Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

I think this is a rather inaccurate characterization and we need to be a bit more nuanced here. I'm going to address this out of order, and first with the power shortage.

Power shortage:

I'd actually argue that nuclear power played an extremely important role since the invasion of Ukraine. Remember that France is the second largest exporter of electricity in Europe[0], just a hair behind Germany (#3 (Sweden) is half of #2, number 4 is half of #3) (it is also worth considering that France's electricity is almost an order of magnitude lower in emissions[1]). It is also worth considering which countries were reliant upon Russian gas, and France had low reliance whereas Germany had a high dependency[2,3] and remember that Europe would still be importing gas from Russia if they could[4]. Germany also had increased reliance on Russian gas over the last 20 years, and had a sharp increase in gas intake post 2011 (Fukushima)[5].

So let's put it this way: Europe hit a energy crisis where Russian gas played a major role[6] (but to be clear, not the only). Who picks up the slack? What what does that country use to generate most of its electricity?

Lack of plants:

A problem here is that in Europe only a handful of plants have gone into operation in the last 20 years. Ukraine got two (2005 and 2006), Romania got one in 2007, Belarus got one in '21, Finland got one a week ago, and that's it. 5 reactors in 20 years[7]. The majority of the existing reactors came online in the 80s. Yes, there's been several proposals but nuclear power has long been politically contentious, especially in Europe. See Germany who only even considered stopping their shutdowns (which were politically motivated) due to the power crisis. You'll notice that most environmental scientists suggest shutting down all fossil fuels before nuclear, but this was not the path taken. While yes, this does technically mean that you're right in that nuclear didn't come to the rescue but I'd argue that this is akin to saying that a hammer isn't useful in woodworking because you never took it out of the toolbox. This is not the same as (properly) using the hammer and it failing to meet the demands of the task. Or maybe a different analogy we can say is that it is unfair to claim a consumable resource (plants need to be replaced, including renewables) is useless when you do not replace that resource for decades. We're not going to talk about costs of plants because I expect everyone on HN to understand scale, momentum, and working knowledge are all significant factors.

Now there is another factor that plays an important role, and this conversation can't happen in good faith without mentioning it: France's "nuclear crisis"[8]. This was an unfortunate event and a "perfect storm" if you will. So we know most of these reactors have been operating since the 80's, it is only natural to expect repairs. Unfortunately in early 2020 there was a global pandemic and in response many planned outages were delayed or reduced in 2021[9], with the expectation that a lot of the slack could be picked up in 2022. Unfortunately, a certain country invaded another country and the invading country had an control over one of the major power sources of that Europe.

Conversations about nuclear power are often terrible online. Neither the nuclear bros nor the anti-nuclear bros are arguing from a scientific perspective. Both climate and nuclear energy are incredibly complex and nuanced issues. First order approximations are not "good enough" and what many claim is "common sense" or "obvious" isn't (and obvious post hoc isn't obvious in situ). To be clear, the scientific consensus has been to focus on renewables but not take nuclear off the table (note that this is not the position you find either camp arguing for online). While nuclear bros often advocate for high levels of nuclear power, no reasonable energy/climate scientist would suggest this. Similarly, no reasonable energy/climate scientist will say that nuclear should be rejected while we're still using fossil fuels (the argument is if we need nuclear or not for a future world of zero carbon energy production, but this is highly nuanced). Nuclear bros argue for thorium breeder reactors due to their lower waste levels and proliferation risk, not knowing that these are not major concerns in the community and can be solved in other ways. Anti-nuclear bros argue about cost but ignore the build-out issue, history, progression of nuclear technology, and the polarizing political sphere surrounding the issue. While I am certain that most, if not all, these comments are well intentioned and people are trying to make the world a better place, that does not mean that the arguments are being done in good faith (high confidence + low domain knowledge = bad faith).

I frequently argue (including here on HN) that this over confidence and tribalism prevents actually resolving these issues. I've provided a lot of resources here and I think everyone should be careful in how they discuss complex subjects online. I understand that many of you are passionate, but make sure that this passion isn't tribal. If you're really passionate about something then you'll invest a proportional amount of energy to learn about the subject. Are you passionate about fixing problems or expressing you opinion? Are your opinions able to be changed or are you just "educating" others? We live in a highly specialized world, it is not a demerit on your intelligence to not be knowledgeable in a specific domain, but it is to speak confidently about domains you have no expertise in. Let's all try to encourage this behavior and hold ourselves to high standards. This happens in every nuclear thread and I hope we can learn to be better than Reddit.

[0] https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/electricity_export...

[1] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/FR

[2] https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/07/19/blog-how-a-...

[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/how-much-does-germany-n...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_in_the_European_energy_...

[5] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/key-challenges-ha...

[6] https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/research/europe-energy-cri...

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_reactors_in_Euro...

[8] https://web.archive.org/web/20230307020200/https://www.nytim...

[9] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...

Can we stop making this argument? It is an extremely bad faith argument. There have only been two accidents of commercial reactors in the history of nuclear power that led to the loss of lives. The likely value is well under 10k (Yes, there's more nuance to this, but we also need to recognize the actual level of danger. These arguments pretend that scientific knowledge has not changed over 80 years. These arguments pretend that there are no deaths and/or environmental concerns with other energy sources (literally every one has these concerns). They ignore the cost of carbon and other environmental damage of the source's lifetime. Most importantly, these arguments pretend that all incidents are equally as dangerous.

Can we please just stop? There are a lot of valid criticisms of nuclear power, but making lazy arguments just results in fighting. Talk about costs, reliance on fuel, the possibility of not even needing them, or any other points (argue with nuance). The public is (sadly) not well informed about nuclear nor most scientific concepts in general, although many members have high confidence in their cursory understanding. (The thesis here applies to a lot of other scientific domains btw, including: climate, health, and even evolution) We need to have real conversations about these issues as there is a lot on the line. Complex issues require complex discussions.

There’s just not that much nuclear material in a given bomb (and the whole point is to release as much energy as possible as quickly as possible), whereas Chernobyl is dangerous because the elephants foot is gigantic and still uranium.