[AndyPa32]

I disagree with cheapest. If you factor in twenty years build time and nuclear waste disposal, the whole thing is not economically viable.

Then there's a problem with nuclear fuel. The sources are mostly countries you don't want to depend on.

You are of course right with your assessment that nuclear is green, safe and eco-friendly. That's a hard one to swallow for a lot of eco activists.

[m101]

It is expensive because of the regulatory burdens associated with making it unreasonably safe. By unreasonably safe I mean that harms predicted by radiation models are unscientific, and death rate expectations are far lower than alternative power generation technologies.

Nuclear fuel storage is relatively straightforward, and volumes have potential to be reduced 30x through recycling.

[oneshtein]

Nuclear power plants require international laws and international cooperation for insurance, because one serious incident, such as Chornobyl, can wipe a continent.

In Ukraine, profits from all nuclear plants will cover damages, caused by Chornobyl, in 1000-5000 years IF nothing more will happen to Chornobyl or other an other nuclear power plant in those years, which is unlikely.

[pqtyw]

Still, though, if nuclear continued growing at the same pace it was until the 80s we'd be in a massively better spot climate change wise.

Sure, these days its too expensive in relative terms but switching back to fossil fuels due to all the Chornobyl/Three Mile panic (but mainly likely because of the cost) might end up being one of the bigger mistakes in human history.

[close04]

We can make nuclear safe (enough) but after one big incident nobody wanted the political career suicide to push for this. So we are stuck with criticizing stone-age level nuclear power because we never took it further. The West never stopped doing something just because the USSR didn’t do it properly.

If we did the same with commercial air travel after the first disasters we’d still cross the oceans in boats. Car accidents kill 10-15 times more people every year worldwide than Chernobyl did but we don’t give up on cars either. Heck, smoking kills 7-8 times more people than cars every year (that’s 80-100 Chernobyls worth every year) and we still allow it.

The reasons are political not technically or financially insurmountable obstacles. We didn’t shut down nuclear in Europe for “green” reasons or because we can’t improve it, or because it kills too many people, but because enough Russian money went into politicians’ pockets to do this.

[oneshtein]

You arguments boils down to «it's OK to wipe a continent once in a while, because nuclear energy is the safest energy option per megawatt produced».

[dpassens]

No, the argument is that it didn't "wipe the continent" and in fact caused far less damage than other things we're totally fine with. I don't see GP saying that they want an incident like this to repeat, just that, if it did, the consequences would be far less severe than "wiping the continent".

[pqtyw]

> OK to wipe a continent

Why not exaggerate to the "entire planet" if we are going this way..

Regardless, in hindsight humanity could have prevented (at least to a significant extent) climate change if we doubled down on nuclear 40-50 years ago instead of stopping most expansion. What will be the cost of that?

[natmaka]

I doubt so: 416 industrial nuclear reactors are deployed in the world today. They produce 10% of the electricity, itself 20% of the final energy, so nuclear power produces at best 2% of the energy consumed.

Nuclear power would provide 10% of the energy, which would be far from sufficient since it is necessary to electrify uses (in order to reduce the quantity of fossil fuel burned) and therefore produce more electricity, if we could multiply the power of the fleet by 5, therefore building around 1500 new reactors and keeping the existing fleet active. Hoping for this before 2100 would be absurd.

[close04]

No, those are your words. The dumbed down, skewed, ragebaity, Fox News level strawman. The guaranteed way to drag down the conversation when you have nothing of value to say: pretend the other guy said something just as worthless and then fight that because it’s easier and you think you have a shot.

Your arguments have been shot down all over this thread. Do you need a win so bad?

[YawningAngel]

We have had several serious nuclear incidents and none have destroyed either a continent or the people on it

[Kon5ole]

That it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean that it couldn't happen in the future. We have never had a worst case event but we do know pretty well what the consequences of a worst case event could be.

The worst case consequences of Chernobyl were stopped because people literally risked their lives to prevent it. The fire was put out, the steam explosion was prevented, and countless lives were saved as a result.

Even so, many countries spent billions, over several decades, to minimize the consequences. As far as 2000 miles away, animals are still to this day fed special foods and managed to avoid prolonged grazing in contaminated areas.

Think about it for a second - over 2000 miles away, almost 40 years later, this still requires active management. Despite best efforts to handle the situation when it happened.

Now consider that every reactor carries it's own copy of the risks, and they only generate around 10 TWh of electricity per year.

That's just way too little electricity for such a risk. It makes no sense.

Meanwhile solar and storage is deployed at a rate equivalent to a new reactor every month as we speak. Faster, cheaper, and comparatively risk-free.

[natmaka]

Most Russian Roulette games have many 'clicks' before the 'bang'.

