[vasco]

Solar and wind take up a bunch of space and generate a bunch of waste after the panels are decommissioned, plus the wind generators are ruining every single landscape we have. With 5 nuclear stations per country you could cleanup so much of Europe.

[leonidasrup]

The environmental damage caused by "clean" power sources is done mostly in countries which are far from Europe, so it's not much discussed in Europe.

Like:

Copper. "As the world shifts to wind energy and electric cars, demand for the conductive metal has increased. But mining copper brings its own environmental hazards"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/09/copper-minin...

Impacts of lithium mining on water stressed regions in Chile

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jan/01/c...

Impacts of rare earth refining in China.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/business/china-rare-earth...

silicon tetrachloride from solar production

https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=831

Europe should not outsource it's ecological impact to developing countries.

[dawnerd]

And the person you replied to probably doesn’t realize spent nuclear fuel has really no where to go other than long term storage.

[constantius]

They probably are aware of nuclear waste and of the modalities of dealing with it, and still believe that not investing into nuclear is shooting yourself in the foot.

FYI, a typical 1GW nuclear plant produces 30 tons, or 10m3, of high-level waste. Germany uses ~500TWh of electricity per year. So Germany could replace all their electricity generation with 60 nuclear plants and would need to find space for 1800 tons or 5km3 of waste per year.

For comparison, German landfills can accommodate 70M metric tons per year.

France, a country famous for its investment into nuclear, is not covered in nuclear waste, and does not seem to have any issue disposing of it safely.

Nuclear has its disadvantages, but painting the many people who advocate for it on HN as delusional or ignorant is not very respectful.

[dawnerd]

Solar doesn’t produce that much waste either and that was the point. Just because you don’t see the nuclear waste doesn’t mean it isn’t sitting there somewhere. The person was acting as if clean energy is dirty via its waste. For the record I’m all for nuclear - it’s insane we’ve regressed so much and not invested into more. But it’s also insane we’re not taking more advantage of green energy where we can.

[leonidasrup]

Most of the solar panels are pretty non-dangerous waste (cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar panels are dangerous waste, but are currently only small part of installed solar panels).

Silicon tetrachloride used for silicon production is toxic and has to handled carefully.

The main point is that, if Europe wants to invest more in solar power, it should also do the manufacturing in Europe and waste disposal in Europe.

[qlte]

Sure, I don't disagree with the ideal of onshoring more manufacturing for solar, but then the same standard should be applied to the entire supply chain of all forms of power generation. Frequently those negative externalities seem to be most often raised as a "gotcha" for solar specifically, in an attempt to rebut the clear environmental advantages.

For example, nuclear power is often sold as a plant that just sits there churning out zero-emissions power for 50 years from a few tons of super energy dense fuel (such as from the above commenter). Without acknowledging that fuel needs to be enriched from intensive and environmentally destructive mining of raw uranium ore. Which comes with risks to workers and possible contamination of groundwater to nearby communities, etc. Or the carbon impacts of the massive amounts of concrete/steel/etc that are required to build the plant, or the opportunity costs of spending tens of billions on a plant that will require continuing to burn natural gas and coal for another 10-20+ years until it comes online as a replacement, etc.

Otherwise it's just special pleading to apply a different standard that exaggerates the negative externalities of solar + batteries.

[Shitty-kitty]

Of course, that's money that is not going to go to slowing global warming.

[constantius]

Fair. I've seen the use of nuclear waste to derail conversations about nuclear so often that I reacted without looking at the context, sorry.

[vasco]

You know those big fields of panels in China? Where do you think they all will end up at the end of 25 years? To talk about nuclear waste is to be intentionally lying, nuclear waste amount generated is TINY.

[59percentmore]

How many tons does it take to make a dirty bomb that irradiates a city center or small downtown? To poison an aquifer when storage fails? How much does it cost to make sure neither of these events, or any other similar hypothetical, doesn't happen, not even once?

[constantius]

As far as I know, it hasn't happened, not even once.

Your objection appeals to emotions, not to reason. The very kind of objection that has enabled fossil fuels to be seen as less dangerous. FYI, nuclear energy has killed single digits of people. Fossil fuels kill around 10M annually through pollution alone.

Granted, your lament aims to make people privilege clean energy over nuclear, but in nature it is still the kind of thought-terminating fearmongering that gets us surveillance to protect children, so I object on principle.

[59percentmore]

You're attributing elements to my post that don't exist in it. I think this is perhaps projection.

Further, as a proponent of nuclear power, you should be aware of the eforts that have gone into preventing deaths from the multiple nuclear plant accidents that have taken place. This is in part because of an awareness that a single major accident would kill support for nuclear power globally. The more plants exist, the higher the probability of this. It is therefore in the best interests of nuclear power proponents to limit its share and to replace the majority of fossil fuel power with clean renewables.

[linkregister]

Distracts from the much larger environmental impacts of coal, oil, and nat gas production, which is much higher on a per-capita basis.

Comparisons should be made for replacements.

[triceratops]

Is mining and refining uranium or oil free of environmental impacts? Does Europe currently have or do either?

[qlte]

  > plus the wind generators are ruining every single landscape we have.

This feels, uh, wildly overstated.

[sensanaty]

Not to mention completely subjective, I personally love the look of windmills, and I live in the Netherlands in a location where I see windmills (and I don't mean the old-timey ones, the big power generating kind) everywhere around me for miles. It's certainly prettier to watch than smoke stacks.

[vasco]

For people that stay inside all day on the computer I can see why

[linkregister]

Loses argument, insults commenter

[vasco]

Losing is a state of mind