Comment by DrBazza | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DrBazza | Hacker News Reader

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It seems like up-front monetary 'cost' is continually used to bash nuclear. And 100% from the perspective of human beings.

To put it into context, nuclear

* total human deaths due to nuclear since its inception is in the low thousands at worst, for the entire industry.

* total animal deaths due to nuclear since its inception is minimal, in fact, for example, wildlife around Chernobyl has flourished

* damage to the environment is minimal

* waste is tiny by volume, zero CO2, and can be buried deeply where no human will ever get to it.

Versus fossil fuels:

* has killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of humans

* has killed millions if not hundreds of millions of animals through climate change, oil spillage, fires and so on

* has destroyed thousands of square miles of land for open cast mining, oil slicks, and so on

* waste dumps thousands of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every day plus other byproducts

So, what's the actual monetary cost of the usage of fossil fuels? How much money needs to be spent to mitigate climate change? Or figuring out how to de-extinct species? Or restoring habitats after cleaning up oil slicks? Or attempting to the put the land 'right' after open cast mining?

How much money are we going to spend on figuring out 'energy storage' for green power, when nuclear power is already stored in the uranium, in a tiny volume?

In fact how much money could we have saved by going long on nuclear in the 60s and 70s, had it not been for ill-educated, and ill-informed campaigns by CND and Greenpeace, for example? And how much better would the environment be right now?

>It seems like up-front monetary 'cost' is continually used to bash nuclear.

We certainly still need to get a handle on the cost of deploying nuclear because it is not sustainable the way we do it today

In 2022 Georgia Power got 23% of its power from nuclear, 1.9 gigawatts of capacity.

Since construction started, Georgia Power customers have been paying the construction costs (about 6%) and now that construction is complete the rest of the costs are now being added to customer bills. These are surcharges in addition to the actual cost of fuel and operations at the plant, so they're going to be paying per kWh as well.

At the same time Southern Company (parent of Georgia Power) shareholders are now receiving profits from the operations of Vogtle 3 while capital costs are recovered--IE they are not paying for the asset that they will own

This 10% increase in customer bills will result in the nuclear percentage as pat of GPC's mix increasing just a few percent. It would still be lower than either Gas/Oil or Coal as of 2022's numbers (in 2023 I believe it will be higher than coal, but that is because GPC is replacing coal with gas at a rapid rate)

If you replaced all fossil fuels with nuclear at the same cost structure, power bills in Georgia would increase many fold

I'm completely on board with nuclear, but we have to absolutely and totally rethink the designs we build, how we manage the projects, who owns them (private vs. public) and more

I believe that we need a Nuclear Corps of Engineers, a publicly funded, possibly international organization like the World Bank, dedicated solely to constructing modern reactors globally. This would bring economies of scale into play, making nuclear energy more economically viable and efficient.

The feasibility of such an endeavor is clear when we compare it to military spending or the costs of road construction and maintenance. Essential infrastructure often requires substantial investment, but the long-term benefits justify the expense.

The idea of for-profit nuclear power has proven to be less effective. It leads to fragmented, inefficient projects and prioritizes short-term gains over long-term sustainability and safety. A centralized, public approach like the Nuclear Corps would streamline production, enforce uniform safety standards, and reduce overall costs.

This shift is not just an economic imperative but a step towards a sustainable, cooperative global energy future. It's time to rethink our approach to nuclear energy, prioritizing global benefit over private profit.

I've wanted to see whether thorium reactors actually work or not. I suspect the lack of interest from western governments is because it isn't very useful for making bombs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

No, it's because thorium doesn't solve any of the actual problems that are holding back nuclear.

It isn't about "nuclear vs. fossil fuels" but about "nuclear and/or renewables?".

The amount of damage/victims linked to nuclear is a matter of debate, and a final count will only be possible after its very last hot waste will be cold.

Case in point (Chernobyl):

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/forests-around...

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environmen...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the...

Energy storage: vehicles batteries are a game changer ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid ). Grid backup will also use existing hydro along with turbo-alternators burning green-hydrogen ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy#Energy_system... ).

Renewable energy isn’t free of fatalities either. Rooftop solar, wind, and hydro all have higher fatality rates per kWh than nuclear energy: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2021/07/2020-fatalities-for-us...

The sole point about hydro also is highly debatable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35521090

If you don’t count fatalities that were caused by the dysfunction of communism, that also eliminates all the fatalities from Chernobyl.

Such dysfunctions of the Mega-Central-Omniscient-Organization are common to all political regimes, as shown by the Fukushima nuclear disaster: Japan isn't exactly a communist nation, and the Oganawa nuclear plant, closer to the tsunami, did not trigger a disaster thanks to a sole guy acting against the whole local Mega-Central-Omniscient-Organization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#20...

No level of organization is sufficient: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#J...

Then you have to count the Banqiao disaster after all.

