that renewables have. Renewables only recently ceased to "need" this, and they've been under development for decades. Nuclear power hasn't had investment in significant research since about 1970.

* Nuclear reactors are competitive in many countries, and in fact they are too in the US. Nuclear is the cheapest power per kilowatt-hour except when direct access to nearby fossil fuel sources is available, even using 40-50 year old reactor designs. Newer designs would be even cheaper. In fact this is irrelevant, however, because we're not looking for the cheapest power, we're looking for a way to supplement renewables with always-on electricity that doesn't fuel climate change.

Newer reactor designs will be safer, cheaper, and less expensive to build.
They may even use something other than Uranium as a fuel. They will not
contribute to nuclear weapons proliferation and they will not produce large
amounts of waste. They will release less radiation into the environment than
current coal plants do.

If all the people who believe 40 years of propaganda and misinformation spread
by self righteous willfully ignorant individuals can do so, we can work toward
a clean energy future using renewables and nuclear in time to limit global
warming.

If we can't, once we start having wars over water and the world starts boiling
in the heat of rising seas, we'll start building nuclear reactors after the
fact. Assuming we survive that long.

Sources: [https://nuclear.duke-
energy.com/2019/01/23/debunking-9-myths...](https://nuclear.duke-
energy.com/2019/01/23/debunking-9-myths-about-nuclear-energy)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidy)

[https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-
library/economic-a...](https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-
library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx)

~~~
olau
* The market situation was vastly different. Renewables were being developed in a mature market.

* What you mean, but conveniently left out, is that nuclear reactors that are written off are competitive. Until they get too old to fix, then they're closed. That's what's happening at the moment in the Western world whether we like it or not.

When you talk about newer reactor designs, you are not talking about
commercial reactors, but research reactors, for which the true cost/potential
is unknown.

Nuclear isn't a good match for PV and wind, as those are cheaper when they're
on. So you have a huge capital investment but only a low realized capacity
factor.

~~~
walterstucco666
> That's what's happening at the moment in the Western world whether we like
> it or not.

that's what will happen to the current generation of solar and wind power
plants

~~~
typeformer
Yeah and it's a thousand times easier to quickly replace those because their
key components are not the most dangerous substances on the planet!

~~~
xyzzyz
There are a lot of much more dangerous substances on the planet, and many of
them are likely used in the manufacturing process of photovoltaics.

~~~
beat
Cite?

Have fun with the googling. Feel free to check out the toxicity of plutonium
(separate from radiation) while you're at it.

~~~
xyzzyz
Well, hydrogen cyanide is more dangerous, it is used to produce cyanide salts
(potassium and sodium), which are also extremely toxic, and are commonly used
in electroplating

~~~
beat
And is hydrogen cyanide not used in nuclear plant construction?

------
socialdemocrat
I am utterly baffled by these old solar and wind advocates who suddenly NOW
are becoming big advocates of nuclear power.

I have gone the complete opposite and for GOOD REASON! I was a big advocate
for nuclear power some 10-15 years ago, because we were promised that thorium
reactors, pebble reactors and a whole host of other innovations were around
the corner. Not to mention wind and solar at the time seemed to not have made
any dent in electricity production.

But to suddenly abandon renewables now in 2019 when wind and solar is seeing
staggering success and really impressive price drops while every nuclear
reactor is profoundly delayed and over budget is simply odd.

We have been talking about nuclear power for decades and invested massively in
it, yet got little to show for.

Prices are not dropping. When you bring up the safety issue advocates are
quick to point out todays reactors are much safer. When you point out today's
reactors are extremely expensive and slow to build, they counter with that is
just because of safety.... eh well yeah. You cannot have a cake and eat it
too.

Nuclear power is NOT CHEAP! No private company is willing to insure them.
Hence governments have to give insurance for free. That means the tax payer.
Chernobyl cost tax payers 235 billion dollars to clean up. Fukushima cost tax
payers 183 billion dollars to clean up. Nuclear power is getting a free ride
because they are not pay for this. That is a massive subsidy to nuclear power.

Solar and wind meanwhile is beating coal on price even without subsidies. Yeah
sure... it doesn't always shine or blow wind. But we have a multitude of
storage solutions: thermal, pumped hydro, flow batteries, gas-to-power and
there are many good solutions for adjusting power usage on demand to fit lower
production.

It seems like these nuclear advocates have not even investigated all the
storage solutions that exist before going crazy about nuclear power. These
solutions will only become more viable as we get a bigger renewable mix,
because it will cause the spot price of power to drop really low, making it
profitable for companies to buy and store power.

~~~
Accujack
>to suddenly abandon renewables now in 2019 when wind and solar is seeing
staggering success and really impressive price drops while every nuclear
reactor is profoundly delayed and over budget is simply odd.

No one's suggesting abandoning renewables, far from it. Renewable use will
continue to increase. They're simply not enough, because of their nature as a
variable power source.

>Nuclear power is NOT CHEAP!

The power itself is cheap. The amount of regulation around 40 year old reactor
designs is high, so that's expensive. Implementation of a newer design would
be much, much cheaper.

>Chernobyl cost tax payers 235 billion dollars to clean up. Fukushima cost tax
payers 183 billion dollars to clean up.

Source? Neither of them are actually "cleaned up", you know. Also, both of
these are very old reactor designs. You're complaining that a piece of 1950s
technology which qualifies as an antique has problems 65-70 years later.

