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Comment by _Microft | Hacker News Reader

Are the economics of nuclear power somehow more favorable in Sweden? That seems to be the major issue elsewhere from what I understand.

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They aren't better in Sweden. The right's support for it is not really related to the costs. I'm personally curious how it's going to pan out considering the right-wing parties claimed they'd be against state subsidies.

Look at it this way: The army is publicly supported. Do you think they are against the army?

Problem is not public support, it's public support of the things they don't like.

The single most reliable feature of all right-wing parties is that they are against state subsidies unless the subsidies are directed into their own pockets.

They are singularly skilled at directing subsidies reliably into their own pockets. Nukes and military procurement have worked well for that in past decades.

"unless the subsidies are directed into their own pockets"

This is ridiculously biased and not a constructive way to deal with political disagreements.

All political factions engage in rampant cronyism. To think it's confined to one faction is unbelievably naive.

Where do you think left wing parties receive the bulk of their campaign contributions from? It's members of public sector unions, who receive trillions of dollars in tax dollars every year in Europe.

No, not really. It makes a lot of sense in all stable countries.

There is no such thing as a stable country on the time scale required for nuclear energy safety. That requires decades. Humanity cannot provide that.

Enerhodar is not the only example. World war two ended roughly 77 year ago. The US civil war was less than 160 years ago.

Enerhodar is the town in which the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is located (only because the name of the town might not be as well known as the name of the power station).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enerhodar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporizhzhia_Nuclear_Power_Pla...

Maybe the problem is requiring insanely high levels of safety from the nuclear industry, way higher than realistic in the current world that can and does kill people in myriad non-nuclear ways.

For example, I am willing to bet that nuclear-related deaths in the Ukrainian war will be a minuscule percentage of the total loss of life caused by said war.

the mayor issue is the coal/gas lobby, just look how europe was lobbed to the point that natural gas is somewhat "green", but nuclear is bad to the point some countries don't even have one nuclear power plant.

Well solar is pretty much useless at these high latitudes. I believe the sun doesn't rise above 7 degrees in the winter in Stockholm. Though Sweden is blessed with mountains, so they can get significant energy from hydro. Here in Finland, Nuclear is the only real answer going forward.

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