[natmaka]

> Car accidents kill 10-15 times more people every year worldwide than Chernobyl did but we don’t give up on cars either. Heck, smoking

Avoiding car accident and not smoking is way, way easier than avoiding most effects of a major nuclear accident (fine dangerous and very durable dust disseminated on a vast geographical zone, thanks to wind and rain).

The total amount of victims of the Chernobyl accident is a matter of debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the...

[burnt-resistor]

No, we can't. I worked in the industry when there was strong, independent regulation and private engineering consultancies. These don't exist anymore. The NRC is stacked politically and it and EPRI lack the gray beards it once had and the engineering industry is a shadow of its former self. Dunning-Kruger ignorant proponents advocate for it without understanding the issues or the complications in this current situation that is a far different situation than 30 years ago that might've been reasonable when Duke Energy wanted a revival. Its time has passed because the economics of conventional alternatives make it moot.

[close04]

I meant “we” as humanity. You gave a very US-centric perspective at a time when the US finds it challenging to deal with many long solved issues. Why conflate not wanting, not caring, not wanting to pay for it, or just not being able right now with it being humanly impossible?

We didn’t get to making the calculations of economics to improve the tech because of the corruption and lack of education I was mentioning before. What we have is calculations based on 60 years old tech and risk analysis based on a 40 year old accident.

As I said in the previous comment, if you’d do the same for commercial flight you might find steam ships are a better deal.

[sillyfluke]

You would need to wait at least five years to make sure Europe will not go the way of the US due to the similar uptick of the same ideology now in power in the US, more if it's still a tiebreak in five years time.

Betting on a technology that has a catastrophic likelihood of low probability but high impact at a time when your scientific and regulatory institutions are crumbling is a high risk strategy. Unless you're arguing that modern nuclear tech is literally childproof and not susceptible to catastrophe under idiocratic regimes.

[burnt-resistor]

Your mind appears closed and you're not interested in having a normal conversation because you don't have any valid points. Best of luck to you.

I worked with Japanese and Germans in the field, so I guess you don't know what you're talking about and are projecting your biases. The owner of the company was a Jewish Moroccan expat who contributed greatly to the field. Please have a look inside yourself before confessing your issues.

[looofooo0]

What kind assumptions is this based on?

[justsomehnguy]

> can wipe a continent

Sorry, but no.

Chernobyl exclusion zone is less than a single area of the Agent Orange usage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chernobyl_radiation_map_1...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial-herbicide-spray-mi...

[aydyn]

Again, Chernobyl was not the worst case scenario. Everyone knows the story, some heroes sacrified their lives to prevent it.

[Integer]

You mean, everyone watched the TV story which has little basis in fact. Chernobyl was the worst case scenario - there's no way to build a reactor that would produce worse radiation effects when destroyed than to use a pile of graphite.

[aydyn]

Only about 20-40% of the radioactive contaminants were spread before the fire was put out by firefighters wearing no protection. On top of that only 1 reactor burned, but it shared facilities with another reactor.

So if the fire was not put out, it could have easily been 5x worse. There were 4 reactors total, so in the absolute worst case it could've been 10x worse.

[Angostura]

> harms predicted by radiation models are unscientific,

Where are your scientific alternative models?

[freetonik]

Long build times are often the result of constantly changing regulations. Also it’s interesting that build times in Japan are almost 2 times smaller than in US.

[rootsofallevil]

Nuclear doesn't have a great record in other countries either. I might have the wrong figures but Hinkley Points C is over 2 times over budget and likely to be 5+ years late.

The exemption being France and maybe China?

France did a programme of nuclear power stations rather than the 1 or 2 offs that seem to be the norm elsewhere and that seems to have worked pretty well.

I'd be surprised if HPC is competitive with solar + wind + BESS when it comes online but I could well be wrong

[mpweiher]

No, the exceptions are builds like HPC.

The average build time is currently 6.5 years. The median is lower at 5.8. The variations across both time and space of those average are neither large nor particularly systematic.

There have always been outliers, so if you focus on those you can "prove" anything you like.

https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...

[ViewTrick1002]

Which for western construction creates a dataset weighted around ~1980. Not sure why that is relevant half a century later?

Instead taking the average of all modern western construction and we get close to 15 years.

With the recent insanely subsidies european projects being proposed even the initial timeline calls for a ~10 years build time. Assuming everything goes to plan.

[tatref]

In France, the last construction is Flamanville EPR. It is at least 5 times over budget and 15 years late

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Pl...

[tuetuopay]

We’ve had our share of anti-nuclear activists in France. The project got endlessly stalled, with shifting legislative grounds, and general opposition. Also, the general inefficiency and incompetence from Areva meant this was a match made in heaven (or hell, depends) to get nearly infinite delay.

