
Nuclear power is the only green solution (2004) - mpweiher
http://www.jameslovelock.org/nuclear-power-is-the-only-green-solution/
======
kragen
In 2004 solar power was still far too expensive to be a viable option, to the
point where he didn't even bother to mention it: "there is no chance that the
renewables, wind, tide and water power can provide enough energy and in time."
This is no longer true; installing new photovoltaic generation capacity is now
cheaper than continuing to run _existing_ coal plants in much of the world,
and although the humans still need to ramp up production capacity to build
enough panels, it looks like they are on track to make the switch in the
2020s. The total solar resource is about three orders of magnitude larger than
marketed world energy consumption.

We shouldn't fault James for not seeing this in 2004, but now we know he was
wrong, as many of us were.

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

Edited to add: competitive-bid power purchasing agreements hit a new low this
week of US$15.67 per MWh in Qatar
[https://archive.fo/UBWWi](https://archive.fo/UBWWi) but there are projects in
many equatorial parts of the world hitting similar lows. This is a factor of
10 less than what end-users currently pay for electricity in California and
roughly a factor of 3 less than the average wholesale cost there.

~~~
Scea91
But coal plant as opposed to solar plant has a reliable, predictable output
and works after dusk. Nuclear power plant also has these characteristics.

~~~
AstralStorm
We do not have to limit ourselves to just one source. Blocking nuclear in
favor of some sort of pie in the sky global power network and huge renewable
infrastructure is common for some reason.

We can use any and all power sources that are clean.

~~~
rob74
> We can use any and all power sources that are clean.

I completely agree with you on that. Of course, the disagreement hinges on
whether you can consider nuclear power "clean"...

~~~
acidburnNSA
There's enough data today to show that it absolutely is. No air pollution,
very little CO2, almost no deaths/TWh compared to other sources.

Accidents have been bad but recall that fossil while operating normally kills
3.8 million/year and causes climate change. In comparison to that nuclear is
absolutely pristene.

Germany's choice to phase nuclear out and leave coal on straight up kills a
few thousand people per year.

~~~
bildung
_> Germany's choice to phase nuclear out and leave coal on straight up_

Often repeated, but still wrong: Germany also phased out coal.

~~~
acidburnNSA
Incorrect. Here's some live data for you to gander at:
[https://www.electricitymap.org](https://www.electricitymap.org)

They still run over 40 GW of coal.

~~~
bildung
Yeah, sorry, native German speaker here, I got the tense wrong. Germany is in
the process of phasing out coal, just as with nuclear.
[https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-germany-coal-
powe...](https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-germany-coal-
power-20190126-story.html)

~~~
acidburnNSA
Yup. They promised to phase coal out later and phased nuclear out today.
Literalling killing a few thousand per year by air pollution while they're at
it. It's a great anti-scientific tragedy of our times due to fear of radiation
and inability to judge actuarial statistics correctly.

~~~
bildung
I'm not at all disagreeing. The coal phase-out should have happened a) before
the nuclear phase-out and b) decades earlier. Processes like these tend to be
pretty sluggish, the political discussions for both date back to the 1970s.
Chernobyl was a big thing in German politics, and there are still some species
of mushrooms that can't be eaten in the country. The actual health problems
were negligible, but this isn't how politics work.

~~~
acidburnNSA
Gotcha. Yeah the mental effects of Chernobyl melded with all the fears about
nuclear weapons fallout, which Russians and American had been scaring people
with for years at that point.

The nuclear industry totally failed to recover from a PR point of view, and
since then has hid under a rock rather than explained how low carbon and safe
it is.

------
spodek
Nothing about the greenest and most sustainable solution: reducing
consumption. Most Americans could drop their consumption by 75% purely
improving their lives, before difficult decisions, many of which would also
improve their lives. Several nations, like Thailand, have lowered birth rates
purely voluntarily, increasing prosperity and abundance.

Without reducing, new power sources will repeat what led Norman Borlaug said
on receiving the Nobel Prize for his part in the Green Revolution:

"The green revolution has won a temporary success in man's war against hunger
and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the
revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three
decades. But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed;
otherwise the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only. Most
people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the "Population
Monster"...Since man is potentially a rational being, however, I am confident
that within the next two decades he will recognize the self-destructive course
he steers along the road of irresponsible population growth..."