> But we have a multitude of storage solutions: thermal, pumped hydro, flow
> batteries, gas-to-power

..none of which are scalable enough to meet the demand. We'd have to have a
dedicated energy storage system for each house, school, factory and store in
the world. That's not only not possible due to physical space constraints,
it's disastrous in terms of carbon load.

Our power systems work from a central source. There is no technology that can
replace the multiple fossil fuel plants that run the grid except nuclear,
period.

>It seems like these nuclear advocates have not even investigated all the
storage solutions that exist before going crazy about nuclear power.

I can't speak for other people, but I have investigated and I continue to
research. No storage solution exists that even comes close to meeting the
demand for power when renewables aren't generating on the scale needed. The
individual ideas are good, but they can't match decades of investment and
expertise in generating electricity from giant central sources.

To take advantage of the distributed nature of renewables and corresponding
energy storage, we'd have to completely rebuild the worldwide electrical grid
AFTER we research and agree on standards for control and maintenance. That
will take decades, and we don't have time. It'll happen eventually as
renewables continue their growth, and maybe a century in the future we'll use
all renewable sources with distributed power storage and a fully distributed,
redundant power grid.

But if we want to survive climate change, we need nuclear, or else we need to
force every person on earth to accept a lower standard of living that uses far
less energy than we do now. The latter just won't happen, our species isn't
that advanced.

~~~
_ph_
_The power itself is cheap. The amount of regulation around 40 year old
reactor designs is high, so that 's expensive. Implementation of a newer
design would be much, much cheaper._

You have of course to factor in the total cost for the power produced. That is
building the reactor, running and maintaining it, disposal of the radioactive
waste and dismantling of the radioactive reactor itself.

The costs for reactors currently built are ballooning, some have even been
given up half finished. The dismantling is usually not calculated in and can
approach the cost of building it in the first place - in most countries the
cost of disposing the radioactive waste can't even be calculated as there are
few permanent storage solutions and we only assume they are permanent.

And of course, the costs in case of a major incident are completely not
covered.

~~~
Accujack
>The costs for reactors currently built are ballooning

Yes. Current reactor designs are a non-starter, especially considering the
regulatory mess around them. Years of them being an easy target for new
"safety" laws because politicians want to look good have left them too
expensive to build. We need a simpler, newer design that works around that by
needing less regulation.

Radioactive waste from power generation is simple to handle, especially when
newer reactor designs can for the most part re-use fuel. It's the waste from
nuclear weapons production that's the issue.

~~~
_ph_
_Yes. Current reactor designs are a non-starter, especially considering the
regulatory mess around them. Years of them being an easy target for new
"safety" laws because politicians want to look good have left them too
expensive to build. We need a simpler, newer design that works around that by
needing less regulation._

Which "new design" provides safe reactors that are cheaper to build?

 _Radioactive waste from power generation is simple to handle, especially when
newer reactor designs can for the most part re-use fuel. It 's the waste from
nuclear weapons production that's the issue. _

No, it is all nuclear waste that is a problem. There are no reactors which can
re-use spent fuel. Fast breeders could theoretical do it, there is no one
operational in the west.

~~~
Accujack
>Which "new design" provides safe reactors that are cheaper to build?

A trivial Google search for "molten salt reactor cost" or "new reactor design
cost" can find this. Here's an example:

[https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/05/seaborg-molten-salt-
re...](https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/05/seaborg-molten-salt-reactor-will-
fit-on-a-truck-and-cost-less-than-coal-power.html)

By the way, this reactor can re-use spent fuel.

------
Fej
Nuclear energy is often talked about as if it is in opposition to other clean
energy sources, as if we need to choose between solar/wind and nuclear. Global
warming is an existential threat to human civilization and we need to throw
absolutely _everything_ we have at the problem. Wind, nuclear, solar, even
hydrogen (and whatever other esoteric energy generation methods you can think
of) - these are not mutually exclusive. It doesn't have to be one or the
other. It _can 't_ be.

~~~
Andrex
Yes, if the world had infinite resources and manpower, attempting all
solutions simultaneously would be the preferred method for dealing with
climate change.

But dollars and the attention that produces them are finite. In that light,
nuclear has to compete on its merits with the alternatives.

------
gfodor
People who oppose investing in nuclear who, in the same breath, claim climate
change is the greatest existential threat to humanity, reveal just how
seriously they take the climate threat. If we had an inbound asteroid headed
to hit us and there were technologies we could deploy to mitigate it that had
potentially large negative downsides there would be no hesitation. In this
case, hand wringing over the threat of nuclear implies the threat of climate
change is not being taken as seriously as one might think.

~~~
joshypants
What you're missing is nuclear is too slow to spin up! We simply don't have
time. We need to cut emissions 50% in 10 years, and nuclear is not going to
get us there. Look to other renewables.

~~~
greedo
If we need to cut emissions worldwide by half in 10 years, there's no
solution. Renewables can't expand fast enough.

~~~
kachnuv_ocasek
You're assuming that we only need to replace all our energy sources with
renewables but otherwise we can keep running as usual.

As you correctly point out, that's not going to cut it. However, there's an
easy solution that has been suggested by various people for at least the past
50 years: Lower consumption, lower energy requirements, halt the desire for
infinite growth.

~~~
greedo
Sure. Sounds easy. Go tell 2+billion Indians and Chinese to lower their
consumption. Tell Africa to be happy with their current standard of living.

US/EU energy consumption has been relatively flat despite population growth.
The increase in energy consumption is largely in Asia.

Expecting these societies to limit themselves with your "easy solution" shows
a lack of realism.