No, because:

- there was no one really in charge of such matters during most of the pertinent decades (first leg of Mao's regime): politics were the sole concern, leading to well-known disasters such as the Great Leap Forward ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward ) and disdain (or worse) towards whistle-blowers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam#Whistle-blower )

- the (Soviet) designers had no skin in the game

A nuclear reactor built and used in such a context may trigger some bad events in way less than 23 years, as a mere few seconds are sufficient for it to do so.

How many batteries do we need to store the equivalent energy in 1kg of uranium or thorium? And how much mining is required obtain those materials and how much energy is required to refine those chemicals or elements? And repeat for the millions of solar panels and wind turbines. And shipping them around the world in diesel powered boats?

> How many batteries do we need to store the equivalent energy in 1kg of uranium

Energy density isn't, alone, determinant here.

The most determinant question is: after taking into account all measures aiming at reducing renewables' production 'intermittency' ('variability' is more adequate), which are: spreading a mix (wind, solar, geothermic...) of renewable sources on a continent, enhancing grid interconnections among nations for them so support each other (objective already very actively and more and more pursued in Europe), storing at continental-level renewables' over-productions (thanks to hydro, hydrogen...) and using it on a clean 'backup' compensating for renewables' 'intermittency', demand response... ... then how much energy do we need to store in order to compensate for any remaining 'intermittency'?

Given that the average electric car battery can power the average home for quite a while (days), and that other EV batteries will be online...

Moreover each year 7% to 10% of gridpower is in France (fully nuclearized) produced thanks to fossil fuel, and its electricity is low-emitting, giving a quite comfy last-resort.

> And how much mining is required obtain those materials

Those materials are recyclable and have substitutes.

Uranium isn't (in practice) recyclable and doesn't have any substitute: this is eternal mining of an ever-rarefied source.

> shipping them around the world in diesel powered boats?

This is a valid point, enforcing the need for each continent hosting cooperating nations to produce its own production units.

On the other hand uranium reserves at current conditions can provide for at best 200 years (more probably 130 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium ), therefore the conditions (price and emissions, as the raise as the ore grade lowers may quickly worsen if some 'nuclear renaissance' stems reactors building projects. Who will take the risk and invest?

> Given that the average electric car battery can power the average home for quite a while (days), and that other EV batteries will be online...

Regular houses are too small to make it possible to install enough solar to charge the car though.

That's without even considering appartment buildings.

The architecture I described does not imply that those batteries will be loaded by locally-installed solar panels. There will be a grid, as usual, carrying electricity produced by the described mix, mostly by industrial sites (in many geographical areas a large part of it will be offshore wind turbines fleets).

So electric car owners are in effect sponsoring electricity storage?

No: they are benefiting from it as they (most of the time) load their batteries when electricity is cheap, and discharge it into the grid when it is rare and therefore expensive.

On average the car autonomy already is way above the daily commute, and this margin is quickly growing.

There are more and more parking places (private and public) connected to the grid.

A bit of intelligence ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid ) will orchestrate.

> No: they are benefiting from it as they (most of the time) load their batteries when electricity is cheap, and discharge it into the grid when it is rare and therefore expensive.

This would only work if the added charge on night-time electricity also accounts for battery cycling cost which I doubt it would.

Very low or even negative prices, during episodes of renewables overproduction (typically when wind blows or sun shines way over demand), are more and more common.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_pricing#Electricity

Reciprocally as more and more less tolerated grid backup (greenhouse-gas emitting fossils or dangerous nuclear) disappear episodes of under-production will be more common, and during those electricity price will soar.

It's not as much mining as you'd think -- it's not comparable to nuclear, sure, but I was surprised to learn, for example, the enormous difference between a fully decarbonized future vs. carbon present in terms of mining / extraction volume.

The actuarial account for fossil fuels is important, but I've come across this set of summary items many times and it ignores the positive effects of CO2, which have been substantial. This is a great benefit for many ecosystems and also improves crop yields, to your monetary cost point.

The overall phenomenon is well documented, so I'll give just one highly credible account: "The greening [over the last 35 years] represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States… Results showed that carbon dioxide fertilization explains 70 percent of the greening effect" - NASA Apr 2016, https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2436/co2-is-making-earth-green...

I'm not wanting to rehash the climate debate, nor am I implying how much it offsets negatives and would grant all of your points otherwise. I do think it's wise to do whatever we can to move towards cleaner carbon burning to remove toxic and particulate emissions, and limiting CO2 emissions as well, but also within fair economic tradeoffs. I also support developing nuclear, fission and fusion.

I see you've been massively down voted, even tho none of them can manage to even disagree with your facts. Regardless, I don't think greening offsets the millions that die from air pollution every year, not including any climate change effects.

