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Comment by UltraSane | Hacker News Reader

Saying humanity should never use nuclear energy just because someone might shoot a missile at it is incredibly stupid when CO2 emissions are causing climate change.

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If climate change prevention is the target, then its also an no for nuclear. Nuclear reactors need tons of cement, the fuel needs an complicated and energy intensive process with a lot of waste.

CO2 per kWh is lower for nuclear (12g/kWh) than it is for solar (41g/kWh):

https://www.solar.com/learn/what-is-the-carbon-footprint-of-...

That link is also using an average including older reactors that require more highly enriched uranium (enrichment is energy-intensive), newer designs that can run on natural or low enrichment uranium can do 1.31g/kWh:

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/energy-research/article...

Okay, but how do those emissions compare to burning fuel to gain the same amount of energy?

That’s false but hey, you have proofs I guess ?

By that logic solar power should also be banned, due to the amount of coal required per panel (0) both for reduction and Czochralski process. And remember, solar panel factories don't run on solar power.

(0) https://co2coalition.org/2024/05/21/coals-importance-for-sol...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO2_Coalition

How does that change the fact that solar panels cannot be manufactured without high quality coal? (0) And doesn't that undermine the "cement for nuclear power" argument?

(0) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we...

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