We haven't made much progress stemming growth. Projections to 2100 still show
our population growing, yet our global footprint is greater than one Earth.

~~~
IgorPartola
Our consumption isn’t about things like turning off lights in your house. In
the developed countries every human consumes about 10kW. You can actually
graph energy consumption per capita and a quality of life index and they will
correlate basically one to one. The bulk of that energy goes to power
agricultural machinery that produces the food we eat and the transportation of
that food from the mid west states to the coasts. There is little you can do
to reduce that consumption because geography doesn’t allow for it. Local farms
aren’t much better. They often times use old pickup trucks which are way less
efficient than trains to deliver food. Even if you don’t use any power at all
in your life, no heat, no lights, no transportation, you still would be in the
7-9kW range as long as you eat food.

~~~
ashtonbaker
> Local farms aren’t much better. They often times use old pickup trucks which
> are way less efficient than trains to deliver food.

This doesn't really make sense to me. Trains don't deliver from foreign farms
to my door. You have to drive the food from those farms to the train, and
drive the food from the train to its final destination. I don't see how that
can possibly be less resource-intensive than getting food from local farms.
And that's not even mentioning the difference between monoculture industrial
agriculture and small-scale organic farming.

In any case, if you're worried about your resource consumption, you can always
make more of your diet plant-based, drive your car less, and avoid flying when
possible. In every carbon impact calculator I've used [1], these things make a
significant impact. And I agree with the above poster that these decisions
can, far from being sacrifices, greatly improve your life.

[1] [https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/#/](https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/#/)

~~~
i_am_proteus
Large farms move their crops in larger, more efficient vehicles. The
efficiency offsets, to some degree, the distance.

You also are conflating organic and polyculture farming. Most organic farming
is monoculture and much of it is industrial.

~~~
ashtonbaker
> Large farms move their crops in larger, more efficient vehicles. The
> efficiency offsets, to some degree, the distance.

Yes I understand this. My point was that it's not as simple as comparing
trains to old pickup trucks, which seemed like a strawman. But I've been doing
some research and was surprised to learn that food-miles are a relatively
small portion of the emissions associated with food, so point taken.

> You also are conflating organic and polyculture farming. Most organic
> farming is monoculture and much of it is industrial.

I didn't mean to conflate them, I meant that monoculture + industrial is more
resource-intensive than organic + small-scale. But I guess I was using
"organic" as a catch-all for sustainable farming practices, e.g. polyculture,
rather than literally "USDA organic".

Debate about "local produce" aside (which I probably should have let go), my
more important point is that it's definitely possible to reduce your carbon
footprint meaningfully.

------
melling
“ Published in The Independent, 24 May 2004.”

16 years later coal generated electricity is still huge and 80% of the world’s
electricity is still generated by fossil fuels.

I imagine if we’d used nuclear instead, the world would have bought itself an
extra decade or two to solve the problem.

~~~
mc32
Some of the blame for this should lie at the feet of activists with good
intentions like Jane Fonda.

I don’t think she realizes the damage she’s responsible for. Lots of the
fossil fuel usage she is now against only happened because of her cause in the
70s.

~~~
StavrosK
Hell, I've seen "green energy" proponents NOW oppose nuclear because they want
to push their own favorite (solar or whatever). Instead of saying "I support
anything that's not fossil fuels, but I prefer solar", their stance is "It's
either solar or nothing (where 'nothing' is fossil fuels)".

~~~
DonHopkins
And certain green energy opponents oppose wind energy because it causes
cancer, unlike "clean coal" that they love.

~~~
StavrosK
Wait, how can wind energy possibly cause cancer?

Also, there must be a name for the fallacy where you oppose one thing for some
reason, without considering that the only alternative is much worse.

~~~
DonHopkins
Didn't you hear about that? Or is there too much other stuff happening that it
distracts from important issues like protecting children from windmill cancer?

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-story-
of-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-story-of-donald-
trumps-feud-with-his-one-true-nemesis-
windmills/2019/08/15/f637980a-be9e-11e9-b873-63ace636af08_story.html)

[https://qz.com/1291269/the-scottish-wind-farm-donald-
trump-t...](https://qz.com/1291269/the-scottish-wind-farm-donald-trump-tried-
to-block-is-now-complete/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0s5Zqmb09g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0s5Zqmb09g)

------
skitout
1) The article does not mention consuming less energy/stuff - whether by being
mush more efficient for the same result (huge potential there !) or with more
sobriety

2) "there is no chance that the renewables, wind, tide and water power can
provide enough energy and in time" was true in 2004, now this totally an
option : this is cheaper and faster to deploy than nuclear

3) "Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear" in only partly
true... 1% of all nuclear power plant did had a super serious problem
(Fukushima, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl)... And there are other unsolved
issues around the short term and long term security

