“Picking losers:” Choosing nuclear over renewables and efficiency will make climate crisis worse

6 comments

1. *Sarcastically*: Nah, It’s fine. Fukushima is up and running! Still pumping all that lovely radiation directly into the ocean for all life on earth for the foreseeable future.
   Humans *ABSOLUTELY* should be trusted with more nuclear facilities! *ESPECIALLY CAPITALISTS*!!

   *End Sarcasm*

2. Nuclear has become that awkward topic I can’t discuss with most of my friends. It’s a weird blind spot for environmentally conscious people.

3. The argument in this article is that nuclear isn’t cheap or fast. The price and speed of nuclear deployment is highly dependent on the market in which it is deployed – i.e. the cost of capital, the regulatory environment and whether there is a learning curve that can be walked up or whether each is a first of a kind. Nuclear absolutely *can* be deployed cheap and fast, like it was in the US in the 70’s and is today in South Korea. Many of the world’s nuclear power plants were built for less than $1000/kW in today’s dollars, which is on par with solar. Modern reactors can theoretically be even cheaper, in fact substantially cheaper, since they take advantage of passive safety systems instead of expensive-to-engineer active safety systems. They can also be built much faster. If we as a society choose to support the development of such systems, encourage our regulators to adjust rules developed for the older-style reactors to make sense for modern reactors, and support the development of the modern reactors past the first of a kind, then we can have abundant, cheap, safe, scalable nuclear power.

4. Tell that to Beta Max and HD DVD.

5. Ironically anti-nuclear environmentalists helped preserve fossil fuel dominance. New nuclear seems kinda pointless at this point given current timeline of permitting requirements and construction. Nuclear could have helped a lot 20 or 30 years ago

6. So, when we have Earth’s Third World War, and the nuke planets can not be maintained due to parts and power delivery systems failures… Do we burn holes in the stratosphere, and irradiate the biosphere?

   Nuclear power is awesome and can power a civilization. It just can’t power ours.