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Comment by Derbasti | Hacker News Reader

I guess it is pretty obvious that a non-nuclear energy strategy will definitely result in higher energy prices in the short term. That said, some people might be comfortable with this as long as the price increase is moderate.

In the long run however, renewable energy sources are absolutely the way to go. It might actually pay off nicely to invest a lot of resources in renewable energy early on and come out ahead of the pack once coal, uranium, gas and oil become more expensive.

Whether or not Germany will actually be able to carry this off and reap the benefits of it will remain to be seen, though.

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I agree..except that's assuming a static world for the next decade. Both China and India are intently looking into Thorium reactors (and the US sorta is)...that's where I'd put my money too.

Yup. Thorium fuel cycle is the holy grail of Indian nuclear research. Its the main focus if not the only major focus. This could change but with our investments in renewable energy and closed thorium cycle, we could be looking at a more cleaner future for the world.

As for the risks associated with the nuclear power, its clearly a necessary risk. India consumes 1/25th of the American per capita consumption. Even assuming we consume less than US that's a lot of new electricity that has to be added to the grid. Something renewable energy can't provide. I would rather have us build reactors than coal plants. Of course all bets are off, if we ever tame fusion.

http://www.physorg.com/news205141972.html http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/19093.asp

That's why I actually like seeing the negative sentiment around current nuclear reactors. Because this way the status quo can be broke, and they will actually look int other safer technologies and put their money on them to improve them faster. I'd prefer if we'd use mostly only such power from the sun or wind, but I'm open minded enough to accept a safer nuclear power option such as Thorium based reactors.

And as a human race working with atoms like that is probably inevitable anyway, but we just need to make sure we choose the right paths. Perhaps the Uranium one wasn't the very best path. Hopefully we can even make fusion reactors in a few decades.

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