~~~
kachnuv_ocasek
The richest countries are the biggest polluters per capita, no competition.
Accusing the "Indians and Chinese" for pollution which is in fact the direct
consequence of "Western" consumption is misleading, hypocritical and redirects
attention from the real, underlying problems.

See also [1] for a counterpoint to your claims of increasing efficiency.

1:
[https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6271](https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6271)

~~~
greedo
No argument at all about per capita energy consumption. My point isn't to
blame developing countries at all. It's to illustrate that as over 2 billion
people try to emulate Western lifestyles, their energy consumption is going to
skyrocket. And Western expectations that they should just limit their
growth/advancement is the hypocritical view.

When you view Western energy consumption, it's growth is largely correlated to
population increases.

------
djsumdog
My dad worked in nuclear plants for over 20 years, and I use to tout the pro-
nuclear line. Our reactors were safer than Chernobyl was even at the time it
was built (Chernobyl was an uncontained reactor. US reactors are encased in a
shell of concrete).

Safety is still a concern, and don't let anyone tell you it isn't. Simply look
at Brownsferry Nuclear Plant. One of their three reactors was shut down for
decades due to a fire, another reactor had a turbine blade break off and hit
the reactor wall in the 2000s, and the reactors themselves are an old Boiling
Water design where the radioactive water runs the turbine (newer Pressurized
Water Reactors use transfer pipes for heat so the steam generator isn't
radioactive). Newer reactors like Bellefonte were almost complete, but never
went online after Three Mile Island brought the industry to a standstill. TVA
also has bought up more land around Wattsbar nuclear to hide the fact that
they couldn't find where a tritium leak was occurring.

The biggest problem with nuclear reactors is the waste. Most of it is still
stored at nuclear sites. I use to think the protesters at Yucca Mountain were
being overzealous and non-nonsensical, until I stayed a week with a friend of
mine who was a newspaper editor out in Vegas. They had published several
stories about existing facilities leaking radiation into the environment.

There are a lot of reasons to avoid nuclear. Honestly if we want to be serious
about pollution in general, we have to consume less power. Each renewable
takes metal, dirt, oil and various hydrocarbons to make. We can't consume out
way out of, not only CO2, but all the other massive amounts of pollution that
go into all our construction effort. We can't buy ourselves out of
environmental disaster. We have to consume less; and that takes much bigger
changes in the way we live our lives and look at the world.

~~~
tstrimple
How are long shutdown times factored into the costs of nuclear power? The
nuclear power plant by me is shutting down early due to being too expensive
compared to renewables. It's shutting down next year, but will be slowly
cutting staff until 2025 and will require a maintenance contingent of about 50
people after that for the "indefinite future".

[https://www.kcrg.com/content/news/Cheaper-wind-gas-energy-
le...](https://www.kcrg.com/content/news/Cheaper-wind-gas-energy-leaders-to-
earlier-closing-at-DAEC-nuclear-plant-489368221.html)

~~~
manfredo
> The nuclear power plant by me is shutting down early due to being too
> expensive compared to renewables.

This seems inane. Keep the nuclear plant running, even if it's more expensive,
and shut down a gas plant instead.

~~~
tstrimple
These decisions are made based on private profit motives. What's good for the
environment or the country never even factor into it.

~~~
manfredo
Not true. France built nuclear plants even though they weren't as cost
effective as fossil fuels because they wanted to be energy independent from
Germany. Sure, it was a nationalistic rather than altruistic motive but it has
paid off in the long run.

------
cagenut
I was "pro-nuclear" from like the 90's until 2017. Every year since then it
has made less and less sense. The cost of wind, solar, and batteries has
plummeted, and the curves continue to bend in the right direction. The cost of
nuclear has "increased" in that the last several projects have been total
failures and the companies that build them have gone bankrupt. The curve
points in the wrong direction.

The kind of massive overhaul/re-de-regulation it would take to bring back a
nuclear manufacturing capability and functioning market in america today would
be much much harder than simply running HVDC between the grids and building
twice as much wind.

It just doesn't pencil out anymore. It used to. But even optimistically going
forward I don't see it. The curves have crossed.

edit: here's a source for all the downvoters
[https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-
energy-...](https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-and-
levelized-cost-of-storage-2019/)

    
    
      Nuclear: $118 - $192
      Solar + 4hr: $102 - $139
      Wind:  $28 - $54
    

You can literally build 3x as much wind and have it cost about the same as
nuclear.

~~~
apcragg
Not to mention the capital costs of building a nuclear plant far excede
renewable new-builds. Why spend 20 billion and deal with the costs/risk
associated with 50-year financing when you could spend a few tens of millions
and throw up a few smaller renewable builds where they're needed and start
seeing returns on invetment in 2-3 years rather than 15.

~~~
Accujack
The cost of building a plant with old technology is high. That's because it's
been over-regulated and because it's old tech.

Newer plant designs will be cheaper to build and simpler. They will need to be
regulated differently as a matter of course because they're fundamentally
different designs.

What you're saying here is that building a 1960s nuclear power plant design
with modern regulation is expensive, which is true, but that's like saying
that driving a 1955 Ford Thunderbird is expensive when compared to a Tesla S.
That's true, but you're comparing apples and rocks, here.

~~~
apcragg
Which newer plants? I'm still paying for the cost over-runs at Vogtle here in
Georgia which is a 'modern' plant. Granted, Westinghouse went bankrupt but
Wind/Solar builds don't have the same risks concentrated in a single
manufacturer.