I once saw a paper arguing that one of the deleterious effects of climate change over the next hundred years was the proliferation of poison ivy. They found that greening was occurring because of increased CO2 and temperature increase, and plucked out 'oh no, there'll be more poison ivy' as their topic.

I wouldn't disagree with the high mortality from pollution toxins. I've never looked closely, but also seems common sense.

As for how much greening benefits offset costs, I was mildly frustrated by the downvoting :) and went researching on the economic effects in particular. The only study I can find on CO₂ fertilization is recent and stunning:

"we apply the CO₂ fertilization effect... backwards to 1940, and, assuming no other limiting factors, find that CO₂ was the dominant driver of [American agriculture] yield growth"

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29320/w293...

As they note, the extrapolation is from a study period of 2014-2020, but it's expected they have underestimated the prior role of CO₂ fertilization, as CO₂ response becomes saturated as levels rise and that's not represented in their model.

This is 2021 research funded by DOE & USDA, run by NBER, with PIs from Harvard and Columbia who are well cited within their field of environmental economics. Given the pedigree and that conclusion, this should be front-page news in science mags at least. I couldn't find any reporting on it except for Epoch Times (https://www.theepochtimes.com/science/nasa-satellite-data-su...), which gets an eye-roll from me, but guess they got this one :)

I read the full thing. It's great. Crosses high-resolution satellite CO₂ anomaly observations (NASA OCO-2) with crop yield records, wind modeling, sensitivity testing on non-ag land and the result is broadly repeated: +1ppm CO₂ -> +~0.5-1% yield. CO₂ levels went from ~310-410ppm in that period.

If true, it seems at odds with the normal account that gave nitrogen fertilization the lead role for increasing crop yields this past century and lifting most of the world's population out of regular food insecurity, and the growth of our population into billions. Seems more likely both were necessary.

It also makes sense, as C3 plants (e.g. soy, wheat and most plants besides hot/dry grasses) respond positively to CO₂ partial-pressures up to 800-1000ppm. C4 low-CO₂ adapted corn also fertilizes, just to a lesser extent. The authors also note the negative effects of heat stress, but this wouldn't have been as significant in the extrapolation period.

From Epoch Times: “The paper’s first author, Taylor, said: 'We reiterate that climate change will have a large negative impact on agriculture in aggregate, especially in places exposed to extreme heat. And higher CO2 may even lower food nutrition. But the countervailing fertilization effect should also be taken into account.'”

> It seems like up-front monetary 'cost' is continually used to bash nuclear.

How unfair of us, to use the egregious flaw of nuclear to criticize it.

Pointing at fossil fuels would have made sense in the past, but that's a useless argument against renewables.

The Fukushima cleanup costs are estimated at damn near a half a trillion dollars!

Chernobyl was estimated at 50 billion+ adjusted.

Accidents are rare but they are costly.

And yet both Ukraine and Japan find those costs acceptable.

Both are part of the pledge to triple nuclear generation by 2050.

the fact that oil spills sometimes happen doesn't seem to be any better of an argument than the one that nuclear meltdowns sometimes happen.

Nuclear fanboys need to accept the fact that so long as nuclear always costs multiples more than literally anything else, these things won't get built, no matter how carbon-clean and healthy they are.

Nuclear only costs more because of outdated and intentionally obstructive regulations lobbied for by the oil industry (who also funded environmental groups willing to hate nuclear btw). Even with the massive over regulation of nuclear power in the US, nuclear is STILL more cost effective in the long run, and has only not been done because the risk of the government deciding to shut down their project or add untenable barriers mid construction has been too great to risk it. And don't give me "levelized cost" bs, that is skewed unrealistically against nuclear.

>in fact, for example, wildlife around Chernobyl has flourished

This can't be serious...

Why not? Take a look at this

https://thebiologist.rsb.org.uk/biologist-features/out-of-th...

https://www.science.org/content/article/humans-are-worse-rad...

Well, I believe the factual content of what you said, I'm just surprised you'd seriously use this as an argument in favour of nuclear power, because the fact that wildlife thrived is so intimately connected with the fact that a nuclear meltdown happened.

If radiation in the exclusion zone causes less damage than human habitation, what is the argument for maintaining the exclusion zone?

Bearing in mind that coal plants have a lot of negative health effects, so there needs to be an argument that life in the exclusion zone would be detectable worse than life near a coal plant.

Is it the kind of wildlife we want to be reproducing?

Is it the kind of wildlife you want as a pet?

Is it the kind of wildlife you want to eat?

No, this is not actually a good thing.

By definition you don't want wildlife as a pet. Is there a reason you think this is the "wrong" type of wildlife?

Yes, because it is extremely sick, and their DNA is severely damaged. it would be a very bad thing to pass that on to future generations

That turns out not to be the case.

Chernobyl is an example of what Bruce Sterling calls an "involuntary wildlife preserve". He didn't claim that was a good thing, of course...

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