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Comment by chromanoid | Hacker News Reader

As a German, to me it feels like a direct result of realistic cold war fears regarding nuclear war (by association) and actually living through the consequences of Chernobyl... https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/nachrichtenfoto/closed-off... https://newsroom.iza.org/en/archive/research/how-the-chernob... https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/accident-management/emergen...

The biggest problem I personally have with nuclear energy is that I don't trust companies nor states to deal with radioactive substances responsibly, especially with a rapidly aging population (see also https://youtu.be/ZSRHeXYDLko ). Do you? Theoretical safety is irrelevant when it comes to people. Just think about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accide...

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Opposing nuclear energy is the same as supporting climate change because the only alternative to nuclear base load is coal or gas. This is why Germany emits 6 times more CO2 per kWh than France. If humanity was sane and rational we would have replaced coal with nuclear a long time ago.

Climate change activists opposing nuclear energy is like firefighters opposing water.

> If humanity was sane and rational

That is exactly my point. If humanity was sane and rational I wouldn't be concerned about nuclear energy, because I would trust organizations to deal with it. But I do not trust organizations to handle this. In countries with vast space radioactive waste management might be negligible, but in Europe contamination affects more people immediately.

> Climate change activists opposing nuclear energy is like firefighters opposing water.

No, it's more like firefighters opposing AFFF. https://www.drugwatch.com/news/2021/02/22/firefighters-file-...

Your concern over the risks of nuclear energy should be inversely proportional to how severe you think the risk of climate change caused by CO2 emissions is going to be.

This is a false dichotomy.

Then why is Germany emitting 6 times the CO2 per kWh than France is?

Because Germany chose the wrong technologies at the wrong time. Water, Wind, Solar, Nuclear, Gas, Coal is probably a good priority list...

THERE IS NO REPLACEMENT FOR NUCLEAR for powering a country with low CO2 electricity. All the countries with the the lowest CO2 per kWh of electricity generated use nuclear and/or hydro. That isn't an accident. Germans just refuse to accept this due to their almost religious hatred of nuclear energy.

Country where the Chernobyl actually is has no problem with continuing to use nuclear power. Hell, the Chernobyl itself was still working till 2000.

When you look at these countries right now, this does not reassure me. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/close-call-ukrainian-nu...

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