Comment by Sporktacular | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Sporktacular | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

You earlier in the thread: "Nuclear power is sustainable."

You a few posts later: "[Battery and storage] also aren’t infinitely sustainable either" (also meaning in addition to nuclear).

Me: "Oh, so you concede that nuclear power actually isn't sustainable then? Okay."

Just read back. Is it sustainable or also not sustainable? You contradicted yourself and I think my comment went over your head.

The carbon cost of the construction and decommissioning a nuclear plant as well as producing and disposing of nuclear fuel is significant, and unlikely to become less so. Wind turbines and solar panels have a carbon footprint almost purely at the construction phase. It's significant too but manufacturing techniques are improving yearly while nuclear has been stagnant.

But according to to your source the difference between renewable and nuclear is marginal anyway and it only considers CO2 and air pollution as it affects human lives. It ignores water pollution from uranium mine tailings, radon or leaks of spent fuel are considered and so is a poor source for considering environmental damage in general.

Finally, your link doesn't mention batteries or storage, so is not an especially relevant source to the discussion either.

No because no one defines sustainability on the infinite terms you do. If people did then your batteries, wind, and solar would not qualify either.

You then proceed to ignore the facts on CO2 emissions because you don’t like them. Adding batteries and storage isn’t going to lower your embedded emissions or minerals use is it. And you go on to invent more claims about uranium mining while ignoring the mining for materials that go into renewables and batteries, which is much larger. Your reasoning here is motivated by the outcome you want to believe and you aren’t willing to do research or accept anything else.

You said infinitely! I never used sustainability that way. Nuclear is not sustainable because there isn't enough uranium available to extract, certainly not in an environmentally friendly way, in order to meet an expanded demand for more than a few decades https://youtu.be/0kahih8RT1k?t=365

There is, however, more than enough minerals available to make machines that, once built, will continue to produce and store emission free power for their lifetimes. They are being increasingly made out of recyclable materials and there is other research into lowering their footprint further. In other words, actually sustainable - as in for thousands of years. Renewables aren't there yet, but they will be sooner if a fraction of the cost of new nuclear plants is diverted to the very promising R&D that already exists.

Nuclear doesn't have nearly the same interest or rate of advancement into mitigating the serious environmental problems associated with producing and disposing of fuel, something your sources don't consider at all.

You write like you've just discovered the life cycle 'true cost' of renewables while holding the unrevealed wisdom that nuclear isn't that dangerous. These things are obvious to anyone who follows this, people who would never make the mistake of calling nuclear sustainable.

And I used to be a proponent of nuclear until around 6 months ago when I learned that there aren't enough resources available, and that nuclear won't be able to ramp up in time to lower the atmospheric carbon level increased by fossil fuelled power plants. It's the opposite of dogmatism to be able to follow where the data takes you.

No you’re not being consistent. Your argument is no reprocessing, breeder, or seawater farming technology is allowable in calculations about the sustainability of fission. But all kids of similar recycling, or new chemistries, or not yet proven technologies are allowable for calculating the sustainability of wind/solar/batteries.

Technology for reprocessing has existed since the 40s, carries nuclear proliferation concerns but it still hasn't gone commercial 20 years after bans were lifted. And it's stupidly expensive.

Breeders have been around since the 50s. Again expensive and concerns around sodium coolant were never mitigated. After 70 years 3 are in operation, not due to environmentalists but because they didn't live up to their promise.

Seawater extraction has been around since the 60s and has still hasn't significantly expanded uranium supply (and seriously, filtering the sea? I thought we were talking about minimising environmental damage).

I'm saying nuclear has had its chance. It's too expensive, too expensive to allow fast development reitteration, too slow to address climate change, carries too many risks and hidden costs and just isn't competitive with the promise of renewables which, while needing improvement, are developing much quicker.

Again, I used to be in the pro-nuclear camp but its history has shown its problems are just too complex to solve. It doesn't have a bright future.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com