Comment by fabianhjr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fabianhjr | Hacker News Reader

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> The US isn't the sole contributor to climate change and I'm tired of pretending like it is.

The hypothetical being discussed is "what if the US had went the same route as France and built an electricity grid with the majority of power being generated from nuclear rather than fossil" and for that we would consider the impact to the total (or cumulative) emissions during those decades.

As such, here is an "Our World in Data" article on the cumulative CO₂ emissions: https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2

In particular, the nominal cumulative emissions of the US were approximately the double of China. (A higher factor if considered per capita)

If the US had built nuclear technology many other countries (particularly NATO) would have also seen a higher nuclear adoption.

This would have accelerated some trends such as electric ovens and stovetops, electric trains (maybe even nuclear-electric rather than disel-electric), and local micro-nuclear generators on industry such as in metalwork.

Let's say the US went to 0 emissions. That's 15% of the global emissions whipped out (note, France is doing awesome, and setting a great example, but not anywhere near 0 emissions). If the US was 0 emissions since 2000, we'd still be in a climate crisis. That is essentially what I'm saying. It would be decreased from where we are, yes. But it wouldn't be a "minor issue" as the OP stated.

If the US had built 500 nuclear reactors, I have no doubt we'd be exporting tech and basing trade agreements on getting other countries to buy our reactors. China might still use coal, but US manufacturing would be more attractive with practically free electricity. There are lots of reasons what OP posited would be true.

To where? The EU? Yeah. I kinda mentioned that. But South Africa? Brazil? Pakistan? I doubt that very much.

So you're saying this wouldn't have helped because only the industrialized countries would be using nuclear and that would still leave the industrializing countries using carbon? And this is a point worth quibbling over, since they produce hardly any of the carbon? If so, you're wrong, climate change would indeed be a minor issue if this had happened.

Honestly I feel like you're trying to pigeonhole me and ignoring major parts of my comments.

South Africa, Brazil, and Pakistan all already have nuclear power. South Africa and Pakistan even developed nuclear weapons, though SA gave theirs up just before they ended apartheid. IMO the proliferation concerns are a little irrational and overblown, so if we're positing a counterfactual where US policy wasn't governed by an irrational fear of nuclear technology, I think it's fair to assume this would change as well.

I'm very aware of the proliferation issue. To be clear, I have worked in the nuclear space.

But that still doesn't mean that fears of proliferation would have disappeared if we had a larger reliance on nuclear power.

Those countries weren't said as examples of countries without nuclear power. They are examples of countries that have it but still likely wouldn't have had any exports from the US. I thought the Pakistan example made this abundantly clear. Maybe I confused people by including Brazil, but there was pressure on them during the cold war.

> But that still doesn't mean that fears of proliferation would have disappeared if we had a larger reliance on nuclear power.

Not necessarily, but you're positing a world in which the widescale adoption of nuclear power has no effects at all, and I think that's an unreasonable assumption. Right now we don't see it as a big deal to restrict nuclear exports because we see nuclear as some dangerous fringe technology rather than as the default energy source for a 21st century civilization.

> you're positing a world in which the widescale adoption of nuclear power has no effects at all

No I'm not. I'm saying that if the US went highly nuclear that it does not directly follow that the rest of the world would also. I'm saying it is a bad assumption to make.

> Right now we don't see it as a big deal to restrict nuclear exports

It still is a big deal, but it was even a bigger deal 20-30 years ago (the timeframe we are talking about). As a good example, less than 10 years ago I was working on a project that involved nuclear technologies and a university partner. I was not allowed to talk specifics to any of the international students that were _directly_ working on the project (you bet they were smart enough to figure out what they were making). While nothing was classified, it still fell under ITAR and the FBI was talking to me several times a year. Nuclear technology exports are still a very big deal.

> I'm saying that if the US went highly nuclear that it does not directly follow that the rest of the world would also.

I agree that it does not directly or necessarily follow. But I think it would be more likely.

> Nuclear technology exports are still a very big deal.

Sorry, I think my comment came across the exact opposite of what I meant.

When I said "we don't see it as a big deal to restrict nuclear exports", what I meant was, when we restrict the export of nuclear technology, we don't see it as an unfair imposition on other countries to deprive them of nuclear energy the same way we might see depriving them of food or natural gas. In other words, exporting nuclear technology is a big deal; depriving the rest of the world of nuclear energy is not a big deal. Sorry for the confusing phrasing.

Right now, American voters and policymakers don't think of nuclear energy as the primary power source for a modern civilization. When we have those annoying ITAR regulations that you had to follow, everybody thinks that's perfectly reasonable because nuclear technology is spooky and scary mad science that nobody actually needs anyway. That's not the same attitude we would have if we switched to wholesale nuclear energy in the 1970's.

Am I saying export laws would necessarily be less stringent in this scenario? No, but there are probabilities between 0 and 1, and you seem to be implying that since the probability is <1, it must be 0.

The odd thing was that the proliferation fear hit suddenly when Pakistan hit the bomb.

Iran under the shah, for instance, got a small-scale kit for reprocessing plutonium. High enriched uranium wound up in research reactors all over the place. It's nice stuff, makes it very easy to get a critical mass in a small space.

The EU and India/Asia would go a long ways toward solving the carbon pollution problem. Where we don't sell the reactors, then we'd sell the power using underwater HVDC cables (i.e. to Central and South America).

US also influences policy adopted by other countries, so if the US adopted the French nuclear model, we would influence other countries.

I think we're hurt by our domestic oil and gas reserves here. We have powerful interests who want the US to use its domestic oil and gas reserves, so a large-scale shift TO nuclear and AWAY FROM gas seems quite difficult to execute.

This is quite limited though and is why I talked about also including Europe. The limitation is that the US isn't going to let developing nations have nuclear power or they'll limit it, a la Iran Deal. The technology isn't really being exported, so that influence wouldn't be exactly global. Just to rich trading partners (i.e. the west, Japan, and Korea).

> The technology isn't really being exported, so that influence wouldn't be exactly global.

China has started exporting their Hualong One reactor with at least two Pakistani Nuclear Power Stations building a total of 5 Hualong One reactors: Karachi and Chashma.

Argentina is expected to start building a Hualong One reactor by next year and it is under consideration in the United Kingdom.

> Most reactors on order or planned are in the Asian region, though there are major plans for new units in Russia.

https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-an...

> China is planning at least 150 new nuclear reactors in the next 15 years, more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-02/china-cli...

If it goes anything like their buildout of high speed railway China would probably end up doubling the reactor capacity built by 2035 over this plan.

The article mentions Turkey as well, using Russian tech. When a NATO country chooses nuclear tech from the country that brought us Chernobyl, the US is definitely asleep at the wheel.

Why not? Most developing countries don't want nuclear weapons. They're a liability. If I were a country like Jordan (random example), I would be perfectly happy signing a (presumably good) deal for nuclear power, even if it came with anti-proliferation controls.

Exporting technology for reactors is tricky business. While yes, you can build reactors without proliferation concerns (see Iran Deal), there's the issue that if you're learning to build reactors you're going to export the knowledge necessary to build weapons. That's the tricky part. And if you have any nuclear technology, we're going to have to spend more money to spy on you to ensure that's all you are doing.

Nuclear weapons aren't always a liability either. It is one of NK's greatest defenses. Specifically that if attacked they know they will lose and have no real reason to not use the hail mary. This helps their chances even if China decides to no longer protect them. Obviously this is country dependent though and depends on a lot of factors. But just trying to say that it isn't always a liability.

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