[namdnay]

> Nuclear fission based on uranium is a lot of things, but definitely not "clean" or "green" even on the raw material sourcing side like the pro-nuclear crowd keeps blathering.

Depending on your criteria, no human industrial activity is green. Digging up precious metals for solar panels? Pouring tons of concrete in mountain valleys to make dams? Building forests of windmills?

At the end of the day, the question becomes “does this enable us to reduce our carbon emissions whilst keeping a reasonable quality of life”. And to that question nuclear is without a doubt a good thing

[mschuster91]

> At the end of the day, the question becomes “does this enable us to reduce our carbon emissions whilst keeping a reasonable quality of life”. And to that question nuclear is without a doubt a good thing

Solar and wind don't leave a ton of radioactive material behind.

[ska]

> Solar and wind don't leave a ton of radioactive material behind.

But they are not a plausible global replacement at this point, and - without radical storage technology changes - for the foreseeable future.

So really what you should be asking is, is nuclear cleaner than fossil.

[mschuster91]

> But they are not a plausible global replacement at this point

Do they need to be? Cut back on crap (i.e. advertising billboards, city lights), invest into decentralized storage for households (let's be real, even the demand of a home with two teenagers with gaming rigs can easily be met with a standard Powerwall), and get as many industrial processes shifted to shift operations to save on nighttime base load. The remainder can be, at least in Continental Europe and America, caught by a well-built continental grid (China manages thousands of km long lines!) and biogas/hydrogen peakers.

[mlyle]

> Cut back on crap (i.e. advertising billboards, city lights)

The power usage of these is pretty small.

> Invest into decentralized storage for households (let's be real, even the demand of a home with two teenagers with gaming rigs can easily be met with a standard Powerwall)

For those of us who are upper middle class or beyond, this is no big deal, but the additional apartment cost for someone living paycheck to paycheck could be quite noticeable (or the cost to taxpayers to subsidize this).

Further, increased electrification of loads that are nighttime-centric (EV charging, heating, industrial loads) makes this less tenable. Base load is going to go up.

> and get as many industrial processes shifted to shift operations to save on nighttime base load

This might mean tripling the amount of capital equipment, which has its own costs and impacts. Electrification of industrial loads is more capital-intensive; tripling the cost of this is even worse.

[ska]

> Do they need to be?

It sure seems like it? Any proposal the implies a rapid attenuation of capacity or consumption is no small thing to consider. The technical and political barriers to achieving them are likely orders of magnitude worse than those involved in taking up some of the capacity with nuclear.