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Comment by Reedx | Hacker News Reader

They'll probably do a collective face slap that we failed to invest in Nuclear technology (see the difference in Gen IV vs old tech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor). We had a solution for clean energy, but let fear override reason.

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I'm not doubting you, this is just an honest repetition of what I've heard before.

I thought that nuclear was also a GHG contributor because of the fossil fuels used in mining and refining it. Is this not the case? Like there is some cradle to grave GHG coefficient for different sources of power...

There's no law of nature that says mining equipment has to run on carbon. It could be done with electric equipment powered by nuclear.

Nuclear produces less presently and holds the key to producing none at all.

Nuclear power is very carbon-efficient (tonnes CO2 emmitted / GWh produced) due to the large quantity of energy produced over the generator lifecycle. It's on par with wind power, and better than solar, according to World Nuclear Org.

  | Lignite | 1054 |
  | Coal | 888 |
  | Oil | 733 |
  | Natural Gas | 499 |
  | SolarPV | 85 |
  | Biomass | 45 |
  | Nuclear | 29 |
  | Hydroelectric | 26 |
  | Wind | 26 |

[1] http://www.world-nuclear.org/our-association/publications/on...

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