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425 points nixass | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.616s | source
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standardUser ◴[] No.26675532[source]
I'm a convert. I was anti-nuclear power, now I am pro with a boatload of caveats.

As a person who changed their mind, let me offer this advice to the people commenting here. Don't pretend there aren't legitimate concerns with nuclear power. Accidents did in fact happen and, given enough time and more reactors, will absolutely happen again. That's not a reason not to build more nuclear power, but let's not play make-believe about it. Don't pretend that just because we are better at handling nuclear waste it is a solved problem. It isn't. A hundred-fold increase in nuclear power generation would be a roughly hundred-fold increase in nuclear waste that must be stored away from all life for several hundred years (until we develop technology to resolve the issue, likely long after we're all dead). And maybe most importantly, acknowledge that nuclear energy is far more expensive than other green energy options and, even if we could drive down the cost, it will not solve all our problems. It is, at best, a big part of the solution, not "the" solution.

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1. JamesBarney ◴[] No.26676196[source]
I don't think anyone is pretending accidents don't happen, only that over all there are far fewer deaths per gigawatt of nuclear than other options.

Handling nuclear waste is a hard problem but it's 100x easier than handling CO2 waste.

And is nuclear more expensive than other renewables? I think that really depends, I don't think you can compare 99.9% reliability power to 95% reliability power. They're two different goods sold at two different prices. You can use batteries or other storage to convert the 95% reliability into 99.9% but then that puts renewables at a cost far above nuclear.

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2. godelski ◴[] No.26676338[source]
I think the major issue is that those uninformed on the subjects treat the energy problem as if there is a singular solution: renewables, nuclear, fossil fuels. Which this is such a weird way to present the problem. But then again I see a lot of people complain about CCS because it "encourages the use of fossil fuels," implying that means emissions, which it doesn't. The conversation has become political and not technical and I think that's what is frustrating to me. (I bring up CCS because it is discussed in the article and also something controversial in the public eye but not in the scientific community)
3. throw0101a ◴[] No.26676502[source]
> I think that really depends, I don't think you can compare 99.9% reliability power to 95% reliability power.

I question whether you can call any renewable 95% reliable. The capacity factor of solar in the US has averaged 25% and wind at about 35%:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor#United_States

One can certainly argue a large enough grid can shuffle energy to and from across large areas to create 'aggregate reliability' of course.