Comment by Tichy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Tichy | Hacker News Reader

Not even one mention of solar power? Maybe the technology is not at its peak yet, but combines with saving a lot of energy, is it not an option? Let's not forget that a lot of money went into perfecting nuclear power, probably a lot more than into solar power.

Comparing with coal deaths seems a bit like a strawman. Also I don't trust the way the victims of Chernobyl are calculated. Adding up victims from survivor stories ("all my colleagues are dead by now") seems to easily give more than 26 deaths.

Yes, I love electricity, too - especially for computing. But I also think the world could be improved a lot by saving energy at the right places. I'd be much happier if there were less cars, for example. I think I could power my computer with a solar panel, even when not living in the desert.

Heating seems to be another big one. Where I live renting is the norm, so home owners don't have much of an incentive to insulate houses properly (renters pay the energy bill).

At the very least, please give me an Android phone with a Geiger Counter so that I can check the milk when I go shopping...

Strangely enough it takes very little money, nor energy to produce nuclear power. It's very simple at its core. Have a look at the first research reactors and you'll find that you need basically no technology to produce reactors that produce useful amounts of energy.

On the other hand solar power, especially photovoltaics is stupidly complex. Photovoltaics requires semiconductor processes, arguably one of the most complex things ever reliably harnessed by man to create.

Saying that you want to power your computer from a solar cell seems green, until you think of all the energy that went into building that solar cell. All the waste materials, the toxic waste produced in fabrication, the pollution, etc. Then it seems decidedly less green then, say, plugging it in to the wall socket.

And yet nature all around us seems to thrive on solar power alone, with zero toxic waste byproduct.

I don't think pollution in production is a must, either. You don't have to dump your garbage in the river.

Nature around us doesn't use eletricity either.

Of course it does. In any case, it uses power, the distinction is quite meaningless. Converting power can be done with a constant factor.

First off no, nature doesn't thrive off solar power alone. At the very least hydrothermal vents provide energy to most aquatic life past the thermocline.

I'd also like to point out that the sun produces more radioactivity then anything likely to be found on earth, and fusion as a whole accounts for all the heavy metals ever created in the universe. (just some food for thought).

I know about the hydrothermal vents, but I don't think nature needs them.

The sun example was discussed to death in another thread. Sorry, I think it is just a silly comparison.

Yet it takes Uranium and there's less and less easily available Uranium. It's a dead-end.

Everything is ultimately a dead end. You can thank entropy for that. The sun will die, too, as will any star we go to.

Fusion would probably be the best, because a large fraction of the universe's mass is hydrogen. Antimatter would also be cool, but it's also incredibly dangerous and we're far from being able to create significant amounts of it.

In the long run, we probably can't afford to drop any power sources. But in the long run, we're all dead.

There are large quantities of fissable materials which are not uranium. For example take thorium, which is roughly as common as lead.

"Strangely enough it takes very little money, nor energy to produce nuclear power."

And since the new doctrine is that radiation is not dangerous at all, you will make us a good price for storing the nuclear waste in your backyard? I hear it helps grow bigger vegetables, too - win win.

That's a non sequitur.

Look up the first nuclear pile experiments and you'll find out just how primitive you can be and still produce a functioning nuclear reactor.

Sorry I don't speak latin? In any case, of course storage of waste has to factored into the cost? I don't see how it is relevant how easy it is to build a reactor. Guess what, it is even easier to start a fire, which produces a lot of energy, too.

Do you claim to not know spanish when people say they are going out for burritos?

I don't know, but I know that I'd like a burger right now.

I would advise Googling such things, but just so you know, "non sequitur" means "it doesn't follow" in Latin.

He's saying that what you said doesn't make much sense as a reply to that other post. Indeed, I'm not quite sure what your point was, there. If it was a joke, I missed it completely.

OT mentioned all the side costs of photovoltaic power, waste materials, pollution and so on, while stressing the simplicity of creating nuclear power.

So my remark simply was meant to draw attention to the waste products of nuclear power. Is it not logical to throw it into equation for nuclear power, too, if you throw it into the equation for photovoltaic power?

Thanks for clarifying. Your original comment was pretty confusing, though, as a reply.

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