Comment by lazide | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lazide | Hacker News Reader

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Don’t bet on that plutonium toxicity thing. For one, most reactors aren’t going to have any plutonium (or any other radioisotope) where anyone can touch it or interact with it in any way.

Concentrated Hydroflouric acid, and even pure fluorine gas however? That can be an easy turn of a tap away at most semiconductor plants. And much worse. And if you know anything about Florine, ‘much worse’ should be pretty chilling.

I’m honestly not sure if radiation poisoning (actually quite hard and rare to die from) is worse than dying from fluorine exposure (I’m sure it’s killed a lot more people than radiation), but fluorine is certainly going to be faster.

Most fire departments are going to be a lot more concerned about a semiconductor plant than a nuclear one.

But choosing nuclear power doesn't remove our need for semiconductors, so it's a bit weird to attribute that to solar.

The fabrication of of panels is more analogous to fission material mining. As in you are procuring the materials that will produce energy in the future.

If we get rid of nuclear power, we don't need to mine those things anymore. If we get rid of solar panels, we still need semiconductors. So I don't think you can use it for an argument against solar manufacture.

> But choosing nuclear power doesn't remove our need for semiconductors, so it's a bit weird to attribute that to solar.

Why make it binary? Nuclear power plants need less semiconductors per Joule of electricity produced than solar panels.

So obviously they don't 'remove' the need for semiconductors. But they decrease it ever so slightly compared to solar power.

Just to be clear: the dangers per Joule from the whole lifecycle of both solar power and nuclear power are both really, really small.

This is a total non sequiter.

The more semiconductors you make, the more waste chemicals you produce (and use), and the more contamination and cancer you’re going to have if those chemicals aren’t handled correctly. Aka more solar panels, more waste chemicals.

Same with nukes and nuclear waste by running your nuclear plant longer/harder.

90/10 one way will produce a lot of one thing, and less of another - and vice versa.

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