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Comment by dboreham | Hacker News Reader

Because nuclear power plants and the associated fuel cycle industry is incredibly dangerous and the participants have consistently lied about that danger for all of history?

Note: not a tree hugger. I believe nuclear power (in conjunction with significant restrictions on consumption) must play a big part in decarbonization. But...so many lies for so long. Put down the Kool-Aid and admit these things are not safe and therefore need to be sited well away from human populations (as they were originally in the 1950s).

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If you want to have a more scientific approach to the security question, I strongly advise reading this book : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20579068-atomic-accident...

It's the history and detailed analysis of every nuclear accident, from the discovery of the radium to current days. You'll learn in passing that people used to drink radioactive cola to "improve" their health...

My main take away is that if you don't know exactly what you're doing, nuclear will kill you very very quickly. It's been quite reassuring about the security of existing plants

What's unsafe about the later generation plants and technology?

It sounds like the fuel utilization is at least 10 times more efficient?

Question: How many people does coal burning kill a year?

Will putting $10^x in nuclear save more lives then putting $10^x into renewables,grid updates and batteries?

You are proposing an intervention so it should be benchmarked against other interventions.

Hard to estimate that, when putting $10^x into nuclear for serious R&D may yield surprising results.

Also, why not benchmark $10^x in nuclear vs. $10^x in coal or fossil fuels?

> Hard to estimate that, when putting $10^x into nuclear for serious R&D may yield surprising results.

It might however that money could spend making solar panel factories for enxt gen solar cells which yields real results.

> Also, why not benchmark $10^x in nuclear vs. $10^x in coal or fossil fuels?

You can do that comparison, however since coal is not competitive in that metric you will not learn anything about how society should allocate money. We are proposing an intervention in the economy. We should try to only do the most efficient allocations.

Considering the current energy situation in Europe and America, I foresee $10^x going into coal/gas/fossil fuels soon.

So a 10^x investment now in atomic power will continue to do that for 10 years until that has an effect. (You will not develop a cheap new reactor type and build it out at scale with less then 10 years)

A 10^x investment in solar & storage now will curb the need for 10^x being spend on fossile stuff over the next 10 years.

True. Tesla just installed a huge solar farm and battery pack near Las Vegas. It will be interesting to see the grid of the future. I think it would be a shame if mankind never harnessed the power of the atom though.

With today's battery prices, I would expect nuclear to be cheaper if x is high enough.

Maybe in 10 years, batteries will be cheap enough for renewables to be competitive without relying on fossil fuels or hydro plants during cloudy days with no wind.

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