~~~
bipson
4) Nuclear is and always was _incredibly_ expensive to set up. There is a
reason why nuclear plants are never paid for in their entirety by any private
firm/operator and heavily subsidized (at least in the EU)

5) I am still fascinated by the lack of awareness regarding waste
(particularly since it is with well educated/smart people)

Yes, I know, there are alternative nuclear power sources where we don't need
to safely store nuclear waste for millions of years. But those are not readily
available.

We still do not have a _real_ solution for nuclear waste. Just dumping
something so dangerous for _thousands_ (or millions) of years is
mindbogglingly reckless. And loudly asking to increase this amount by
plastering waste-producing facilities everywhere... That's like pouring poison
in the floor below your own garden, hoping the next guy will have a solution
for it.

But I guess good ol' America, where dumping _any_ waste is not considered a
problem, there is simply no awareness for this practice. Just because you
don't see it, doesn't mean it has no effect.

Dumping. is. not. a. long-term. solution. And just because _You_ don't need to
care about it anymore, doesn't mean nobody has to.

~~~
keanzu
All of the used fuel ever produced by the commercial nuclear industry since
the late 1950s would cover a football field to a depth of less than 10 yards.

[https://www.nei.org/fundamentals/nuclear-
waste](https://www.nei.org/fundamentals/nuclear-waste)

~~~
silvester23
Without disputing that assertion, you might not have chosen the most unbiased
source to back it up.

~~~
keanzu
Upvoted :) I'll concede that point.

------
kemenaran
That was indeed in 2004 – long before nuclear stopped being cost-competitive
with renewable energies.

Oh, and renewables are also faster to deploy than nuclear plants (which take
years to build).

~~~
StavrosK
But renewables are very bursty and don't allow you to plan well, so we need
both.

~~~
pfdietz
The intermittency of renewables means nuclear doesn't help. Nuclear needs a
constant market at a good average price to make sense. Renewables, even when
they do not cover 100%, crash the price often enough to kill nuclear's
business case.

As renewables build out, the prospects for nuclear will only get worse. At
this point, it's a delaying action by utilities to try to get their existing
reactors profitable enough to keep from shutting them down. New reactors are
not close to making economic sense, and the effective CO2 taxes that would be
needed to make them so would be very large.

~~~
StavrosK
Isn't that because we're using fossil fuels for the base load? What happens
when all we have is renewables?

~~~
pfdietz
Fossil fuel baseload is also incompatible with renewables, although not as
badly because more of its costs are variable. This is one of the reasons coal
is hurting.

Think carefully about the economics. Suppose we want to use nuclear to cover
the (say) 20% of the time renewables + short term storage might not cover.
Nuclear's cost of power would be greatly inflated over what it would be if it
were baseload. The effective CO2 tax to make that cheaper than (say) gas
turbines burning natural gas would be outrageous, over $1000/ton. A vast array
of CO2-reducing changes would occur before that. It would also likely be
cheaper to use renewable hydrogen (from electrolysis, stored underground) in
gas turbines for that last bit. The round trip efficiency would be lousy, but
it would still be cheaper than using nuclear there.

View it another way: if we have really cheap power most of the time, insisting
we use nuclear then, just so nuclear would be available in that other 20%,
would incur a huge opportunity cost. That cost should properly be assigned to
the place nuclear is being depended on (that 20%).

~~~
acidburnNSA
I'm sure you're aware that nuclear heat and electricity could be stored and/or
distributed just like renewable stuff in the vast energy storage system of the
future.

