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by AndyKelley 3772 days ago
What about nuclear power? Isn't that pretty much the cleanest, most efficient power source we know of today?
2 comments

He's working on it: http://terrapower.com/
With just a few "minor" issues with safety and waste.
With just a few "minor" issues with safety

History shows that nuclear power is very safe as long as you don't build the plants in tsunami-prone seismic zones, operate them for decades beyond their intended service life, or allow a bunch of unhinged Russians to play "Hold my vodka and watch this" in the control room.

...and waste.

We've also learned that disposal of radioactive waste isn't a problem as long as you mix it with carbon-combustion products and spew it into the air, like coal plants do. Out of sight, out of mind appears to be the optimal way to deal with deadly pollution.

On nuclear safety, consider that France runs on something like 80% nuclear power. Hardly anyone knows this, because French nuclear plants are run well, and haven't had any disasters.
A few years ago you could have said the same about japan.
I can't remember where I read it, but Japan apparently has a history of playing fast and loose with nuclear stuff. Their safety record prior to Fukushima was far from spotless.
After a nuclear accident in France you will be able to read the same about the "safety record" in France. The safety record of eg. Fessenheim does not sound reassuring.
How is being the safest way to generate power an issue, wouldn't that be a benefit?
False premisis: it's not the safest method (see SSREN, the IPCC's study of carbon-neutral energy generation). It is safer than fossil fuel generation, but not solar and wind, nor, in Europe and America, hydro (India and especially China have had some spectacular hydro failures).

More specifically, when nuclear works well, it works very, very well. When it fails, however, it fails especially spectacularly.

That's not accessible.

As I said: IPCC's SRREN gives mortality/GWh statistics, and nuclear is not the safest, by that measure. Data included Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, but not Fukushima.

Actually, I've previously discussed both here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/267e5e/what_are...

NB: Conca is a rather partisan pro-nuclear advocate. I've found his credibility wanting and bias quite evident in past.

The IPCC's report: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/

Risks are in one of the appendixes (I'm not on a device which makes sorting this out trivial at the moment).

the report is 1088 pages and has appendices everywhere, can you point out where you found the risk comparison? A ctr-f for risk finds 511 uses
And high cost (relatively speaking to wind in windy areas, sun in sunny areas, and natural gas in North America)