Sure, we have some research reactors which use (the now meme'd by armchair
scientists) thorium reactors but we need power today, not in 2035. Why pour
billions into unproven technology when we have proven technology that gets
cheaper every year. Additionally, Lazard just put out their LCOE report for
2019 and for the first time new-build unsubsidzed wind can be cheaper than the
marginal costs of a fully paid-off nuclear plant.

~~~
Accujack
There are designs that are new or newer that have only been implemented at
small scale, or in a single test instance.

Molten salt reactors, traveling wave designs, even thorium energy amplifiers.

You're right, though, we need new reactors now, which is why we're looking
toward the designs already tested.

It's true that no significant research has been done for decades and no new
designs approved for commercial use, but that's something that can be changed,
and changed quickly.

In any case, we don't have a choice... it's renewables+nuclear or renewables+a
cut in standard of living for the world... or else climate change we can't
survive.

Again... we're not substituting nuclear for renewables. That wouldn't work any
more than substituting renewables for nuclear. Neither one is enough on its
own.

------
philipkglass
I own Introduction to Nuclear Engineering, 2nd Edition by John Lamarsh. All
the "new" "real soon now" nuclear approaches that people get excited over
today are already in this textbook from 1983.

It has:

\- Gas cooled high temperature reactors

\- Gas cooled breeder reactors

\- Liquid metal fast breeder reactors

\- Molten salt thorium breeder reactors

In the intervening 36 years, none of these have reached commercial/industrial
operation in North America, France, Japan, India, South Korea, or China.
Russia has _one_ industrial scale liquid metal FBR [1], and it has
indefinitely suspended plans to build successors [2].

Any new approach to nuclear power that promises to be "cheaper, faster, safer"
than boring old light water reactors should be evaluated with extreme care.
These aren't new ideas. Why didn't anyone build them up in the past 40 years?
If your answer is "blame the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," keep in mind that
most of the world is not under the thumb of the American NRC. But e.g. India
didn't build out MSRs either, even though they have fully domestic nuclear
technology and thorium resources plus a vast need for more electricity.

The chances of a revolutionary new reactor design actually powering a grid
near you appear, empirically, to be about as poor as those of the Battery
Breakthrough of the Week ending up in your next mobile phone.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor)

~~~
manfredo
We don't need revolutionary design, though. France uses pressurized water
reactors to generate over 70% of it's electricity. And they pay half the cost
for that electricity as Germany, which shut down its nuclear plants and tried
to build solar and wind instead (and their emissions remained mostly flat
because of all the gas plants they build to replace their nuclear plants).

~~~
philipkglass
France's newest PWR reactors, using the EPR design, are being built in France
and Finland. They're both grotesquely late and over-budget. If Flamanville 3
could switch on _today_ and incur no further construction costs, the
electricity from it would still cost more to generate than German electricity
costs to generate.

What will happen to the EPR in Europe after Flamanville 3 and Olkiluoto 3 are
finally complete?

The faithful would say "build more EPRs. Future ones will be cheaper due to
lessons learned on these original projects." And they _might_ well be correct.
Unfortunately, the Flamanville 3 and Olkiluoto 3 projects were also touted as
affordable and predictable to build back when they were originally started.
How do you convince buyers that the lies and/or irrational exuberance that
lead to bad predictions in 2005 have been tamed, and that the next reactor
project will be the _real_ affordable, predictable reactor project?

~~~
manfredo
Cherry picking one plant does not represent overall trends:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/02/05...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/02/05/if-
saving-the-climate-requires-making-energy-so-expensive-why-is-french-
electricity-so-cheap/)

The reason why new plants are more expensive is that they're often not part of
serial production runs. When France put big investment in nuclear and built
170 reactors mostly of 6 specific designs, the per unit cost was much lower.
Newer reactors are usually unique or part of only a single digit production
run.

~~~
philipkglass
The EPR was _supposed_ to be the next standardized French design, produced in
significant numbers and at low cost. The costs and delays have been so bad
with the first few of them that I don't know if it will ever really take off.

So we're back to the question: do you keep pushing forward with more EPRs?
_How_ do you keep pushing forward with EPRs if there is a credibility gap on
cost and schedule predictions? Or if you choose to standardize on a different
reactor than the EPR, how do you estimate its cost and construction schedule?

~~~
manfredo
If there is demand that needs to be met, then just use the existing reactor
designs. There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

------
mumblemumble
Nuclear does seem like it can be a cleaner technology than fossil fuels. And a
greater investment in nuclear might have helped avert the climate crisis.
There are other concerns about nuclear, yeah, and a lot of them are
legitimate, but they're all at least theoretically solvable, and I certainly
don't believe we can afford to make the perfect the enemy of the good.

That said, I just don't believe it can be part of a realistic solution to the
climate crisis. Not anymore, at least. These things are very difficult to
design, engineer, and build, and the costs of a screw-up can be so high that
taking things slowly and methodically is imperative, much more so than with
most other alternative energy options. Combine that with decades of divestment
in nuclear, and it just doesn't seem realistic to think that this is a
solution that can be brought to bear quickly enough to count as a serious
option for diverting a climate crisis. The time for using nuclear to stave off
climate change was a quarter century ago.

