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Comment by kevingadd | Hacker News Reader

While I'm personally pro-nuclear, I think grouping them up with anti-vaxxers is kind of absurd. There are proven historical risks to commercialized nuclear power that aren't just fantasies made up by Wakefield.

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I don't think it's an absurd comparison. Nuclear is so safe and always get replaced with fossil fuels when a plant is decommissioned. The anti-nuclear sentiment is therefore detached from the reality of how safe it is relative to how damaging the inevitable alternative is, in the same way that anti-vaxxers are detached from the reality of the vaccine/virus trade-off.

It is the same mindset: certain historical mishaps (which existed for vaccines too) when the technology was in its infancy justifying a complete rejection of its benefits even though said benefits would overwhelmingly win in any cost-benefit analysis.

But this mindset is fueled by an underlying deeper fear of progress, a fear which only searches for excuses but it exists even without them, like in the case of anti-GMO fears, another dear cause of the "green" activists.

Nuclear has killed people and caused havoc in (to be fair, a small number) of people's neighborhoods, it's not unreasonable for those people to be traumatized by it and campaign against it, even if at scale they are wrong. Vaccines simply haven't done anything like that, it's a fantasy. I think it does a real disservice to those people with genuine concerns to cluster them in with conspiracy theorists and it's bad for society to do that.

Availability bias. If you actually look at the data on nuclear safety relative to other power sources, you'll see that what you're doing is the same thing as quibbling over the safety differences of AstraZeneca versus Moderna. I am not making a false analogy here. The anti-nuclear perspective really is detached from the reality of how safe it is.

> There are proven historical risks to commercialized nuclear power that aren't just fantasies made up by Wakefield.

There are proven risks to vaccines too. How many people die each year because anti-nuclear people slowed or stopped the adoption of nuclear power? Air pollution kills, a lot. These people have blood on their hands.

Ah come on, the reason there is not more nuclear in most countries has nothing to do with the anti-nuclear lobby, but is simple economics. It's hilarious that somehow anti-nuclear groups are supposed to have so much more lobbying power than some of the largest corporations in the world, that's almost on the same level as anti-climate change conspiracy theory groups who say that this is all made up because some scientists want to get grant money.

I see your comment and raise you with Germany.

> It's hilarious that somehow anti-nuclear groups are supposed to have so much more lobbying power than some of the largest corporations in the world

It turns out that anti nuke means pro gas ... now let me get the abacus out and see which lobbying group is bigger - pro nuke vs gas+oil+coal+greens+nimbys.

Answers on the back of a postcard please.

So what Germany, even in Germany the nuclear reactors were extended way beyond their original expected lifetimes.

You might want to explain why France is not building nuclear reactors left right and center. There's hardly any country that is more pro-nuclear, and their nuclear energy production is highly subsidized and they are replacing nuclear with renewable (look at the chart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France)

Also the assertion behind the OP was that nuclear is replaced with coal/fossil, that is not the case in Germany see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany#...

It's renewables which have taken over from both fossil and nuclear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:...

And left beautiful clean coal the far and away leading source of energy in germany with a nice uptrend in gas, presumably replacing the removed nuclear and diminishing coal capacity.

Why are france not building any more? Why would they need to? 70% comes from nuclear they dont need to get that to 100%, especially as you point out, renewables are really coming of age. They did the hard work, didnt just lean into setting stuff on fire for their energy needs and are rightly yielding the rewards from this.

That's not even the full picture, as Germany burns lots of lignite, which is even worse.

Perhaps. Or, further proliferation of nuclear energy would have lead to more Chernobyl style accidents. Not to mention the weapons aspect. Nuclear is also expensive, it could never have significantly outcompeted coal in India and China anyway even if it had faced less resistance.

Nuclear is in large part so expensive due to overregulation lobbied by anti-nuclear groups and NIMBY sentiment generated by anti-nuclear fear mongering.

All tech is expensive and dangerous initially, becoming cheap and safe with increased availability and competition in the market place. See aeronautics. In the case of nuclear this process was abruptly halted by green activism.

Chernobyl killed less people than air pollution due to coal does in Europe in a year. The difference is that Chernobyl is a big, visible event, while coal plants in Germany and Poland are a slow poison, and people don't notice slow poisons.

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