[lisper]

The problem is that stopping nuclear activity has ancillary effects -- like increased carbon emissions -- that are potentially much more harmful than the radiation. The results of technological decisions are never independent of one another.

[PaulHoule]

Don't forget

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturally_occurring_radioactiv...

considerable amounts of low-level radiation is emitted by fossil fuel production and use as well as and construction materials.

[Zigurd]

In theory. But in fact, attempting to build nuclear power plants results in big increases in electric rates, and the supposed benefits of nuclear power end up being delayed by many years and in many cases decades.

The effect of trying and failing to build nuclear power plants on time and on budget uses up many billions in capital that could've been applied to reliable delivery of renewables.

Even the supposedly efficient French nuclear power program vastly underestimated decommissioning costs.

In other words project risk for nuclear is hideously expensive, even when you think you've dodged project risk problems, there's another whole very expensive project in decommissioning that has its own set of project risks.

[lisper]

> attempting to build nuclear power plants results in big increases in electric rates

Largely due to the costs of complying with draconian regulatory regimes.

[Zigurd]

I know a thing or two about project management and I can tell you that the modularity of modern reactor design failed to deliver on de-risking nuclear reactor construction projects. Building modules offsite seems like a good idea on the surface but the problem is that if they're delivered out of order or if they need rework you've made the on-site construction problem 3X harder and more expensive.

You might be thinking "But China!" China also over developed a number of ghost cities full of empty apartment towers so take their claims of an efficient nuclear power construction project with a grain of salt. Even in China, solar and wind projects come online faster, at a lower cost per kilowatt hour, and the projects are completed on time.

[lisper]

> the modularity of modern reactor design failed to deliver

So? Just because one particular approach failed doesn't mean it's impossible.

My father was a nuclear engineer so this is something I happen to know something about. I can tell you from speaking to my father back when he was working (from the 1970s to the 1990s), the nuclear industry was lousy with politics, and there were many, many innovative ideas (his own included) that never saw the light of day because the political pressure against doing anything new with nuclear power was insurmountable.

The anti-nuclear lobby in the U.S. successfully killed nuclear power by 1) stopping all research and development and then 2) saying, "See? We told you it couldn't be done." Well, yeah, but the reason it couldn't be done was you, you idiots. And now we have climate change to deal with as a result, so thanks for that.

[Zigurd]

> the nuclear industry was lousy with politics...

It's that way because nuclear power plants are prestige projects. They are now so un competitive with the price of renewables that you can't blame over regulation. Without the politics no nuclear projects would get started because they're not investable.

It wasn't last week that renewables became vastly cheaper than nuclear. It's been this way for at least a couple of decades, and power customers in Georgia are taking it in the pants for having supported nuclear power. You can't blame climate change on a lack of nuclear power, and lead times are so long that nuclear stands no chance of making a dent in climate change.

Small modular reactors are also wishful thinking. We know what size reactor is the most economical and it isn't economical enough.

[lisper]

> you can't blame over regulation

I absolutely can. If nuclear power had not been over-regulated for 50 years the technology might be much more advanced now than it is. We will never know. It's kind of like pointing to the failure of public transportation in the U.S. and saying that this was inevitable, without taking into consideration the fact that there was a well-developed system of local rail before a criminal conspiracy of car, oil, and rubber companies dismantled it, making the poor quality of public transit into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The reason we don't have good public transit in the U.S. is not because it can't work but because we chose to force it not to work so that car, oil, and tire companies could make more money. It's the same with nuclear energy.

[antonvs]

Why do those regimes exist, do you think?

[shakow]

Because for some reason, our societies decided that cancer caused by radiation = bad, cancer caused by air pollution = OK.

[Paradigm2020]

Because rich people would be impacted by nuclear fallout in an unlikely event but are not impacted by fallout of daily coal/gas etc burning...

Also can read up on the bootleggers and baptist scenario that happened between the oil industry and greenpeace...