------
einpoklum
The author - John Gorman - is the President & CEO of the Canadian Nuclear
Association. Somehow the linked-to page neglects to mention this fact...

but let's not consider only his personal bias. Gorman bases some of his
assessments on a report by the IEA - International Energy Association.
Consulting the Wikipedia article about it:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Energy_Agency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Energy_Agency)

we read that:

"In the past, the IEA has been criticized by environmental groups for
underplaying the role of renewable energy technologies in favor of nuclear[23]
and fossil fuels.[24] In 2009, Guy Pearse stated that the IEA has consistently
underestimated the potential for renewable energy alternatives.[25]"

Indeed, it is quite possibly the case that renewables _can_ entirely replace
fossil + nuclear - e.g. in the USA - soon. See here for example:

[https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1111183_scientists-
deba...](https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1111183_scientists-debate-could-
renewable-energy-entirely-replace-fossil-fuels-in-u-s-by-2050)

I have not read the arguments on both sides, but the article we are commenting
on simply makes the assumptions convenient for Gorman's support for nuclear
technology.

------
jokoon
A french consultant/teacher who regularly make 1 hour or 2 hour presentation
said that generally, renewables like solar and wind always benefit the
coal/gaz industry because you can't have wind and sun on demand, and it's
highly impractical to store electricity. so you always complement renewables
with coal/gaz. So in the end, the coal/gaz industry benefits from renewables
and they would obviously advocates for those renewables.

Not to mention you need a lot of metals (which emit co2), other resources (and
energy) to build those renewables. Installing wind turbines is no easy task
either.

It's crazy how the interests of coal/gaz would intersect the arguments of
greenpeace, but it actually does.

------
jackdeansmith
My Take:

1\. Keep existing reactors running as long as it's safe to do so. Nuclear that
goes offline is generally replaced with fossil energy.

2\. Don't invest too much in building new nuclear with current designs. They
take a long time to come online and we have cheap and fast pathways available
with renewables.

3\. Invest much more in R&D for new designs. They will be important once the
low hanging fruit of mitigation is already dealt with. They will also probably
become more important as energy demands for things like manufacturing synfuels
and DAC become important around mid-century.

------
jellicle
The author's job is the President of the Canadian Nuclear Association.

[https://cna.ca/team/john-gorman/](https://cna.ca/team/john-gorman/)

This is probably helpful to evaluating his arguments.

(My view, if it matters: we can put inexpensive solar and wind in the field
today, the best nuclear plant comes on line in ten years, and we need action
today, so: forget nuclear, it's too slow. But no, don't decommission nuclear
plants as long as there are fossil fuel plants to decommission.)

------
Teknoman117
98 nuclear reactors in the United States produce 20% of our electricity, and
account for 60% of our "zero-emissions" power sources.

------
dougweltman
It's not clear to me where we net out on nuclear.

On the one hand, you get much higher energy density. Earth has 2-3 billion
people coming online with higher standards of living, greater needs for
(desalinated) fresh water, etc. Do we have enough space for large-scale wind
and solar to address this? And do we truly understand the local effects of
wind farms, like less surface wind?

Against nuclear, when we see statistics like "nuclear has fewer deaths" I
sense that there's a snow job taking place. How do you measure the public
health effects of radiation? Do these really account for that?

When there's an accident, clean up costs are socialized but when things are
going well, profits are private. Maybe that's worth it for carbon-free energy,
but if the costs of a single accident annihilate the entire economic value of
the industry, I scratch my head.

The silver bullet would be if there were truly economically viable and safe
reactor designs. How scalable are the former, and how confident we can be of
the latter?

~~~
0xffff2
>How do you measure the public health effects of radiation?

However you do it, be sure to measure the public health effects of radiation
emitted from coal plants, which is far higher than that of nuclear.

------
briwang2050
France completed construction on 76% of its current 58 reactors at an
inflation-adjusted cost of $330 billion (€290 billion). The complete buildout
of the 58 reactors was less €400 billion. Germany has spent about €500 billion
over the last 20 years to get to 35% renewables. 7% of this is burning
biomass. France gets more than double the TWh from nuclear than Germany gets
from renewables (solar, wind, biomass, hydro).

Germany would need 50% more nuclear energy than France to completely replace
all other power generation. This would cost €600 billion if Germany could
match France’s build from the 1980s. Costs and safety regulations have
increased even though France’s nuclear power has operated without incident for
over 30 years. 80 nuclear reactors would now cost €1600 billion euros for
Germany. This would still be cheaper than the estimated costs for the solar
and wind buildout that is underway.

Over the past five years alone, the Energiewende has cost Germany €32 billion
($36 billion) annually, and opposition to renewables is growing in the German
countryside.

Der Spiegel cites a recent estimate that it would cost Germany “€3.4 trillion
($3.8 trillion),” or seven times more than it spent from 2000 to 2019, to
increase solar and wind three to five-fold by 2050.

Between 2000 and 2019, Germany grew renewables from 7% to 35% of its
electricity. And as much of Germany's renewable electricity comes from
biomass, which scientists view as polluting and environmentally degrading, as
from solar.

Germany gets 33% of its electricity from solar and wind.

[https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/09/frances-nuclear-
clean-...](https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/09/frances-nuclear-clean-energy-
is-over-three-times-faster-and-cheaper-than-germanys-solar-and-wind.html)

~~~
the_why_of_y
> Over the past five years alone, the Energiewende has cost Germany €32
> billion ($36 billion) annually...

The reason why this is so expensive for Germany is the political decision to
subsidise renewable energy generation by guaranteeing energy purchase prices
for 20 years via the EEG law. This led to a lot of the non-competitive
inefficient early-gen solar and wind being installed in Germany, which will
continue to receive subsidies for another 5-10 years; for new generation being
installed, the subsidies reduce every year.

One of the intended effects was that the solar and wind industries had income
that they could invest in research to improving the cost and efficiency of
solar and wind generation. IIRC an article that I'm sadly unable to find now
claimed that this accelerated the development such that today's very
competitive costs would only be achieved 6-7 years later if there had never
been an EEG, which I find a remarkable achievement. Of course if you're
installing solar or wind in your country today you'll benefit from these
improvements.