[pfdietz]

Flamanville 3 failed because of screwups in the design and construction. What you're blaming the opposition for is exposing that and holding the nuclear people responsible. How dare they, right? /s

[natmaka]

> Flamanville 3 failed because of screwups in the design and construction

Indeed, and it is so undeniable that it is the official conclusion. Source (French): https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/media/organes-parleme...

[natmaka]

At least 5 times, indeed: it was due to cost 3.3 billion euros, its cost to date is 23.7, it it not running at full power and a major update (reactor cover) is already planned.

https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2025/01/14/epr-de-fl...

[mpweiher]

And even that absolutely catastrophic nuclear construction project has a better ROI than any German intermittent renewables. After almost 25 years of renewable subsidies.

Note: catastrophic nuclear is still better than best renewables.

[ViewTrick1002]

Source please. That truly does not make sense given that renewable subsidies are being phased out around the world and renewables are the fastest growing energy source in human history.

In contrast nuclear power is backsliding, and the few projects which get green lit have insanely large subsidies attached.

[mpweiher]

> That truly does not make sense

Reality doesn't have to make sense to you.

> renewable subsidies are being phased out around the world

Nope. Countries are trying to phase out renewables subsidies. And failing. Recently, the UK, Denmark and Germany have had offshore-wind sales with exactly zero bids.

> fastest growing energy source in human history.

People love those delicious subsidies.

> In contrast nuclear power is backsliding

Nope.

> and the few projects which get green lit have insanely large subsidies attached.

Only in markets that have been thoroughly distorted by subsidies and other preferential treatment for intermittent renewables.

[Nursie]

It won’t be competitive with anything.

But that’s OK, Theresa May signed a guarantee that they’d get paid an uncompetitive price by the taxpayer, regardless.

[ZeroGravitas]

But that expensive guaranteed price still wasn't enough to cover the actual costs and the EdF CFO resigned in protest.

Once that became too obvious to deny, after the French government had renationalised EdF, they were begging the UK government to give them more money, possibly buried in the contract for the second plant build.

For that build they stopped using CFD, a financial instrument designed for nuclear but which has massively helped renewables, be ause it couldn't hide the nuclear cost overruns. They're now charging electricity users in advance for the nuclear they are going to build with no guarantee of eventual costs.

[looofooo0]

South Korean company build a NPP in 7 years in Saudi Arabia.

[mpweiher]

United Arab Emirates.

Fastest build times are Japan with under 4 years.

Germany built its Konvois in just shy of 6 years.

Just before we stopped building altogether.

France built 50+ reactors in 15 years.

We know how to build nuclear quickly, reliably and (relatively) cheaply. We also know how to do it slowly, eratically and expensively.

Fortunately the former comes almost but not entirely automatically with building lots of them.

[natmaka]

During the past 25 years there were projects aiming at building industrial nuclear reactors. They all ended badly (canceled, way over budget or delay...).

[mpweiher]

That's completely false.

The Konvois in Germany were extremely successful.

France built 50+ reactors in 15 years from a standing start.

[natmaka]

> South Korean company build a NPP in 7 years in Saudi Arabia.

Barakah (delivered March 2024) was late (by about 3 years?), undersold (KEPCO hadn't any other ongoing project and the Korean government at the time wanted a nuclear phase-out) and various tricks are now known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal

[pzo]

but comparing to solar / wind there you also have to factor batteries production, battery replacement, wind turbine replacement and recycling (they are not easily recyclable), cleaning solar panels etc.

[gnatolf]

'recyclable' is such a vague term. E.g. radiation-affected typically easily recycled materials are very hard to deal with (think e.g. pipe steel from power plants) and are effectively non-recyclable, instead of close to 100% recyclable, as their non-contaminated counterparts.

Opposed to that, battery recycling is mostly hard to deal with in terms of economics, and admittedly the chemistry involved is complex, but at least from a technical point of view, plenty of solutions are available - and the tech is coming in relatively quickly now that the demand is there (remember, first generation EVs are just now getting closer to EOL).

It's slightly amusing that recycling of a wind turbine is treated as if it was a big deal - yes the laminated rotor parts can't be part of circular economies, but the total material amount of this laughably small. All the metal components are very easily recycled.

[pzo]

I'm talking about wind turbine wings. A lot of stuff is fiberglass and have to be buried.

[natmaka]

In many Western nations bury them is now forbidden. Most are burnt in cement kilns (producing useful heat).

In France, 95% of the mass of a wind turbine must be recycled (legal obligation), the concrete base is not spared and the law requires wind farm operators to lock (upfront) a financial guarantee (deposit).

Recyclable blades are appearing (RecyclableBlade, ZEBRA, PECAN...) and even existing ones are being considered: https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/02/08/newly-discovered-che...

According to EDF (multinational electric utility company owned by the government of France, the giant in France, owning and operating all nuke plants) 94% of a solar panel is recyclable. In France most of it is already recycled.