I still would like an answer from you on EROI

~~~
pfdietz
There is no point charging batteries with expensive nuclear energy when cheap
renewable energy can be used. And the operator of a battery can shift when
they are charged, making nuclear even less likely to be the cheapest source
available at any time. So this doesn't save nuclear.

Heat is difficult to transport any great distance, and the reactors we have
today produce only moderate grade heat, which isn't very valuable. And if PV
becomes a bit cheaper, then the cost per joule of its power will become
comparable to the cost per thermal joule of natural gas. In that situation,
consumers will shift to resistive heat, and be able to bank that heat in large
thermal stores. This will provide enormous cheap storage capacity for that
solar energy.

EROI of renewables is just fine, some horribly flawed claims to the opposite
notwithstanding. In particular, the EROI of PV was estimated to be about 8 in
Europe -- but that assumes one puts the solar-powered PV factories IN EUROPE,
rather than in a location with more sun. The real issue there is that energy-
intensive industry will flee Europe in a solar-powered world.

------
flgb
He writes in the context of the UK. In January 2008 the UK Government gave the
go-ahead to build a nuclear power station. This is Hinkley Point C. It might
be producing power in 2023. It could cost as much as £22 billion. This kind of
project is certainly not the solution.

------
pfdietz
That piece is from 2004. The installed cost of utility scale PV has fallen by
an order of magnitude since 2004. The conclusions he reached then are not
relevant now.

------
Andrew_nenakhov
Nuclear power is the only green solution that allows necessary power density
and a constant power output. Too bad it has so much negative press, mostly by
journalists interested in sensational scary stuff.

~~~
pfdietz
"Necessary" power density? Please explain why the power density is necessary.

------
IB885588
Great (great!) podcasts about nuclear fusion reactors (the second one is an
interview with a physicist at ITER, being built in the South of France):

[http://omegataupodcast.net/22-nuclear-fusion-at-mpi-fur-
plas...](http://omegataupodcast.net/22-nuclear-fusion-at-mpi-fur-
plasmaphysik/)

[https://omegataupodcast.net/157-fusion-at-
iter/](https://omegataupodcast.net/157-fusion-at-iter/)

------
air7
Nuclear critics seem to ignore, at least when discussing the dangers, that the
world is _currently_ producing 10% of its energy from ~440 nuclear power
plants in ~50 countries. France for example, derives about 75% of its
electricity from nuclear energy. This is not some spooky new technology to be
wary of. It's doing fine. All we need is to scale by a single factor of 10
compared to what we have now to go 100% green. [0]

In terms of public perception of danger, Nuclear vs Coal is akin to Flying vs
Driving. In both the latter kills many many more people, although little by
little. The former has disasters extremely rarely, and even then they are not
_that_ bad [1][2][3], but when they do its all anyone can talk about for a
long time, and they cement an erroneous perception of danger. "Coal is
responsible for over 800,000 premature deaths per year globally and many
millions more serious and minor illnesses." [4]

The only real issue is cost. While its very competitive to run a NPP, its very
expensive to build one. Note how the number of plants has grown
exponentially(?) until 1986 and then just plateaued. [0]

Considering the crisis we are in, I think its only logical we subitize NPPs,
take extra care of them (for example in Fukashima the right protocols were in
place and so the death toll as a result of radiation is "1" [5]), deal with
the waste problem later, and work on perhaps better solutions in the ensuing
decades.

Sure it's not perfect, but its our best bet.

[0] [https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-
an...](https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-
generation/nuclear-power-in-the-world-today.aspx) [1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster)
[3] [https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-
energy](https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy) [4]
[https://endcoal.org/health/](https://endcoal.org/health/) [5]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties)

~~~
pfdietz
> Nuclear critics seem to ignore, at least when discussing the dangers, that
> the world is currently producing 10% of its energy from ~440 nuclear power
> plants in ~50 countries.

We don't ignore it, we recognize that it is irrelevant. You seem to be saying
that if a choice was the correct one at one time, it will always be correct.
But that's nonsense.

------
kadonoishi
Suppose you exhaustively incorporated all risk when engineering power plants,
and you designed such that exhaustive risk was equal across all power plants.

That would mean risks from climate change were included in the engineering of
coal plants, and the engineering of nuclear plants therefore needed to match
the exhaustive risk of coal plants including climate change risk.

That would mean nuclear plants could be engineered to accept higher risk, to
match the exhaustive risk of coal plants.

If a nuclear plant might render a region uninhabitable due to radiation, that
would be matched against a coal plant rendering a region uninhabitable due to
sea level rise, etc, all risks exhaustively incorporated.

How much cheaper would a nuclear plant be if it was engineered to an
exhaustive risk-mitigation standard commensurate with the exhaustive risk of
other industrial plants like coal-fired power plants, mines, chemical plants?

------
toxik
One negative aspect of nuclear reactors that I found is rarely discussed is
their vulnerability to military attacks. Wind, water and solar are distributed
much more. Of course there are other single points of failure, but at least
those failures don't involve risk of nuclear contamination.

------
ed_balls
Does anyone have a good cost comparison of nuclear, gas, coal/lignite ? Total
cost, with decommission. My understanding is that even with Carbon Tax coal is
cheaper.

From HN comment: > Take the average IPCC meta-analysis numbers [1] at face
value: 820 gCO2-eq/kWh for coal, 490 for gas. Those are both extraordinarily
high. This is because they both combust carbon in the presence of oxygen to
form energy and CO2. They're both very high-carbon fuel sources. If we are
trying to reduce carbon emissions, we need to build things that do not combine
C + O2 to make CO2 + energy. Options with less than 50g CO2-eq/kWh (in
decreasing order of emissions) include solar (41), geothermal (38), hydro
(24), tidal (17), nuclear (12), and wind (11).