> Der Spiegel cites a recent estimate that it would cost Germany “€3.4
> trillion ($3.8 trillion),” or seven times more than it spent from 2000 to
> 2019, to increase solar and wind three to five-fold by 2050.

Assuming this is the article you mean:

[https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-
failure-...](https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-failure-on-
the-road-to-a-renewable-future-a-1266586-amp.html)

What the article actually says:

 _According to ESYS, [...] by 2050, the costs would add up to 2 to 3.4
trillion euros, depending on the scenario. Other forecasts fluctuate between
500 million and about 2 trillion euros._

I'm thinking 500 million has to be a typo and should be 500 billion; still
that's quite a range of estimates.

------
ozten
I've been reading "Drawdown: The most comprehensive plan ever proposed to
reverse global warming" edited by Paul Hawken

[https://www.drawdown.org/the-book](https://www.drawdown.org/the-book)

My impression so far is that offshore wind, onshore wind, and solar are
promising solutions for doing the bulk of the heavy lifting for energy
production. Of course it isn't an all or nothing, but scaling up nuclear isn't
'vital'.

------
sunstone
The window of economic viability for nuclear energy has very likely closed for
good at this point except for niche applications. This is because the costs of
solar, wind and HVDC have been dropping so quickly.

This technologies have the killer attributes of almost no externalities,
incremental investment and very short implementation horizons.

Sure, countries will still like to keep training physicists in nuclear fusion
to maintain a skilled group for nuclear weapons which is fine.

------
DubiousPusher
Has anyone done a comparison of capital costs of nuclear vs. renewables with
pumped hydro storage? The comparisons I see are usually with li-ion battery
storage.

~~~
deschutes
How do you create new pumped hydro capacity?

~~~
sanxiyn
You can't, not really.

~~~
sitkack
Every existing dam can be used for pumped hydro.

~~~
cesarb
Not really, for a dam to be usable for pumped hydro it needs both an upper
reservoir and a lower reservoir, with enough height difference between them,
while a dam for non-pumped hydro needs only an upper reservoir (it can
discharge directly into a river, for instance). Some existing dams can be used
as the upper reservoir or the lower reservoir of a pumped hydro plant, but for
that there has to be a suitable location for the other reservoir nearby.

------
kingkawn
Regardless of how much one may believe in the myths of self-assured competence
demonstrated so thoroughly here and in our comments, there really has yet to
be an institution trustworthy enough to operate at such high stakes over the
long term.

After the disaster the true-believers will have a million and one reasons why
it shouldn’t have happened; but it will.

Not worth it.

~~~
manfredo
> Regardless of how much one may believe in the myths of self-assured
> competence demonstrated so thoroughly here and in our comments, there really
> has yet to be an institution trustworthy enough to operate at such high
> stakes over the long term.

France has done so.

~~~
kingkawn
So far.

------
RenRav
The problem is that emissions for regions beyond north america, europe/eurasia
keep climbing. NA/EU haven't changed much since the 80s. EU has actually
shrunk. All other regions keep growing their emissions. China is still fueling
itself with coal and is only building more plants.

------
tomazio
One point I think some people are overlooking are the military implications of
launching nuclear facilities. These become prime targets in times of conflict
that can cause a ton of damage if successfully attacked. Maybe that is part of
the reason countries are hesitant to build them?

~~~
RandomBacon
> military implications of launching nuclear facilities. These become prime
> targets in times of conflict that can cause a ton of damage if successfully
> attacked.

As opposed to a nuclear explosion delivered by an ICBM?

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
I think the issue is that a small country or simply a terrorist organization
that doesn't have ICBM capabilities could still conceivable cause a nuclear
disaster through a lower tech attack on a nuclear facility.

------
ourlordcaffeine
It will require huge government expenditure though.

The strike price of offshore wind in UK energy capacity auctions came in at
less than half that of prospective nuclear plants.

Only one nuclear plant is going ahead, Hinkley C.

I guess that countries without plentiful renewable potential have no choice
though, its nuclear or nothing.

~~~
sanxiyn
Nuclear does get cheaper as you build more. France is a shining example.

~~~
pygy_
The know-how seems to have been lost though. The latest nuclear power plant
they've tried to build (the Flamanville EPR) is severely late, and the budget
has ballooned to several times the initial estimation.

~~~
jcelerier
> The latest nuclear power plant they've tried to build (the Flamanville EPR)
> is severely late

it is only late because the managers insisted on marketing and building it on
5 years while the engineers knew that it would be 10 years from the beginning.
Pretty sure most people here know this exact situation from their job :-)

~~~
kemenaran
Was the 3x cost increase also to be expected?

------
jes5199
I'm not sure that _any_ centralized power generation will survive the next 50
years

------
llsf
France produces much of its electricity from nuclear. It used to be 75%, but
it is less now with renewable coming online. I guess France did a good job at
educating/brainwashing its citizen because they do not worry much about their
nuclear power plant. And the official track record has been good enough over
the past ~60 years (first in 1962). There has been some green movement trying
to shutdown some nuclear plants over the years, but lately it is more foreign
green activists that complain about France recycling/vitrifying Japanese or
German nuclear waste (arguably transporting waste around the world could be
dangerous). The technology improved a lot in the last 60 years. But years of
anti-nuclear propaganda still make it difficult to talk about nuclear in a
rational way.

------
atoav
A even more vital part is less consumption and all the consequences that come
with it.

More clean energies and products won’t save us. The usage of earths resources
is now roughly double of what the planet could sustain long term and it is
still growing and I am afraid more cheap energy won’t help to solve this very
systemic issue.

Todays teenagers are consuming more than teenagers ever before, mostly due to
availability and online shops. Three decades ago you had to go to the next
city and find something, nowadays you just order the thing and it is in your
doorstep next day.

Adding cheap and clean energy into this mix is like taking painkillers when
you have a open fracture so you can keep going. Might soothe your short term
pains, but is ultimately a counter productive thing if applied just on its
own.

