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Comment by schainks | Hacker News Reader

_All_ powerplants have those problems, not _just_ nuclear. I agree it's a bit sensationalist of them to not consider the whole picture and declare nuclear "carbon free".

What are the total carbon emissions over the life time of usage including construction, operation, maintenance, and destruction of a nuclear plant vs a fossil plant?

I wouldn't be surprised if a nuclear plant emits far less carbon overall than a fossil-powered plant while operational for the same power generation and lifetime of use when considering those factors.

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"X is the only foo that doesn't suffer from Y!"

"But it does!"

"Well so does every other foo!"

You see that this is not a good argument, don't you?

This is why we look at the actual amount of carbon released, not just a binary yes/no. I mean even if you had a magic power source that did not emit one single molecule of C02, a FUD spreader like you could use that exact same argument the first time a worker sparks a cigarette.

So tell me, how much C02 does mining uranium emit as compared to a coal station on a kg/Watt basis? six orders of magnitude less? seven?

> a FUD spreader like you

Eh, what? That's not a very nice thing to say.

> So tell me

No, I don't need to. I refuted a claim. You can move the goal posts, but I won't participate in that game.

Obviously a coal plant emits more CO2 than a nuclear fission plant. But the criticized sentence contained the words "carbon free". Which is just not true. I don't see how pointing that out is FUD.

I think if the original poster had mentioned in a balanced way and as kind of a footnote that, sure nuclear isn’t 100% carbon free but has some emissions, then people wouldn’t have reacted so harshly.

As it stands, the poster said that this (a bit exaggerated) claim somehow negates anything else there and that’s just wrong.

For practical purposes, nuclear power is as green as it gets so attacking it in this way is rather cheeky.

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