The Sad Truth About Traditional Environmentalism | Hacker News Reader

The Sad Truth About Traditional Environmentalism

quillette.com

35 pointsRickJWagner17 comments

Some counterpoint to the claim in the article that green movement refuses nuclear energy:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/a...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/15/nuclea...

In any case, I think nuclear is pretty much dead. It's just cheaper to spam windmills and solar panels. I think it will stay there for a while (in some countries, that have the history and the expertise), but it will not gain significantly in the future.

It’s hard to argue this while several reactors are under construction around the world... just mostly not in the USA and mostly not in Western Europe.

But compared to how much wind and solar are build - "pretty much dead" does describe it fairly well I'd argue.

Windmills and solar panels are not just cheaper, they're also easier to build while nuclear power plant construction (at least in Europe) seemed to take forever and got more and more expensive in the process.

My sense is that nuclear power plants basically can't go forward without lots of government support. No private utility company really wants to shoulder the financial risk for themselves. Between the stratospheric cost to build one, the ~decade it takes to get one online, and the possibility that cheap renewables push prices way down in the coming years, it's just too risky.

That probably has at least something to do with why we aren't seeing much new construction in countries with freer economies. I would guess that another significant factor is, for regions like North America and western Europe that already have a substantial investment in nuclear, it perhaps makes more sense to do what they're already doing: upgrading their existing plants rather than building new ones.

There is also geopolitical aspect to it, where do you get the nuclear fuel from? In Czech Republic, we have two nuclear power plants, and AFAIK we are buying from Russia, but we are not overly happy about the dependency (although our dependency on russian natural gas is greater).

Although wind & solar is not that popular here either. I don't know what we will do.

>I don't know what we will do.

i know some czechs making a daily commute over the border in order to work installing solar panels (in germany).

so there's that

Except when Söder closes the border (again) g Oh wait, he doesn't do the immigrant thing any more, and for a while he and his politics were actually making sense. Seems like that's over now, but had some (two? three?) good years.

In the end it doesn't matter where the panels are installed, as electricity is distributed throughout Europe, I guess?

Unfortunately, the problem isn’t environmentalism. We don’t have a renewed push for nuclear power for the same reason we don’t have a carbon tax, which would also likely be effective in curbing emissions & that many environmentalists do favor: They’re both ridiculously unpopular with the US electorate. Maybe the environmental movement shoulders some of the blame in each case, but I doubt if both were wholeheartedly embraced by greenies much would change.

1. IMO and, I think, as this author would say, the electorate is voting based on bad information.

2. If the cost of a nuclear plant were lower, I think we’d see more projects despite the electorate‘s thoughts.

(Just my opinions)

> 1. IMO and, I think, as this author would say, the electorate is voting based on bad information.

While I wish that were true (because then there would be a solution), I fear that people actually DO know but ... don't care ...

> 2. If the cost of a nuclear plant were lower, I think we’d see more projects despite the electorate‘s thoughts.

Solar and wind are incredibly cheap (way cheaper than coal), easy (and quick, as you can parallelize) to build ... but somehow that's not happening?

I don’t think it’s bad information so much as Americans and their political institutions have a risk calculus that is, to put it mildly, biased against nuclear & its history of dramatic catastrophes vs., say, the slow poisoning from a coal plant.

I think that Americans also know that "nuclear vs coal" is a false dichotomy. A major issue in the 2016 elections was the ongoing collapse of the coal industry. The USA produces less energy from coal now than it did in the 1940s.

> What if you’d dedicated most of your life to trying to save the planet, but then you realised that you may have actually—potentially—made things worse?

If you are radical about a subject, you'd better be right. That is one reason why most people try not to be too radical about subjects which they do not or cannot fully comprehend.

Moreover, I cannot help but sigh, when I see this person go from one extreme to another: wearing a pro-nuclear T-shirt on the first picture, calling out "the ideology that worships renewables" which have "become the latest green god: sun-like, literally", talking about a "boomer environmentalist in the UK", etc.

Do we really have to be radical all the time, going North full speed, doing a U-turn and going South full speed? Come on, be humble, you now think you were not right in the past, maybe you are not right today. It is pretty annoying to get told what to do (or not to do) by inconsistent people who are always 100% convinced that they are right when they talk.

Great article.

The story of Indian point is unfortunate. The reactor was old —- in a perfect world we wouldn’t have to choose between old reactors vs no reactors. But funding new reactors in the US is tough (which is arguably due to US regulations as discussed on HN recently).

Kinda surprised to see Quillette linked here. What's next, OAN?

I’m confused why I keep seeing Quillette on HN. This website exists only to continue fueling the worst byproduct the internet: outrage.

I don’t consider the Quillette to be a good source of anything and it’s well known to be good at peddling right wing interests. It’s a student newspaper for weird right oddballs. Signed, an ex solar researcher/semiconductor researcher.

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