~~~
ekianjo
> The usage of earths resources is now roughly double of what the planet could
> sustain long term

Based on what data exactly? Mankind has only ever scratched the Earth's
surface for resources, and still only on land. If you imagine the Earth is a
perfect sphere, we have far from used much resources at all.

~~~
imesh
We have been using the resources we need. A bunch of rock and magma isn't
really useful to us. It's things like soil which only exists on the surface,
or oil, which has been getting harder and harder to extract.

~~~
ekianjo
The day we need more resources, you can be sure we will go and get them where
they are. We have not have had the need to dig deep or explore the oceans so
far (because other resources were readily available), but there is no telling
we will never do so.

> or oil, which has been getting harder and harder to extract.

Harder to extract but still in much larger abundance than what was predicted
by mostly everyone back in the 70-80s. I don't know if you were around then,
but you may have heard of "peak oil". It never happened (as in, not yet, and
that was already a long time ago).

~~~
brianpgordon
I don't think the Earth is going to literally run out of anything, sure. We
can always dig deeper, or prospect for more resources out in Siberia, or
whatever. But there's something to be said for being concerned about being
responsible with this golden age we find ourselves in, when resources are so
extraordinarily cheap and abundant. It's not a given that it will be like this
forever. Imagine lithium being as rare as gold, and think about whether
something like the phenomenon of ubiquitous smartphones would even have been
possible.

------
EricE
I guess better late than never?

The utter demonization of nuclear for the last 50 years is beyond criminal.
Many in Germany probably regret their recent knee jerk reactions. Should be a
fun winter for them (not!)

------
amai
Nuclear energy is much too expensive. The costs for storing nuclear waste
safely for hundreds or thousands of years are so high, that it is cheaper to
use solar and wind energy.

~~~
tekkk
Did you really think through your argument? If the waste in enclosed in some
concrete shell, two hundred meters deep inside bed rock, there won't really be
any on-going expenses after it has been deposited. Now one can argue about the
method itself, if it's the right way to do it (I think it's a bit overkill),
but what you are saying doesn't really make sense based on that argument. The
plants themselves of course are expensive, storing the waste for long periods
of time not so much.

------
stjohnswarts
It's a shame these stories only appeal to the choir :(

------
briwang2050
Germany spending will be three times higher on solar, wind and biomass will be
more than three times higher than a nuclear build-out. Germany needs 1.5 times
the power of France's nuclear. Estimates are that Germany will spend over 3
trillion euros through 2050. They will have to rebuild the solar and wind
twice because they last 15-25 years vs nuclear lasting 40-80+ years. That is a
lot of cost savings even if there were accidents or accident cleanups. There
are lot of certain increased costs on the solar and wind side of the ledger.

------
thomasfl
The YC request for startups list, could contain nuclear energy. Everything
from thorium to new ways of disposing nuclear waste.

------
stefek99
[http://genesis.re/book/](http://genesis.re/book/) ️ specific tweet about
nuclear ️
[https://twitter.com/marsxrobertson/status/116783708668846899...](https://twitter.com/marsxrobertson/status/1167837086688468992)

•••••

Germany phasing out nuclear and opening new coal.

Business as usual.

------
beobab
I get a security error clicking the link above. Does anyone have another link?

~~~
dreen
Same here, my corporate DNS is blocking the domain

~~~
skrause
Maybe they use Cloudflare DNS?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317)

------
nipponese
I'm surprised there's no mention of Kirk Sorensen. He's one of the most
effective Nuclear Energy advocates of our generation:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kybenSq0KPo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kybenSq0KPo)

------
freebear
Oh, such techno-utopianism, cheer the tech!! Sweden still has increased death
rates due to Chernobyl, this disaster is still killing by a statistical
significance, if we make it to the future we could forget it and later remind
ourselves by looking in the atmosphere, in the mud, in the food, in the
oceans, in the animals, in the ice and we can find traces of the man made
disaster in DNA, in the fingerprint of God, we are the Gods now...

If you haven't figured it out yet, if you still believe in the government's
figures, I've got one thing to tell you: pull your head out of your ass. For
one example, the leaders of the free world are now leaving the so called Paris
Agreement, because they believe anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. Are
they still telling you the truth?

Okay, back to nuclear now for a second round. We are likely to see a worldwide
collapse due to many reasons, but lets blame a lot of it to the actions of the
government's mentioned. Before you dismiss this premise I would like to inform
that this is a major fear, and therefor a major field of research for the
nuclear industry and is a major reason to why we even care about long term
storage of the waste – if everything "went well", why would we care about a
thousand years? if we can manage "it" now we for sure can in the future when
our GDP is like risen by a gazillion percents. We must pause here, this is the
thing: we are talking about waste that is extremely insanely dangerous if it
would "leak" out, if this would happen our civilization would be finished,
life could die out (not like we are not killing of 100-200 species a day
already, but hey, gotta go faster!)

