An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse • Hacker News Board

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#151

Post by anfilt » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 1:01 AM UTC

grawprog wrote: post #40

One thing I never really see brought into the nuclear energy equation that's fairly environmentally bad is uranium mining. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/longstaff1/ >Uranium mining facilities produce tailings that generally are disposed of in near surface impoundments close to the mine. These tailings pose serious environmental and health risks in the form of Randon emission, windblown dust dispersal a…

The energy density of uranium is so high that the amount you have to mine compared all the other metals that are mined for even renewables when building a power plant is tiny. Heck you can find rocks in the mountains of Montana and Colorado with so much natural uranium they have that greenish black color from so much natural uranium.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#152

Post by lamontcg » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 1:13 AM UTC

mamon wrote: post #140

lamontcg wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible to be both biased and correct. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_bias

Broken clock shows the right time twice a day. Biased people being correct is an exception, not the rule. We should be suspicious of people with know biases.

Well that's interesting in light of the obvious pro-nuclear bias of HN.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#153

Post by QuarterReptile » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 1:16 AM UTC

mike_d wrote: post #130

grawprog wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how directly comparable they are. How do you compare radioactive and chemical contamination to the kind of contamination from coal mines? Pollution isn't always a thing you can measure on a scale from bad to less bad. There's long term systemic effects from the countless contaminants released by industries around the world we barely have any idea about. I realize economic models, and fairly frighteningly…

In an exhaustive study of attributable deaths per TWH of power generated, nuclear is safer than wind and solar. Even when you factor in scary words like "radioactive contamination," people falling off roofs installing solar panels is still more dangerous. https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...

Worth mentioning that Chernobyl is included in this data. If someone has a worse long-tail risk in mind, it would be interesting to hear.

The risk from contamination is certainly below coal, which generates far greater quantities of RAM, with constituents being basically consistent with nuclear plant waste.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#154

Post by 2trill2spill » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 1:16 AM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #129

2trill2spill wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about the hidden cost of nuclear? The waste storage. The security measures (can't have terrorists walking off with the nuclear waste). The constant need for inspections, audits, etc. And that's before you consider the corruption and the gravy train that is basically associated with funding existing plants using massive amounts of public funding. Nothing wrong with pointing out issues/costs with nuclear, in fac…

> I think your missing the point. If you ran your entire grid on just solar and wind, no nuclear, or coal or natural gas peaker plants, you'll find that wind and solar is no longer cheap, and is much less resilient to exceptional circumstances. That kind of is my point: countries are doing this and without blackouts and it's actually fine. You seem to be claiming nuclear is needed to provide an unspecified base load…

> Your points about mining are a bit beside the point. I don't actually disagree that the mining sector needs to be cleaned up. But our economy generates demand for lots of things we dig up out of the ground. If anything, it seems that the likes of Tesla are vaguely being responsible here and are actually making efforts to clean up that part of their business by working to source what they need in a sustainable way.

Mining is not besides the point, mining is a potential major bottleneck for renewables and has huge environmental costs that should be discussed. Also Tesla is trying to reduce the ecological and human costs of producing battery metals by bringing production/mining to North America, and switching to battery chemistries that don't use cobalt. However those non cobalt battery chemistries use lots of nickel. Also it is becoming extremely difficult to start a mine in the United States. Polymet has been trying to get their copper/nickel mine permitted for over a decade, if you include exploration, which started in the 80's, this project has been going on for decades. Starting a new mine is a very slow process and as the whole world switches to clean energy, demand will surge and new mines will be needed.

> You seem to imply that a scale change is needed on the mining front to bootstrap renewables. I doubt that that's as big of a deal that you seem to imply.

There is plenty of research, articles and information about the incoming surge in demand for metals due to the switch to clean technologies. For example this report from the world bank says that production of some metals would need to increase by nearly 500%[1]

[1]: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/05/11/m...

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#155

Post by QuarterReptile » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

vimy wrote: post #78

rich_sasha wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, hence the “mostly”. For a variety of blocking reasons though, this is an unresolved (if not unresolvable) problem.

I don’t think we even need to store it. Nuclear waste has been sitting in regular storage for over 50 years now, seems to be perfectly safe. We should just keep doing what we’re doing. Why do we even need to bother putting it underground except for some unlikely what if scenarios 1000 years in the future.

