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Comment by amarant | Hacker News Reader

I think nuclear definitely has a role to play, at least in the short term. I'm not sure about expanding its usage, but definitely maintain what we have until it can be replaced with renewables, and definitely replace nuclear only after coal/gas/other fossil fuels are no longer being used anywhere.

Don't be fooled by disastrous events, nuclear is statistically the safest energy source we have[1], so don't fear it senselessly. This is a whole topic on it's own and I won't delve deeper into it here.

[1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...

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I agree with you on most of your comment, apart from:

> maintain what we have until it can be replaced with renewables

We cannot be sure renewables will ever be able to replace nuclear/fossil/hydroelectric, thus we should be a bit more conservatives in our plans for the future.

Why don't you think we can use renewables to reach 100%? People have done calculations on it using existing tech?

For my country, those calculations were done by a government body in 2014, and they estimated that the total cost would be somewhat higher, but not astronomical. But since then, the prices have fallen much faster than they anticipated.

Unless there’s a massive breakthrough in battery tech, the manufacturing of sufficient batteries would be a guaranteed environmental disaster.

Lithium mining has an impact similar to oil extraction. (On average -- oil sands and fracking are worse, conventional oil production is better).

But since batteries can be used a few thousand times and then can be recycled efficiently, the volume required is a tiny fraction of the petroleum requirements.

Other materials are used in even smaller quantities. Cobalt is a disaster, but grid batteries don't use cobalt, they generally use nickel & iron.

It is a large environmental impact. But compared to the alternative, it's very green.

I was speaking in absolute terms.

When speaking in relative terms to a newly built fossil fuel plant you are most likely correct. You'd be hard pressed to find a plausible source of energy that's worse for the environment (immediate AND long term) than burning dirty sequestered carbon sources like coal and oil.

When speaking in relative terms to a newly built nuclear plant—the context of my response—batteries would be significantly worse per KWh of baseload energy supplied.

Because it need to be 350%, not 100%.

> Why don't you think ...

It's not what I think: it's what we can be sure of!

If we ever get to the point where we can keep the same living standards as of today, with no fossil and no nuclear, well: let it be!

Should we push for it? Yes, we should!

Should we pay more taxes in order to push for it? Yes, we should!

Should we bet on it and risk our living standards? No, thank you!

> Don't be fooled by disastrous events, nuclear is statistically the safest energy source we have[1], so don't fear it senselessly.

The fear of operation should not be put forward as the one problematic thing of nuclear energy.

Another big problem is how we deal with the toxic waste for the next millennia? Especially looking at the volatility of sensible politics in the US, how can you be sure that the next Trump will not just suppress information about leaking nuclear waste and straight up not deal with it because it is “fake news”?

The problem with nuclear power plants is that: You have to deal with very dangerous material and guarantee that this waste, which could very well outlive humanity, will not hurt your population. How can you guarantee that? Don’t use the straw-man argument of “Oh ya’ll are just against nuclear because of safety in operation”.

> The problem with nuclear power plants is that: You have to deal with very dangerous material and guarantee that this waste, which could very well outlive humanity, will not hurt your population?

It is worth noting when considering this question that fossil fuels also leave dangerous and radioactive waste, but instead of being confined to a dense waste we understand how to contain, it is emitted as particulates into the air that we breath.

It's well known that coal exhaust isn't fairy dust, but it doesn't pose a storage problem [edit: on the scale of millenia], so your argument amounts to whataboutism.

It isn't whataboutism if people write off an energy source because it creates visible and containable waste and as a result a much more dangerous energy source wins out that emits much more of an invisible and uncontainable waste.

Coal exhaust may not, but coal itself does, just google/ddg " coal slurry disasters" to see the impact when it goes wrong.

In the context of trump being stupid, I can't guarantee anything. Assuming sane leadership there are established methods that appear to work well.

In response to trump being stupid my only response is that waste management isn't the nuclear problem in worried about when it comes to trump...

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