Where were we now, right: can you imagine this planet in five hundred years?
and the nuclear waste has to be securely stored for hundreds of thousands of
years. This is the reason they try to universal signs instead of writing the
warning in plain language [1].

I am way off the article now, so Sweden and France has a decarbonized their
economies? Where a the figures? I would guess without looking into any
numbers, that both Sweden and France has in fact increased their carbon output
since they started using nuclear power, I would go so far that I would argue
that they have in fact increased their carbon output because they have added
nuclear. By using nuclear power we grow our economy, the larger the economy
the more carbon output.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-
time_nuclear_waste_warnin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-
time_nuclear_waste_warning_messages)

~~~
tekkk
You are ranting a bit too much. The reality isn't that excitingly gloom. If
the waste would leak out, it would just contaminate the area around it (not
that it wouldn't be bad). But it wouldn't cause the global armageddon as you
describe it. I mean Chernobyl happened which was a far worse outcome
(radioactive waste aerosolized due to the burning graphene), yet it didn't
kill us off. Nuclear is scary, I understand your fear. But your thesis hangs a
lot on the emotional side, so it's hard for me to emphasize with what you are
saying.

------
boyadjian
There is no way to solve the climate crisis. We should have listen to the Club
of Rome in 1972. Now, it is much too late.

------
t-h-e-chief
ah... no

------
justplay
the original link has paywall, putting archive.is to unblock and submitting
into public domain ... is it legal ? just asking.

------
ivolimmen
I agree that we require nuclear energy but not based on plutonium. I am in
favor of thorium with molten salt reactors. It is cleaner and safer. China is
already researching it and invested a lot of money and people into it. A lot
of countries are but it is on a very low scale because it is nuclear and has a
bad reputation.

~~~
djsumdog
> plutonium

Modern nuclear reactors don't use plutonium or weapons grade uranium. The
ratio of U-235/U-238 is only 3~5% unstable in a nuclear power plant (where
weapons grade is over 95%).

Thorium rectors have been experimented with in the US, but they do have
problems with corrosion.

~~~
gnode
Reactors primarily use uranium, but plutonium is routinely used in the form of
mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel (about thirty reactors in Europe, at least). One reason
is to spend the plutonium from decommissioned nuclear weapons.

Using MOX in conjunction with thorium is also being tested to improve the void
coefficient, making reactor operation more stable and safe.

------
drchewbacca
Does anyone know a good comparison of the cost of Nuclear with Solar +
Batteries? I feel like just comparing against panels alone isn't really
helpful.

I would imagine that if we really cared about climate change the best approach
would be maximal effort on all fronts. So build renewables as fast as we can
and build nuclear as fast as we can. That would be the quickest way to get
carbon emissions to 0.

We could always spend the latter half of the century decommissioning the
nuclear again.

~~~
stjohnswarts
Current battery technology is not up to what you are talking about. No one can
come up with a price because we don't have the technology to store that much
offline energy to handle the variability. Anyone who says we do -right now- is
lying to you. We would need a factor of 100X energy storage density to what we
have right now to even be close.

~~~
jes5199
people who end up on opposite sides of this argument are usually talking about
two different things:

1) Do we build exactly enough solar to meet our average power needs but have
to build several-month-long battery storage capacity to bring summer sun into
the winter,

2) Or do we build enough surplus solar so that we can run 100% load for 24
hours on a cloudy winter solstice, and just need big enough batteries to get
through the longest night of the year, and under every other circumstance just
be wildly over-provisioned

#1 is probably impossible with current technology. But our solar installations
_already_ produce surplus power during the summer that we don't use
("curtailment"), even at today's prices. It doesn't seem out of the question
that we'd just build much more absurd extra solar to make up for our lack of
storage. And then maybe we'd find a use for the excess summer electricity,
like desalination or hydrogen production or bitcoin mining. It's technically
possible, but it does increase costs - twice as expensive? three times? That
might still be economically viable, if solar costs continue to fall or if the
cost of natural gas spikes upward

------
multiplegeorges
Gen IV and V, as well as SMRs[0], are really the only way to replace the
baseload power generation we currently get from oil, coal, and natural gas.

Solar and wind will be integral to the overall mix, but unless there's a wild
breakthrough in battery technology we need to be building nuclear to replace
fossil fuel power generation.

If people are uncomfortable with the word "nuclear", let's go with isotopic
batteries.

[0]: [https://smrroadmap.ca](https://smrroadmap.ca)

~~~
sanxiyn
Pumped storage works where available. Norway's dams are the secret behind the
success of Denmark's wind.

~~~
obmelvin
This is very interesting! I've not heard about too much water storage despite
how fondly it is talked about by some.

For those who want to know more: [https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-
tech/wind/norway-wants-to-be...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-
tech/wind/norway-wants-to-be-europes-battery)

------
virmundi
Keep in mind that with solar there externals that we’re not calculating right
now as a group. The panels will die. They are full of terrible chemicals. We
don’t have large scale decommissioning plans now. Depending on which country
manufactured the panels, they will die sooner.

------
typeformer
So many people on HN (perhaps more than other communities) think that they are
subject experts on just about everything... well, sorry to burst your bubble,
but we have aging nuclear plants we can't even take care of right now that are
losing money, we have thousands of tons of nuclear waste that we still have no
f __king idea what to do with, nuclear is the past, the future is very cheap
and efficient decentralized solar, paired with very cheap and efficient
decentralized grid storage (batteries), the smart money already understands
this.

~~~
juanjmanfredi
I think your point would be much better communicated if you provided citations
for your claims. As it stands now, your comment comes across as condescending.

~~~
typeformer
Sorry just bitter