[gnatolf]

Yea, I know. Their volume may look impressive, the actual amount of material is quite small and 'burying' that absolutely non-toxic stuff isn't any problem.

[zekrioca]

They are easily recyclable. Nuclear isn’t, unless of course you have a 24/7 protected and monitored by 100’s of people storage place to keep all that safe for the next 10000 years. Very ‘cheap’ indeed.

[JackSlateur]

From a technical point of view, nuclear waste is a solved problem. The issue is political.

Ibidem for the fuel: yes, you can depends on wild countries; You can also depends on Australia, Canada and India, which seems like not-so-bad countries (in my opinion);

[natmaka]

> From a technical point of view, nuclear waste is a solved problem

When it comes to nuclear waste repositories real experts official publish: "Internationally, it is understood that there is no reliable scientific basis for predicting the process or likelihood of inadvertent human intrusion."

Source: https://international.andra.fr/sites/international/files/201...

[JackSlateur]

I have no idea how this information relates to the parent post;

[natmaka]

A problem with nuclear waste is that living being (especially human beings) must not be exposed to it.

[JackSlateur]

Yes

Like magma, sulfuric acid, mercurium, lead, basically thousands of stuff

You eat it, you die

[baobabKoodaa]

You're being obtuse on purpose and that's not nice. Could you please just respond to the argument in a good faith manner rather than pretend you don't understand the argument?

[zekrioca]

Solved problem? Have you ever waited 10000 years to see if the waste really decomposes and the area where it was stored is safe for kids to play?

[JackSlateur]

Ergo FBR, no 10000y+ nuclear waste, problem solved

(there is still very low amount of waste that have a long half-life, really not a big deal)

[dgellow]

How is it not economically viable given it is actively used since multiple decades in France? I also disagree with saying it is the cheapest, in practice it is actually pretty expensive compared to solar and wind, but economically nuclear makes a lot of sense, it fits a really good role in the grid

[uecker]

Just that it is used does not mean it is economically viable if the government is deeply involved - which is the case in France.

[dgellow]

That’s not how economic viability works. EDF posted €11.4bn net profit in 2024[0] and France is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity precisely because nuclear is economically viable.

Government involvement doesn’t negate viability, it enables it, just like with roads, ports, or any other infrastructure requiring long-term capital deployment.

0: https://www.enerdata.net/publications/daily-energy-news/fran...

[jeroenhd]

Until we solve the long-term energy storage problem that renewable sources have, we're going to need a backup of some sort. Something you can turn up late at night in the middle of winter.

So far the cleanest solution we've come up with is gas plants, but gas plants made Europe extremely dependent on Russia. The alternatives are oppressive regimes or the US, which has been starting trade wars seemingly out of boredom.

Nuclear fuel, on the other hand, is exported not only by Kazachstan, but also Canada and Australia. In terms of "countries you don't want to depend on", I'd rather have Canada than Qatar.

I'm not sure if the economics still work out if you factor in the ineffective, half-assed Russian sanctions that have Europe fund Russia's war economy. The only alternative is probably coal, but only if you don't hold coal to the same standards in terms of waste disposal and nuclear exposure of the public as nuclear plants.

Nuclear isn't cheap, in part because it's become a niche market only some countries still participate in, but the politics and large-scale economics aren't as bad as the anti-nuclear crowd make them seem. They'd probably be bad for America, because the mighty oil industry stands to lose money and they'd need to import their fuel, but for countries already importing their fuel the balance is completely different.

Infuriatingly, the crowd that wants to do something about global warming also seems to think every nuclear reactor is going full Chernobyl within the decade. All of the parties I even consider voting for are staunch anti-nuclear activists for no documented reason other than "we don't like it".

[Nursie]

> we're going to need a backup of some sort. Something you can turn up late at night in the middle of winter.

AFAICT this is not really nuclear. They excel at constant production, not switch ability to fill in around renewables.

[tomatocracy]

Nuclear can be turned up and down relatively easily. It's on/off that takes a long time. And you can supplement nuclear with pumped storage hydro to steepen its turn up/down curve in extremis.

[jcattle]

The less a traditional nuclear reactor contributes to the grid the worse its economics.

If you have a nuclear reactor you want to run it 24/7 at max output for it to make any economic sense. Otherwise you have all your fixed costs which need to be offset by the few hours that the reactor is actually selling energy, making this energy even more expensive.

[natmaka]

> Nuclear can be turned up and down relatively easily

TLDR: it doesn't work this way.

Detailed version: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41796580

[pqtyw]

What's the point though? Isn't the variable cost of nuclear very low in relative terms?

[retinaros]

sure state funded solar panel that you need to change every 10 year and batteries with rare minerals are cheaper.

[looofooo0]

Not true, lifetime is longer and there are no rare earth elements in battery cells themself. Rare earth are not really rare btw.

[zekrioca]

Solar panels can now last as far as 30 years.