Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

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> Nuclear power is irrelevant in our energy systems today.

I dunno, it's been producing 20% of US power for decades. Same as renewables. Seems relevant.

> For the nuclear supply chain we still have not been able to sanction the Russian industry.

12% come from Russia. [1]

> So now suddenly we are hand wringing about rare earth extraction consequences. You seem to change topics faster than I can follow.

I feel like environmental implications are relevant to discuss, and I think the topic is relevant.

> You do know that the uranium supply is also extremely nasty?

Sure, but you need very little of it due to energy density, and reprocessing is a viable alternative as demonstrated by France. They have a 96% recovery rate. [2]

> And now suddenly seawater extraction did not matter?

It didn't matter in my original post either which is why it's under "if we're being pedantic."

[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uraniu...

[2] https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-t...

> I dunno, it's been producing 20% of US power for decades. Same as renewables. Seems relevant.

Which falls to 7.6% when counting the useful energy and not staring yourself blind on the electricity grid.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-stacked...

Like I said, irrelevant compared to the fossil fuel supply chain supplying 80%.

> 12% come from Russia. [1]

Of course ignoring the intermediary steps in the supply chain which Russia controls ~50% of. But Kazakh uranium being processed in Russia is Kazakh!

And this of course ignores that my main point was that Russia is the largest player in the global nuclear technological sector.

Like I said. The evidence is that Europe despite over 3 years of war in Ukraine still has not been able to sanction any part of the Russian nuclear industry.

> Sure, but you need very little of it due to energy density, and reprocessing is a viable alternative as demonstrated by France. [2]

And now we again "solve" nuclear power by saying that reprocessing works. Despite reprocessing producing massive quantities of nasty byproducts and more expensive Uranium.

Just make nuclear power even more horrifically expensive! No problem!

> Which falls to 7.6% when counting the useful energy and not staring yourself blind on the electricity grid.

Wind and solar is less than 7% combined on that graph, so either wind and solar aren't relevant and nuclear isn't relevant, or they're both relevant.

> Like I said. The evidence is that Europe despite over 3 years of war in Ukraine still has not been able to sanction any part of the Russian nuclear industry.

France is practically closed loop, and France is 55% of Europe's nuclear generation.

> Despite reprocessing producing massive quantities of nasty byproducts and more expensive Uranium.

Are you able to quantify this are compared to renewables or are we just assuming? Remember in terms of costs, it's basically entirely construction -- fuel costs almost nothing. So even if reprocessing is relatively expensive, adding cost there won't really change nuclear energy prices.

> Wind and solar is less than 7% combined on that graph, so either wind and solar aren't relevant and nuclear isn't relevant, or they're both relevant.

Renewables are relevant given their trajectory and that they make up ~90% of new installations due to being the by far best option today.

Grid infrastructure has a lifespan of a couple decades. We are seeing a complete disruption of the grid, but it will take a couple of decades for everything to shake out as the existing fleet of fossil and nuclear plants ages out.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64586

> France is practically closed loop, and France is 55% of Europe's nuclear generation.

Of course forgetting how France uses Russia for this reprocessing. But relying on Russia for your energy supply chain is fine as long as it is nuclear power?

> Renewables are relevant given their trajectory

How convenient.

> Of course forgetting how France uses Russia for this reprocessing.

They do the reprocessing at the Orano La Hague site on the Cotentin Peninsula in Normandy. They also historically reprocessed for Germany there and continue to reprocess for Japan. You can look these things up before you respond, you know. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Hague_site

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You broke the site guidelines badly in this thread. The other user did it as well, but I have the impression that your violations were somewhat worse.

Could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and make your substantive points thoughtfully and avoid the flamewar style in the future? And especially please avoid personal attacks? We'd appreciate it.

You broke the site guidelines in this thread.

Could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and make your substantive points thoughtfully and avoid the flamewar style in the future? And especially please avoid personal attacks? We'd appreciate it.

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