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Comment by ImJamal | Hacker News Reader

I just don't get people saying how terrible climate change is going to be for the world and then refuses to support nuclear.

If climate change is such a critical problem, then let's try everything to get this solved even if it costs more to do it. If you are only willing to do some solutions because it is cheaper then I don't believe you when you say it is important to solve.

And frankly, we don't know the full impact of climate change, so having as many alternatives as possible just makes sense. Hydro can be impacted by droughts which will be more common. Solar may be impacted if there are increased storms. Wind may be impacted due to stilling (slowing of wind due to an increase in co2).

Why not throw nuclear into the mix to ensure we do not run out of power?

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> Hydro can be impacted by droughts which will be more common

You did read the news this summer? Like https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/03/europe/hungary-nuclear-pl... ?

Most of the environmentalists will tell you that it's dumb to shut down nuclear, but building new plants just takes too long and is too expensive. Why then not just put the money into things that are cheap now and will get even cheaper tomorrow?

Hedging against downtime is comparatively easy, just diversify by location and improve the grid, which is way less expensive than building out power plants.

Every source of power has pros and cons. They all have risks and benefits.

If there is a push to do a specific clean energy I think we should go for it regardless of the cost. If you think the climate issue is going to be a very severe issue then you should take every option at our disposal and encourage every push for an alternative to fossil fuels. Since you are refusing this, then I assume you don't think it is severe.

Large countries may be able to hedge against downtime, but smaller countries can't. Also, like I said, we don't really know the impact of all of this which is why we should diversify as much as possible. One of those diversifications should be nuclear as well as solar, wind, and hydro.

It's simple: They're based on emotion and/or social consensus (i.e. express the opinion seen as OK to express)

HN is full of solar salesman.

Because having a solution would put the climate change organisations out of a job.

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