Comment by torpfactory | Hacker News Reader

Comment by torpfactory | Hacker News Reader

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What are the alternatives for Europe? Continue to import oil and gas? Have some of your most important economic inputs price and supply controlled by the dumbest egomaniacs alive?

Nuclear? Good luck building it on time and on budget. Also where exactly are you getting that Uranium from? I’m not necessarily against nuclear I just don’t think there’s much you can do in five or ten years to move the needle with Nuclear.

Wind? Actually a good option as it has a strong domestic supply chain.

Solar? Buy China’s cheap panels as long as they are selling. If they stop selling figure out how to do it yourself. It’s not some big mystery how panels get made, China just had the foresight to invest in the scale required to drive prices down.

Coal? I mean at least it’s local. But solar + batteries are either beating it now or will be in the next few years if the same trends that have held for the last 30 years continue for the next 2-5. So you’d be investing in a more expensive, dirtier technology for what end?

There is no world where you get to not make a decision and the risk just disappears. I think renewables have the clear advantage here and have very manageable risks.

> Also where exactly are you getting that Uranium from?

Uranium can be stockpiled relatively easily (france had 4-5 years of uranium stockpiled). Since it is about 1% of the energy cost, that’s pretty inexpensive.

Also, uranium comes from suppliers on 4 different continents, there is little chance that it becomes unavailable overnight.

Where do you get the uranium processed so you can use it your reactors...

> Where do you get the uranium processed so you can use it your reactors...

As someone who lives in Canada, we have reactors (CANDU) that can run on unprocessed / unenriched uranium.

Or you can use slightly enriched if you want:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANFLEX#Fuel_composition_and_v...

If you have a bunch of pesky plutonium that you want to get rid of, it can also be mixed into a MOX bundle and be 'burned away' as well.

Well you have one reactor (probably...) coming up that will but it will rely on american capacity (your other great friend ;))

France being more relevant as largest % of nuclear as part of their energy mix ...

As I replied in the comment to the "french doesn't need", apparently either they care more about money and less about Ukraine or they absolutely couldn't but the numbers don't lie (if they were wrong the government would have challenge le monde asap ...)...

Also globally it's "about 6% of global uranium production, 20% of conversion capacity, 46% of enrichment capacity, and 10% of nuclear fuel fabrication capacity.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X2...

Next time I will use we ~ humanity to be more clear and avoid exceptions to the "big picture"

Have a great evening

In the specific case of France, that happens in France. So the stockpile can be used without external dependencies.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2026/01/28/france-...

France has reduced it in the last couple of years but even right now they do.

> Uranium can be stockpiled relatively easily (france had 4-5 years of uranium stockpiled).

What’s stopping us from stockpiling solar panels?

You could do that, too, if you want. The relevant questions would be how much of the electricity cost is buying solar panels, how are they stored, and how they age when not used.

Stockpiling uranium addresses a specific risk related to sourcing in an inexpensive way, I'm not sure what problem you address by stockpiling unused solar panels, and for what cost.

Importantly, it used to be Germany which had all the expertise, until the CDU government destroyed much of the German solar industry over night. It's funny how everyone always talks about Germany stopping Nuclear energy but nobody ever talks about the fact that subsequent German governments destroyed the renewables industry twice (and they are talking about it again), largely due to lobbying from the coal, Nuclear and car industries. Definitely an interesting what if

Could you please send which lobbies worked on destroying renewables industry twice? (You probably mean destroying solar industry, wind industry is up and running).

I could only find that EU manufacturers of solar panels wanted tariffs on imported Chinese solar panels and EU builders and operators of solar power plants didn't want tariffs on imported Chinese solar panels.

https://www.politico.eu/article/europes-solar-industry-at-wa...

There are solar panel manufacturers outside of China that have no dependence on Chinese inputs such as polysilicon, wafers, and ingots. Two that come to mind are First Solar (US) and Toyo Solar (Japan). I’m sure there are others. Europe can buy from them while scaling local manufacturing.

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