~~~
strainer
The investment analysis firm Lazards publishes detailed reports on LCOE every
year. These are current costs per MWh without subsidies [1]:

    
    
      Nuclear            : $118 to 192
      Solar with storage : $102 - 139  
      Gas                : $44 - 68
      Wind               : $28 - 54
      Solar PV           : $32 - 42
      

They don't include carbon pricing which will increase solars price a bit, it
should also push its carbon output from manufacture down as it will be more
economical to optimize it.

[1]
[https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019](https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019)

------
michaelbuckbee
I mean yes - if I was playing Civ this is the route I would go.

But I look at the current landscape of both political opinion and
technological progress and think: we should go all-in on Solar and storage.

I look at practical-minded organizations like the US Navy (who certainly have
access to nuclear reactors in a more streamlined way than civilian utilities)
and yet they still put in a 21 MW solar farm at NAS Oceana [1].

1 -
[https://navysustainability.dodlive.mil/energy/repo-3/project...](https://navysustainability.dodlive.mil/energy/repo-3/projects-
page/nas-oceana-solar-facility/)

------
INTPenis
How green is it when we've had it for 70 years and already created two*
exclusion zones on earth. How many more exclusion zones will we have created
with our hubris that we can create a perfect system?

I understand that my entire career (IT) depends on nuclear, but I can't ignore
the fact that we have a giant reactor at the center of our solar system. We
should focus on using that instead.

*not counting all the fallout from weapons.

------
Tade0
_But with six billion, and growing, few options remain; we can not continue
drawing energy from fossil fuels and there is no chance that the renewables,
wind, tide and water power can provide enough energy and in time._

I beg to differ. So far in China's electricity mix renewables have contributed
much more than nuclear.

And it's poised to stay that way given how difficult it really is to build
nuclear power in practice.

~~~
mar77i
Right. Although, arguing China's side of the discussion as an example seems
very very disproportionate at this point. See these giant, graphite-black
sectors on the 2017 diagrams listed?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China)

~~~
Tade0
My point is that China having the fastest growing nuclear program in the world
is still not getting more energy from that source than renewables.

Nuclear appears to be simply too slow to roll out.

------
diegoholiveira
The problem is the kind of nuclear reaction used. Fission reactors are bad,
but once we got fusion reactors, we'll have an almost perfect energy source:
clean, reliable and cheap.

The project Iter ([http://iter.org/](http://iter.org/)) is building the first
fusion reactor. It's a big challenge but I'm glade that this project exists at
all.

~~~
pfdietz
Fusion is going to be more expensive than fission, if it works at all. The
idea that it would be cheap has no rational basis. The power density of ITER
that you reference there is 400x worse than a PWR. Fusion reactors will be
monstrous expensive things.

------
ThinkBeat
If we were to build reactors to replace existing fossil fuel plans there would
not be enough uranium cheap enough that it makes sense to use it.

------
lucideer
Someone on HN recently posted this link [https://en-
roads.climateinteractive.org/](https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/)

I don't have a full read on how accurately the figures backing this tool
reflect reality, but one thing that really stood out to me while playing with
it was how small an impact nuclear has on the overall outcomes.

------
Amarok
Ideally the future is nuclear fission transitioning to fusion, with hydrogen
fuel cell vehicles.

Lithium battery production and recycling is still very damaging to the
environment, even if it stopped relying on coal for energy[1][2].

Hydrogen vehicles also have a longer lifespan and range compared to electric
vehicles, while needing less time to refuel[3]. Now if only we invested as
much in hydrogen harvesting technology as we are investing in lithium
batteries.

[1][https://amp.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/2017/aug/24...](https://amp.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/2017/aug/24/nickel-mining-hidden-environmental-cost-electric-cars-
batteries)

[2][https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/battery-batteries-
ele...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/battery-batteries-electric-
cars-carbon-sustainable-power-energy/)

[3][https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/hydrogen-
fu...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/hydrogen-fuel-cell-
vehicle)

