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Comment by nicoburns | Hacker News Reader

> If they could just be self-sufficient with a load of nuclear power plants

Given that most countries don't have a source of uranium, I don't see how this is any better from a geopolitical security perspective.

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Uranium is a mineral and can be purchased from many places and stored then used as needed.

15 countries mining it currently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_p...

There are also more countries with estimated reserves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_r...

While an undersea cable requires continuous operation and the agreement from a single country where it starts. If they suddenly decide for whatever reason to turn it off (say they're short of electricity) then the supply is immediately stopped.

Equally relevant only 13 countries are fabricating nuclear fuel rods.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...

You could use a CANDU PHWR (Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor) if supply chain safety is that important to you, but don't want an enrichment industry. CANDU reactors can use natural Uranium.

Sweden do have uranium in the ground and could be mining it, but they created a law forbidding it.

At least uranium can be stockpiled.

You can stock it though, in case foreign countries cut supply short you're not suddendly out of power but instead have time to plan a negotiation or attempt to source it from elsewhere.

Not so great when the foreign powers decide to bomb the nuclear reactors though.

Or cut the cable.

Anyone capable of bombing a nuclear reactor in the UK would just nuke the UK so a reactor doesn't really play into it

I don't think that's a realistic problem.

If the issue is just geopolitical independence, it's easy to stockpile uranium reserves. I believe France has several years worth of uranium stockpiled, so even if relations soured with all of our providers, which are pretty diverse, we would have a few years to react.

From my understanding you don't need a lot of uranium to run reactors for quite a while. That's one of the reason it is such a promising lead.

An unfortunate part of human cognition is we're pretty bad at assessing small but widespread and constant risks/damages so the impact of pollution pales in comparison to the mental impact of singular events like the various nuclear disasters or near misses we've had between TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima, et al. So they receive outsized push back compared to their actual reduced risk. (Also to be fair when a nuclear disaster does happen it renders an area unusable for a lot longer so the events tend to stick in people's memories)

Building them is also unfortunately a many decades long endeavor so we need shorter timeline solutions to bend the curve of climate change. I think a lot of environmentalists have also been burned by long term projects that sit in planning and approval hell for years to decades then get cancelled or funding redirected when a new administration decides to try to make their mark on a project. A similar thing has hampered NASAs Moon and Mars programs where options are pursued and cancelled constantly. SLS is not the first plan for a Moon return NASA has worked on for years it's just the first one that managed to spread the pork around enough to avoid cancellation.

> Building them is also unfortunately a many decades long endeavor

That’s only true now. We used to build them in a few years.

That's partially a bureaucratic and political issue but also designs are also much more complex than the were during the glory years.

The UK presumably does, as it maintains nuclear weapons.

The UK does not mine its own uranium though. There used to be a uranium mine in Cornwall but it stopped mining in 1930.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_by_country)

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