Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants • Hacker News Board

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#871

Post by Moldoteck » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:03 AM UTC

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #398

UltraSane wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"All left leaning parties and greens parties are strongly against nuclear" This is like firefighters opposing using water.

The time for nuclear power was 50 years ago. And it's sad due to unfounded fears and coal interests there weren't more built. I would love if historically we had build more nuclear power plants. I am against it now because we have other safer, cheaper, and more sustainable options.

the argument is always repeated and always false. Unless you like gas firming, nuclear must be expanded. Nuclear has lowest enviromental impact per UNECE

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#872

Post by Moldoteck » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:04 AM UTC

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #531

UltraSane wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" I am against it now because we have other safer, cheaper, and more sustainable options." Not if you want 100% reliable power with no CO2 emissions.

If you start a plant today, it's probably a decade before it comes online. At this point, solar is more than enough for most places if we invested in it and subsidized it like we do for coal and oil. Batteries are improving rapidly and another decade will be a massive difference. I just don't see it making sense to start a new plant.

it'll be just perfect in that period considering you also need firm power on top of vre and hydro is tapped

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#873

Post by Moldoteck » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:05 AM UTC

fsh wrote: post #641

thelastgallon wrote: post #567

Two things to keep in mind when thinking about nuclear 1) Has the lowest deaths/TWH: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... 2) Any country that is not US absolutely needs to invest in nuclear technology. This is for your own security. In addition to providing energy security, it also provides physical security (with a bit more work). Without nuclear, your country will remain vulnerable to: 1)…

With nuclear energy, you are dependent on whoever has uranium. This is not a theoretical risk, and already has political and economic consequences for the few countries with a large nuclear energy share [1]. It would be much worse if a significant amount of global energy was produced with nuclear energy. [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2023/08/04/h...

nuclear requires least amount of mining and materials per kwh. France already reoriented ore buying from other sources and the price is still dirt cheap. Canada has literally several stalled mines because market prices are too low

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#874

Post by Moldoteck » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:06 AM UTC

kubanczyk wrote: post #688

dgrin91 wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty nuclear, but I don't understand how having nuclear power prevents vulnerability to direct attack? If anything it would concentrate your risks - your energy now comes from fewer, more centralized and more fragile sources

> I'm pretty nuclear I'm atomic, FWIW. > how having nuclear power prevents vulnerability to direct attack? OP alluded to a well-known bonus capability of nuclear power plants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-239#Production

it's very hard to create plutonium for weapons this way due to parasitic isotopes. Much easier to have distributed enrichment or uranium.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#875

Post by Moldoteck » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:07 AM UTC

dgrin91 wrote: post #625

thelastgallon wrote: post #567

Two things to keep in mind when thinking about nuclear 1) Has the lowest deaths/TWH: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... 2) Any country that is not US absolutely needs to invest in nuclear technology. This is for your own security. In addition to providing energy security, it also provides physical security (with a bit more work). Without nuclear, your country will remain vulnerable to: 1)…

I'm pretty nuclear, but I don't understand how having nuclear power prevents vulnerability to direct attack? If anything it would concentrate your risks - your energy now comes from fewer, more centralized and more fragile sources

risks are concentrated with ren too. Where do you think most EU offshore is built? Where are most productive solar units? What you do with gas firming plants. You always have centralization problem at different levels. Prime example - most of Ukraine's ren capacity is either destroyed or conquered because it was in south where weather is better

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#876

Post by Moldoteck » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:08 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #572

thelastgallon wrote: post #567

Two things to keep in mind when thinking about nuclear 1) Has the lowest deaths/TWH: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... 2) Any country that is not US absolutely needs to invest in nuclear technology. This is for your own security. In addition to providing energy security, it also provides physical security (with a bit more work). Without nuclear, your country will remain vulnerable to: 1)…

This. Any country without nuclear weapons is at the mercy of those that do. It's just strategic. Might as well get some clean energy out of it.

you can get weapons for much cheaper without power plants

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#877

Post by Moldoteck » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:10 AM UTC

Kon5ole wrote: post #817

thelastgallon wrote: post #567

Two things to keep in mind when thinking about nuclear 1) Has the lowest deaths/TWH: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... 2) Any country that is not US absolutely needs to invest in nuclear technology. This is for your own security. In addition to providing energy security, it also provides physical security (with a bit more work). Without nuclear, your country will remain vulnerable to: 1)…

>Has the lowest deaths/TWH One should also keep in mind that it has the highest potential deaths per TWh.

still no. Highest is from coal. Entire chernobyl deaths are expected to be about 4k per old UN estimations or much less per recent UNSCEAR reports. That's for decades span. And Chernobyl was a design that the west wouldn't even allow back then... Now check coal...

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#878

Post by Moldoteck » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:10 AM UTC

muth02446 wrote: post #614

thelastgallon wrote: post #567

Two things to keep in mind when thinking about nuclear 1) Has the lowest deaths/TWH: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... 2) Any country that is not US absolutely needs to invest in nuclear technology. This is for your own security. In addition to providing energy security, it also provides physical security (with a bit more work). Without nuclear, your country will remain vulnerable to: 1)…

Without nuclear, your country will remain vulnerable to: 4) renewable energy disruptions, e.g. supervolcano eruption, large meteor strike

5) gas dependency for firming

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#879

Post by Moldoteck » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:11 AM UTC

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #630

thelastgallon wrote: post #567

Two things to keep in mind when thinking about nuclear 1) Has the lowest deaths/TWH: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... 2) Any country that is not US absolutely needs to invest in nuclear technology. This is for your own security. In addition to providing energy security, it also provides physical security (with a bit more work). Without nuclear, your country will remain vulnerable to: 1)…

I tracked down the source once and almost all of the fossil fuel deaths boiled down to deaths due to particulate matter in developing countries. It is highly preventible and only occurs because of no oversight or corruption. If we scale nuclear and have profit maximisation as objective and have no standards in factory, it will have significantly worse fate.

Didn't know Germany is a developing country https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-025-01002-z

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#880

Post by Moldoteck » Sat, Jun 20, 2026, 10:13 AM UTC

Arodex wrote: post #29

IAmBroom wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> building new nuclear power plants will be too expensive and too late, since we'll have figured out a renewable energy concept that'll handle the load by then. That's a helluva prediction. Thorium reactors would be practically limitless in fuel supply, but we aren't getting them without seriously funded nuclear research. That is far less likely during a band on commercial stations.

>Thorium reactors The same reactors nuclear powers with decades of experience haven't deployed? We will get two or three revolutions in solar power and battery technology before a single thorium reactor is viable. You could invest all the R&D budget of thorium reactors in perovskite panels and it would generate more MW per CHF invested.

it was mostly because PWR's are cheaper. But Thorium is advancing https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/first-criticality-fo...

You don't need only MW but MW at requested time