~~~
mcot2
I am sorry you are so misinformed.

Lithium is a common abundant resource and battery packs are easily recycled
but more importantly there is a financial incentive to do so.

Manufacturing technology for cells is improving rapidly. Much faster than the
pace of innovation in Hydrogen fuel cells. Most are focusing on reducing
Cobalt and other techniques to reduce or eliminate chemicals and energy used
in wet electrode processes.

Hydrogen is pretty much DOA for cars. This is a good video on the subject:
[https://youtu.be/f7MzFfuNOtY](https://youtu.be/f7MzFfuNOtY)

~~~
edhelas
"common abundant"

> Even though 365 years of reserve supply sounds very comforting, the point of
> the EV and stationary storage revolutions is that current demand will shoot
> up, way up, if these revolutions do happen. The 100 Gigafactories scenario
> could come true. And if that happens, the 365-year supply would be less than
> a 17-year supply (13.5 million tons of reserves divided by 800,000 = 16.9
> years).

[https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/is-there-
enough...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/is-there-enough-
lithium-to-maintain-the-growth-of-the-lithium-ion-battery-m)

Is 17 years "common and abundant" ?

> But very little recycling goes on today. In Australia, for example, only
> 2–3% of Li-ion batteries are collected and sent offshore for recycling,
> according to Naomi J. Boxall, an environmental scientist at Australia’s
> Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). The
> recycling rates in the European Union and the US—less than 5%—aren’t much
> higher.

[https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-
re...](https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-recycling-
lithium/97/i28)

------
lispm
The article is old and outdated.

Since Nuclear does not scale, it is no solution to climate change, for
example.

The World Nuclear Status Report says:

[https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/The-World-Nuclear-
Industr...](https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/The-World-Nuclear-Industry-
Status-Report-2019-HTML.html)

\--- Non-Nuclear Options Save More Carbon Per Year. While current nuclear
programs are particularly slow, current renewables programs are particularly
fast. New nuclear plants take 5–17 years longer to build than utility-scale
solar or onshore wind power, so existing fossil-fueled plants emit far more
CO2 while awaiting substitution by the nuclear option. Stabilizing the climate
is urgent, nuclear power is slow. \---

Just look at the electricity production trends of China:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China#/m...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China#/media/File:Electricity_Production_in_China.png)

~~~
koheripbal
worldnuclearreport.org is an anti-nuclear activist organization, FYI. They are
not an official body of any kind.

There are a number of flaws in the conclusions they advocate.

1\. They compare raw _generation_ costs, but always neglect storage costs for
renewables - which is the MAJORITY problem with most renewables.

2\. They claim that nuclear takes long and is expensive, while continuing to
advocate regulations to make nuclear more expensive and take longer. I call
this the "push someone off a cliff and then accuse him of being clumsy"
strategy.

3\. Nuclear scales better than any other solution. Storage (at least in North
America) is trivial - we have a massive facility capable of storing ALL the
waste from the US & Canada, just sitting closed because of politics and
fearmongering.

4\. Building a nuclear plant takes 10-15 years. The most ambitious "New Green
Deal" plan from environmentalists has a timeline of 10 years (despite have no
solution to the storage problem). Frankly, if we get to 100% nuclear and hydro
in 20 years, that is very much in line with preventing climate change. Note
also that China is currently building 24 GenIII nuclear plants.

~~~
lispm
> Note also that China is currently building 24 GenIII nuclear plants.

Too slow. What is it? 30 GW production capacity? 40? 50?

China is going in the direction of total 1300 GW production capacity with just
coal.

> Building a nuclear plant takes 10-15 years.

A single one. I was taking about scale. To replace the coal power plants of
China, one would need to build 1000 reactors.