Mostly corrosion. The half lives involved, combined with the great expense of safely adjusting these things after they're put to rest, means that you would really like something really dry and remote. Fear of contaminating ground water is incredibly sensible to me, at least. It'd be a hell of a thing to get Yucca Mountain un-cancelled...

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#156

Post by QuarterReptile » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

ic0n0cl4st wrote: post #84

aksss wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we’re trying to be honest here, that’s not an appropriate comparison. Properly disposed-of nuclear waste doesn’t necessarily cause these problems either. When you look at the physical footprint disparities (land-clearing) needed for commensurate solar power generation, rendering such land unusable and ecologically disrupted/destroyed, solar doesn’t come out smelling like roses these days either. If you’re lucky it…

Since you’re going to go there, let’s add in the damage from all the iron, that limestone and uranian required to build the nuclear plant? Also quite damaging. Photovoltaics, not the best. Now what about mirrors pointing at concrete towers moving liquid sodium around, like in Spain, or pointed at steel pipes filled with water. The pro-nuclear crowd have two things in common: 1. They have more faith in humanity than w…

>We can’t even contain plastic bags.

So definitely don't give radioactive waste away for free at checkouts.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#157

Post by lazide » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 1:30 AM UTC

vcdimension wrote: post #145

Hammershaft wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you compare the energy densities & land required there is nothing at all enormous about a nuclear plant. It is by far the most space efficient energy source we have (especially once you factor in the upstream footprint of mining & shipping ops)

That depends on how you measure land use; are you counting the amount of space that becomes otherwise unusable, i.e. the relatively small area occupied by the towers, or the entire area of the fields in which the wind turbines are placed? (which can still be used for other things like agriculture). Personally I think wind turbines look quite majestic, and I like to see them when I go for a drive in the countryside. T…

You don’t need to mine much land to get very large amounts of uranium - they tend to be underground mines, and produce a truly staggering amount of energy by mass mined. Tailings can be problematic - but even the largest uranium mines have had tiny tailings piles compared to even small wind farm footprints.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#158

Post by 2trill2spill » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 1:36 AM UTC

vcdimension wrote: post #145

Hammershaft wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you compare the energy densities & land required there is nothing at all enormous about a nuclear plant. It is by far the most space efficient energy source we have (especially once you factor in the upstream footprint of mining & shipping ops)

That depends on how you measure land use; are you counting the amount of space that becomes otherwise unusable, i.e. the relatively small area occupied by the towers, or the entire area of the fields in which the wind turbines are placed? (which can still be used for other things like agriculture). Personally I think wind turbines look quite majestic, and I like to see them when I go for a drive in the countryside. T…

What are you talking about? Wind turbines use substantial sums of copper and that requires mining on a scale much larger than uranium mining.[1]

[1]: https://copperalliance.org.uk/knowledge-base/education/educa...

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#159

Post by KMag » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

barneygale wrote: post #125

cheaprentalyeti wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, everyone was happy about how Texas scrapped so many coal plants and built so many windmills until it reached a cascade failure point and then the narrative shifted to "OMG, look at all the deregulation!"

Windmills? Are they making bread?

Yes. The big secret is they're hybrid windmills ;) The grain mills are separated from the wind turbines by electrical lines, unlike their mechanically-linked Dutch grain mill predecessors. Any excess electricity goes into BitFlour, a cryptocurrency that's "milled" instead of "mined".

(For those who missed it, the parent is asserting that "windmill" should be reserved for wind-powered mills.)

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#160

Post by GuB-42 » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 1:42 AM UTC

CarelessExpert wrote: post #10

stadia42 wrote: post #2

Note: I do not know if this argument against nuclear energy is valid. I'm submitting it in the hope that HN comments will help evaluate it.

Unfortunately you're more likely to just find confirmation bias here. The HN community (and the tech community in general) is predominantly pro-nuclear. Personally, I think this article raises great points. If we could rewrite history and have built a thriving nuclear power industry 20 years ago, we'd probably be in much better shape now, at least with respect to climate change But that's not what happened. Given the…

> Personally, I think this article raises great points. If we could rewrite history and have built a thriving nuclear power industry 20 years ago, we'd probably be in much better shape now, at least with respect to climate change

France did that. It is not perfect but I would call it a success. France CO2 emissions are low [1], electricity is affordable, and suffered no major accident. France is even able to recycle nuclear fuel, and is generally among the world leaders of everything nuclear.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?s...