[nicklecompte]

European nuclear advocates really don’t have a satisfactory political response to Chernobyl and Fukushima. Truthfully, the best argument for nuclear power is an extremely unpleasant one: a bit of radioactive contamination (an immediate and visceral threat) is a small price to pay for the emissions offset (still a somewhat abstract and distant threat). The numbers check out but it is undeniably ghoulish.

But pretending people are motivated by sheer hippie-foolishness is just an ignorant ad hominem. It is not “completely nonsensical” to oppose nuclear power, even if the argument is badly flawed. Chernobyl was a traumatic event for many Europeans and they are correct to be suspicious of claims that a proposed nuclear technology is actually safe.

Being so condescending and dismissive doesn’t help anyone.

[xroche]

> Chernobyl was a traumatic event

And yet the number of casualties is lower than the number of casualties caused every year in Europe by coal: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/12/european...

I don't deny it was a traumatic event. But like airplane crashes, the emotion can differ from cold numbers.

[akarma]

I think that's exactly what the above commenter was saying in: "European nuclear advocates really don’t have a satisfactory political response to Chernobyl and Fukushima."

If a country experiences a nuclear accident like Chernobyl or Fukushima, your "number of casualties is lower than if we moved to coal" argument won't work. Cold numbers won't beat emotion.

Edit: On downvotes, it's very demographically consistent of HN to not believe or want to hear that emotions rule over cold numbers for many people in the world. I'm not saying that coal is better than nuclear (it's not per the numbers), but you need a satisfactory answer when a disaster happens, and rationalizing the deaths of thousands of people as "a preferred alternative to more deaths over time" won't cut it.

[hedora]

It’s more like cold numbers won’t beat lobbying. It’s not “if we moved to coal”. It’s “coal definitely killed more people than Chernobyl every few months for the last 100 years and is now literally burning the planet down, but somehow that’s OK.”

[akarma]

Yes, and that being OK is the magic of how emotions work! That's the exact valid point being ignored.

If you don't have a better response to a catastrophic nuclear disaster than "well, it killed people but coal definitely killed more people over time," then as the commenter said, you really don't have a satisfactory political response [1] to a nuclear disaster.

You're acknowledging the difference in our emotional response between gradual deaths over time versus a nuclear accident, but then hand-waving it away as irrational and unworthy of response, and ignoring that those irrational people form the majority of voters in the country.

[1] A satisfactory political response is one that will keep public opinion positive towards nuclear energy after a disaster.

[jcfrei]

Calling my explanation condescending seems exaggerated. The opposition against nuclear energy makes sense if Chernobyl is your reference in terms of safety. But modern reactor designs are a lot safer than Chernobyl and Fukushima. That's why I'm calling it nonsensical - the skepticism was warranted at the time but it's outdated now.

[akarma]

I agree with you that your comment wasn't condescending like the above commenter suggested, but disagree about modern reactor designs. They'll always carry this risk.

Sure, reactor design has changed since Chernobyl in various ways that help mitigate it, but what about Fukushima?

Fukushima was devastating, and the result was the NRC asking US reactors to reconfirm their flooding and earthquake preparedness. I don't know of any measures taken in European countries.

As climate change progresses, there could be some disastrous consequences, and it's unfair to say that the skepticism is outdated.

This isn't to say that nuclear is worse than coal (it's not), but that it isn't just handwaving.

[choeger]

Modern reactors are also much more expensive and take literally decades to build. Right now the option is to choose between comparatively cheap solar and wind energy (and their immense land usage) and nuclear power plants that are decades old. If we could build modern fission reactors more cheaply and quickly and if we had the water to operate many more of them they would be an option. Right now, they are not.

[xroche]

> cheap solar and wind energy

You don't have a baseline energy with wind and solar, which are not on-demand. That's the big issue.

And nuclear _can_ be cheap if (and only if) funded by states, that can borrow zero-interest loans.

[nate_meurer]

The only nuclear power plant under construction in the USA will cost nearly thirty billion dollars. That's not cheap no matter how low the interest rate.

[somedude895]

> But pretending people are motivated by sheer hippie-foolishness is just an ignorant ad hominem.

I couldn't see any obvious ad hominem in the comment. They are correct in that the anti-nuclear stance of many Greens is often dogmatic to a point where they wouldn't even discuss it if the alternative were a social and economical catastrophe. And I don't think it's too far-fetched to attribute the emergence of that dogmatism to the early green movements.

[908B64B197]

> European nuclear advocates really don’t have a satisfactory political response to Chernobyl and Fukushima

France does. Safest nuclear on earth.

[kergonath]

> The numbers check out but it is undeniably ghoulish.

The numbers are bad for any energy source. Or any industry, for that matter. Coal-fired power plants have emitted much, much more radionuclides than the nuclear industry over the last half century. And contributed to killing millions of people.

The problem is that we’ve come to think that our current way of operating is fine. After all, it clearly is working. Except that it isn’t, but a lot of people have some trouble realising that.

> It is not “completely nonsensical” to oppose nuclear power, even if the argument is badly flawed.

You’re right, and we should be able to have a nuanced discussion. However, arguments such as “nuclear is bad because nuclear weapons” really are completely nonsensical. So is the “we should get rid of nuclear waste, but we are never going to accept to put them anywhere” argument. Or “we need better technical solutions but we oppose any R&D funding”. Or “nuclear plants are important greenhouse gas emitters”. These points are things that actual politicians say, and the a lot of other people believe. They also are utter bollocks.

> Being so condescending and dismissive doesn’t help anyone.

Quite right. And the fact that nuclear has been so opaque because of its association with the military and closely-guarded industrial secrets is very unhelpful.

That said, there are a lot of parallels with trump-like nationalism and anti-vaccination movements. At some point we have to accept that on any given issue some people are going to be vocally ignorant.