~~~
koheripbal
> A single one.

You think they are built in series? Like one after the other? Do you place
that same requirement on renewable plants?

> To replace the coal power plants of China, one would need to build 1000
> reactors.

The Chinese plants under construction will bring nuclear from 2% of the
current grid to 20% by 2030. So, no, it's not 1000 reactors, it would be 100 -
which is entirely doable. ...and indeed they are planning for an additional
1500GW of nuclear power construction AFTER this current set is finished.

[source]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China#Nu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China#Nuclear_power))

~~~
lispm
> You think they are built in series?

They need a ramp up. Which is much easier for renewable.

> The Chinese plants under construction will bring nuclear from 2% of the
> current grid to 20% by 2030

Renewable is there already.

See here for nuclear:

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

\--- As of March 2019, China has 46 nuclear reactors in operation with a
capacity of 42.8 GW and 11 under construction with a capacity of 10.8
GW.[4][5] Additional reactors are planned for an additional 36 GW. China was
planning to have 58 GW of capacity by 2020.[3] However, few plants have
commenced construction since 2015, and it is now unlikely that this target
will be met.---

Nuclear will be far from providing 20% in 2030. Probably not even 10%:

[https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-
pr...](https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-
profiles/countries-a-f/china-nuclear-power.aspx)

\---By 2030 nuclear capacity will be 120 to 150 GWe, and nuclear will provide
8% to 10% of electricity.---

------
brylie
While being better than coal and petroleum, nuclear is still based on non-
renewable uranium.

How abundant is uranium compared with coal and petroleum? How destructive and
energy intensive are the extraction and refinement processes compared with
fossil fuels?

~~~
keanzu
The world's present measured resources of uranium (5.7 Mt) in the cost
category less than three times present spot prices and used only in
conventional reactors, are enough to last for about 90 years. [1]

There are an estimated 1.1 trillion tonnes of proven coal reserves worldwide.
This means that there is enough coal to last us around 150 years at current
rates of production. In contrast, proven oil and gas reserves are equivalent
to around 50 and 52 years at current production levels. [2]

[1] [https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-
fuel-c...](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-
cycle/uranium-resources/supply-of-uranium.aspx)

[2] [https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/where-coal-
found](https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/where-coal-found)

~~~
brylie
Thanks for the details. Out of curiosity, are those industry-neutral
organizations that made those estimates?

~~~
keanzu
> Are those industry-neutral organizations that made those estimates?

Do neutral organizations still exist when even school children have strong
opinions on coal power? I don't believe neutrality is thing for coal anymore
and it hasn't been for nuclear for a long time. Thus, by definition, these
cannot be neutral sources.

Even if these were the best estimates possible, how would anyone else
authenticate it? With an audit? Like how Arthur Andersen audited Enron?

I feel we are post-truth and thus nothing can be claimed to be unbiased.

------
ptah
nuclear power is not scalable though
[https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=6021978](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=6021978)

------
natch
It’s an overly centralized solution in that it takes control away from the
individual citizens and property owners, who have to foot the bill for costs,
taxes, bonds, overruns, and profits for corporations not to mention possible
payoffs to politicians. Including costs that are cleverly kept off the
official pronouncements with accounting tricks.

Technically it may have come a little by way but small individual solutions
like solar panels with battery systems have huge advantages when it comes to
freedom and self determination.

------
IAmNotAFix
Nuclear is probably the best solution, but it only works if you somehow manage
to calibrate its impact on people's psychology (or just hope for no disaster
to happen in the next 100 years, which is hard to to be sure about). The
standard procedure in case of disaster involves a massive evacuation, cleanup,
and confinement, which are costly[1], deathly[2], and traumatizing for the
population[3]. All of that is probably still worth it in comparison to the
consequences of global warming in regards to many factual metrics (number of
deaths, purchasing power, etc), but I'm not actually sure it's worth it in
regards to the only metric that actually matters: how much of a disastrous
state people perceive their environment to be in.

In the case of Fukushima, Japan, which was beforehand in the process of
switching more and more of its energy to nuclear, changed their stance
overnight to switch back to all-fossile, because of pressure from the public
opinion. If a nuclear disaster would come to happen in a country like France,
the situation would probably be an absolute disaster, with people on a major
psychosis and a state unable to realistically switch to another form of
energy.

