[pydry]

If the ~$800 billion cleanup costs of a Fukushima event werent fully borne by taxpayers then maybe the safety regulations wouldnt have to be as onerous.

But they are, and Ive never heard of a single pro nuclear advocate ever argue that nuclear power is safe enough that this enormous subsidy should be unwound. They generally pretend it doesnt exist.

Meanwhile solar/wind/storage is a lot cheaper even without taking this subsidy into account.

[panick21_]

Funny how anti-nuclear people never admit that the last 30 years of anti nuclear opposition have lead to 1000s of deaths, 100000s of people less health and more cost then any theoretical nuclear accident.

Its totally ok to argue that the government should have shared responsibility for health care. But arguing that government should control the energy production in a sensible way and adopt the risk for that is somehow crazy. And yet they end up doing it anyway as we have seen in the recent crisis.

Had the government simply adopted a nuclear strategy from the beginning it would be vastly cheaper, population would be vastly healthier, grid operation would be far easier and energy security for the next 100 years would not even remotely be in question. It wouldn't have forced the German right to make a devils deal with Russia and the Left would have gotten their carbon free grid.

[largepeepee]

"the last 30 years of anti nuclear opposition have lead to 1000s of deaths, 100000s of people less health and more cost then any theoretical nuclear accident."

Where are you pulling these numbers from? Your ass?

The last 30 years were also one of best times to be alive as an average person on the globe generally.

How nuclear idiots can spin everything negatively is pretty funny.

[kelseyfrog]

It's the number of excessive deaths due to coal fired power plants in the US per year(~3000). Anyone can search for that and critique the methodology.

[locallost]

Nuclear has failed for now 70 years to change anything. It's because it plainly doesn't work. Worldwide only one country has managed to produce the vast majority of its electricity from nuclear and even this country is faltering right now. The french electricity company is deeply in debt, was nationalized as a consequence of it and just posted a 20 billion loss for last year. The plants are reaching their end of life, the prototype replacement in Flamanville is a national embarrassment and is now over a decade and over 10 billion over budget.

If the world decides to go all in on nuclear it would take decades to decarbonize a tiny percentage of the grid and horrendous costs.

[nickpp]

The world doesn’t have to decide to go "all in" on anything. It can simply lift all the unnecessary burdens it placed on the nuclear industry and let the free market sort out the best solution, like always.

If nuclear works for the world's subs, it works on land too. It will probably be a mix of energy sources anyway, each with its own strengths and weaknesses and it’s own place in ecosystem.

[pydry]

>If nuclear works for the world's subs, it works on land too.

Kind of like saying that if solar panels work on the ISS then they work on land too.

It's surface level true while missing the broader issue.

[locallost]

In that case nuclear is completely dead. There probably hasn't been a nuclear power plant built without government subsidies in history. French nuclear for instance is essentially bankrupt because they can't even run them let alone build new ones, so the government nationalized it last year.

But sure, get rid of all subsidies on everything and let the market sort it out. We can agree on that.

[panick21_]

Talking about the market in energy policy is just silly. It has been driven by government, all over the world for decades.

And if you have things like a public health care system then, it matters a whole lot if coal and gas plants blow smoke into the air or not.

Historical data from the US shows this well. If coal plants would have had to pay even a fraction of the health cost the caused, nuclear would have been universally adopted 1990. And that is before we even talk about coal sluge and other issues. Its before we talk about all the stuff the US did in the middle east to keep the oil flowing. Nuclear in the US even paid a fee for nuclear waste, while coal paid no fee for its waste.

If you look at societies total energy cost over the last 50 years, France looks incredibly good. They had very low energy prices for many decades now and had not no health cost from bad air from electricity production. Nuclear plants are also stable high quality healthy employment for many.

[panick21_]

> Nuclear has failed for now 70 years to change anything.

Its almost as if nobody tries to do something it doesn't happen, shocking insight.

> It's because it plainly doesn't work.

Except that its actually proven to work and renewables are not proven to work. Because there is actually a major world industrial economy that worked on nearly 100% nuclear and there is not such a nation that runs on only renewables.

So maybe if there is prove of anything, its that one works the other doesn't.

> The plants are reaching their end of life

Complete nonsense ... there are many far older plant operating. Nuclear reactors can run 80-100 years.

> the prototype replacement

Like the innovative Superphénix that was killed of by the Green-Leftis coalition.

> was nationalized as a consequence

France has had 40 decades of the lowest energy prices in Europe and still has very low cost. All the construction cost of the whole nuclear fleet were on the books of the utility and were paid off over decades. If French utility was allowed to charge as much as energy prices in Germany, it would be wildly profitable.

The French state forced them to invested profit from nuclear into solar that hurt their own networks operation and also forced them to cheaply sell bulk nuclear electricity to support fossil and then the utility had to buy that capacity back at a way higher price, losing billions in the process.

France has for 25 years now had governments that didn't like nuclear, they have let go the whole industrial base that built up. The were so spoiled by nuclear that they didn't do any of the basic maintenance and upgrades done in pretty much every country in the world (including ironically Germany). Had they just done so, they wouldn't have had any of the problems they had last year.

France treated its amazing nuclear capacity from the 70/80s like the tree in 'The Giving Tree'. The reality of course is France saved incredibly amounts of money in their health care system because they had 50 years of nuclear rather then 50 years of coal. Nuclear in France was one of the best energy policies ever done by anybody.

> If the world decides to go all in on nuclear it would take decades to decarbonize a tiny percentage of the grid and horrendous costs.

Lets look at a case study, UAE. They decided in 2009 to do nuclear, first plant active in 2020 and finishing 1 reactor a year. So a nation with no nuclear and no experience in 1 year will have 25% nuclear and these plants will last 100 years or more. The could have just continued this and by 2030 the could have 100% nuclear. But this is political.

Let me do some basic math for you. Even at the still high unit prices UAE was charged. Starting in the year ~2000, when Germany really adopted 'Grünewende'. At that point they had 20% of well functioning nuclear. At that point the total cost of going 100% nuclear in Germany, even with a very high very conservative cost of 5 billion $ per plant, for like 250 billion Germany could have gone 100% electric. That is approximately 5% increase in debt to GDP. Realistically it would be much less as data shows that if you are building many of the same plant with the same workforce it gets vastly cheaper. Germany could have done this in 20-30 years no problem, if France can do it so can Germany. This would have guaranteed Germany clean green energy for the next 100 years or more.

The failure of nuclear was and is about politics, not about the technology.

[nickpp]

The cleanup after a nuclear incident is also regulated through the wazoo. Thus it's expensive, deeply corrupted and probably unnecessary. We'd probably be better off simply closing the area for a couple hundred years until the most radioactive (and thus dangerous) stuff half-lifes away.

Meanwhile coal plants keep spewing slightly radioactive ash into the air and into our lungs and the cost is paid by us all in life expectancy. And soon by our whole civilization in global warming.