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Comment by croes | Hacker News Reader

How is more nuclear waste a huge win for society?

Well, because it means that other energy generation sources like oil, gas, and coal aren't being used there instead. Since they cause far, far more harm than nuclear waste does, it's a net win.

The same is true for solar and wind energy but without nuclear water. She cause far less harm than nuclear waste, even bigger win.

Our main problem isn’t energy production it‘s storage and quick reaction to consumption spikes. Nuclear energy doesn’t help with that.

the waste isn't a win, of course, but is a downside of a tradeoff that is massively weighted to the upsides for society -- that is (otherwise) completely clean always-on high capacity energy production.

We understand very well how to safely handle nuclear waste and make it a very (very) low risk downside.

Completely clean? Where does the nuclear fuel come from? How do we get it?

Does the handling of nuclear waste consider foul play by terrorists and such?

I didn’t he many worries about russian rockets hutting wind turbines in the war in Ukraine.

looking backwards in the supply chain for other externalities is a good point, but I'm not sure any energy production method is exempt from this?

Also, by the way, my perspective isn't about nuclear Vs X (wind turbines etc) - I like all the ones that are net clean and useful in different circumstances as part of a mix.

I'm just addressing the narrower point about whether nuclear per se is a net benefit for society, which I believe it is, massively.

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