[1] The cost of a nuclear disaster in France (similar to the one in Fukushia)
has been estimated at 430 billions euros, which is 20% of the country's
economic output. ([https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclear-
disaster-c...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclear-disaster-
cost-idUSBRE91603X20130207))

[2] Fukushima's evacuation caused 1,600 deaths, that is more than the deaths
caused by the tsunami itself.

[3] Following the Chernobyl disaster, there was a large increase of PTSD
instaces, psychosomatic diseases, alcoholism, suicide, etc.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fuk...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Psychological_effects_of_perceived_radiation_exposure))

TL;DR: you need to somehow make people chill about nuclear if you want to
argue that nuclear is a satisfying source of energy. It might still be the
best option nonetheless.

~~~
mar77i
I'm with you. But, we should see to evolve nuclear reactors to a point that
they can be abandoned at any point of time without any catastrophy at all. If
we have to sacrifice efficiency to do so, let's solve the issues we agree on
and then push on the efficiency front towards or even beyond the previous
outputs.

------
DonHopkins
I posted this about David MacKay's book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot
air", which advocates nuclear energy, to a discussion about solar panels, and
llukas pointed out that solar power development has exceeded MacKay's
expectations, and linked to a page with updates, and dane-pgp also posted some
interesting criticisms and links.

If Solar Panels Are So Clean, Why Do They Produce So Much Toxic Waste?
(forbes.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18751049](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18751049)

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if-
solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-
waste/#2a1c244a121c)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18751049](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18751049)

DonHopkins on Dec 24, 2018 [-]

The late David MacKay's book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" is
available free online:

[http://www.withouthotair.com/](http://www.withouthotair.com/)

Here's the chapter about solar energy:

[http://www.withouthotair.com/c6/page_38.shtml](http://www.withouthotair.com/c6/page_38.shtml)

Here's a 1000 word synopsis he wrote for his talk to the House of Lords:

[http://www.inference.org.uk/sustainable/book/SUMMARY](http://www.inference.org.uk/sustainable/book/SUMMARY)

David MacKay also invented the Dasher text input system:

[http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/](http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/)

llukas on Dec 24, 2018 [-]

Very good book but tech went lot further than David expected in many places
(ie. solar power efficiency vs price).

This page tried to keep it updated:

[https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2017/3/30/l6qcqgoedse1...](https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2017/3/30/l6qcqgoedse1wmjjz87t09usoq6jva)

dane-pgp on Dec 24, 2018 [-]

David MacKay has done some great work, but I feel I need to present some of
the criticism he has received, for balance. In particular, there is a
perception that he is biased towards nuclear energy (understating its
drawbacks, while also being unnecessarily dismissive of renewables).

People can consider these articles for themselves:

[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/professor-david-mackay-
br...](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/professor-david-mackay-britain-must-
go-nuclear-to-control-climate-bgtjk0j6wh9)

"Professor David MacKay: Britain ‘must go nuclear’ to control climate"

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/03/idea-
of-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/03/idea-of-
renewables-powering-uk-is-an-appalling-delusion-david-mackay)

"Idea of renewables powering UK is an 'appalling delusion' – David MacKay"

The latter, from 2016, includes the line:

"There is this appalling delusion that people have that we can take this thing
that is currently producing 1% of our electricity and we can just scale it
up..."

For reference, according to:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/wind-solar-
overtak...](https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/wind-solar-overtake-
nuclear-electricity-source-uk-first-time-renewable-energy-a8281656.html)

"Renewables’ share of electricity generation shot up to 29 per cent, while
nuclear sources accounted for around 21 per cent."

benj111 on Dec 24, 2018 [-]

I think when he was writing, solar wasn't competitive, and neither really was
wind. With that in mind nuclear had a place in zero carbon fuel mix, we should
perhaps be thankful that other renewables have made such amazing strides.

He isn't around anymore to update his book, but I'm not sure it matters. For
me anyway, it was the approach not the specifics that mattered.

Id rather be reading MacKay's 10 year old book for advice rather than those
people who think banning straws is going to save the world.

~~~
pfdietz
That was the book that assumed solar included very large usage of land for
biomass, right? Biomass is extraordinarily inefficient at converting sunlight
to usable energy, so it's no surprise he concluded the UK could not be solar
powered.

