An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

&gt;However, many of the measures needed for energy efficiency are now cheaper than the basic operating costs of nuclear power plants.<p>Yes, blackouts are cheaper than electricity.<p>&gt;The second point is that renewables today have become so cheap that in many cases they are below the basic operating costs of nuclear power plants.<p>Prohibiting new plants by law has a way of doing that, with aging mechanisms that fail catastrophically instead of being gracefully shut down in favor of new ones.<p>And his explanation isn&#x27;t to justify these claims, but to blame political opponents. Sad!

One thing I never really see brought into the nuclear energy equation that&#x27;s fairly environmentally bad is uranium mining.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;large.stanford.edu&#x2F;courses&#x2F;2017&#x2F;ph241&#x2F;longstaff1&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;large.stanford.edu&#x2F;courses&#x2F;2017&#x2F;ph241&#x2F;longstaff1&#x2F;</a><p>&gt;Uranium mining facilities produce tailings that generally are disposed of in near surface impoundments close to the mine. These tailings pose serious environmental and health risks in the form of Randon emission, windblown dust dispersal and leaching of contaminants including heavy metals and arsenic into the water.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.epa.gov&#x2F;radtown&#x2F;radioactive-waste-uranium-mining-and-milling" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.epa.gov&#x2F;radtown&#x2F;radioactive-waste-uranium-mining...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;books&#x2F;NBK201052&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;books&#x2F;NBK201052&#x2F;</a><p>Nuclear energy still requires fuel. The impacts and costs from mining operations and refining should be taken into account when comparing to other energy sources. They are part of it. Nuclear energy can&#x27;t exist without it.

So... it’s a massive problem that there is no storage for nuclear waste (mostly agree) but not even worth mentioning there is no <i>energy</i> storage for renewables?<p>Coming from a cold, dark country with long and cloudy winters and no oceanic coast, it drives me mad when people point at the Med or California and say “look how cheap solar and wind is”.

Looks like Mycle Schneider, the lead author, is a founding member of WISE-Paris, which is the French branch of the anti-nuclear group WISE, which he directed from 1983 to 2003. [wikipedia]

why is nuclear waste such a big problem? in terms of m^3 the amount is rather small, and I feel like we&#x27;re not discussing what&#x27;s gonna happen with old solar panels. Is there a way to recycle them &#x2F; how good is it? The article doesn&#x27;t mention it. As for the nuclear storage problem, from my point of view it seems more like the biggest problem is that people don&#x27;t want it near them even though it&#x27;s stored hundreds of meters below surface, and they rather accept a factory and directly breathe the stuff from it

Note: I do not know if this argument against nuclear energy is valid. I&#x27;m submitting it in the hope that HN comments will help evaluate it.

Mycle Schneider isn’t a trustworthy source. He’s an anti-nuclear activist with a clear agenda and a history of misrepresenting or obfuscating facts about the industry and its inherent danger.

Sensational title.<p>&gt; every euro invested in new nuclear power plants makes the climate crisis worse because now this money cannot be used to invest in efficient climate protection options.<p>This is a weak argument.<p>The article makes a good point, which is that renewable costs in some countries are lower than nuclear operating costs. But this alone does not justify the claim that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse.<p>Then the article delves into politicking. I get the feeling that that was the original intended goal of the piece.

&gt;nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse<p>Could be if it delays or prevents addressing the real roots of the problem such as overpopulation and extreme lack of energy conservation.<p>Fukushima is nature&#x27;s way of reminding us to conserve or live to regret it eventually.<p>No one has yet been able to even locate the still-molten fuel, I know its only been 10 short years and it&#x27;s not supposed to be easy or even possible with today&#x27;s limited nuclear technology. Good thing it has such a long half-life so there&#x27;s plenty of time remaining to figure this out over the next 24,000 years. As all engineers know, when deadlines are too short it can lead to unaddressed consequences.<p>Regardless since the nuclear option exists there will always be a significant faction of enthusiasts who will die eventually without regretting it at all.<p>Most regrets will occur in a future these enthusiasts (or anybody else) can not accurately visualize, but it doesn&#x27;t matter to them anyway.

It&#x27;s infatuating that all arguments pro- and against nuclear energy are so selective. It&#x27;s very hard to get unbiased view.<p>The article starts with proper framing. You must think in terms of lifetime capital costs and opportunity cost. Then it chooses numbers selectively to make the argument stronger than it is. Nuclear and renewable energy production can&#x27;t be compared directly with price per kWh.<p>Nuclear energy is 24&#x2F;7 from the start. Currently Nuclear&#x2F;coal&#x2F;gas provides base load that enables cheap renewables (base load is the minimum level of demand on an electrical grid over a span of time. Day, week, months)<p>Supplying same base load with renewables means energy production + large scale energy storage + grid investments. You need overcapacity in production and the grid to even out time and geographical variability of renewables.<p>I have not seen any honest cost comparison that counts in everything.

Wow, what a simplistic look at nuclear vs renewables. They don&#x27;t even begin to look into the &quot;hidden&quot; costs of renewable energy. They fail to mention or include the costs of new transmissions lines, bringing new mines onboard, building grid storage, etc.<p>If we forgo nuclear power the only other currently viable carbon free, stable, energy source is hydro power, which has huge environmental costs and immense public resentment&#x2F;push back. For example look at the James bay hydro project[1]. 11,500 km2 of land flooded, intense protest from the Cree and other first nations as well as conservation groups, increases in mercury levels in fish populations, etc. Expanding hydro power enough to handle base load energy use is unlikely, due to the above costs and push back.<p>So if we can&#x27;t expand hydro or nuclear then we have to go all in on wind and solar plus grid storage. We could use pumped hydro but that brings about many of the same costs&#x2F;problems as hydro power. That leaves us with over building wind and solar, and adding huge amounts of transmission lines and batteries to account for the variability. Add in the switch from ICE cars to electric and the amount of new metals needed is going to be immense.<p>I&#x27;ve also noticed that every time a new transmission line or mine is purposed in the United States their is immense push back from environmental and conservation groups, and from the public as a whole. For examples of this look at the fight over adding new transmissions lines in southern Wisconsin[2] or the intense opposition to mining the Duluth complex[3] in northern Minnesota[4]. The Duluth complex is the largest untapped copper and nickel resource in the world and Polymet has been trying to get permits for well over a decade to mine. Copper and nickel are greatly needed for renewable energy and batteries, and it could still be another 4 or 5 years if it ever happens.<p>Not using nuclear energy is just going to massively exacerbate the transmission line and mining problems as well as increase the prices of renewable energy. Wind and solar is &quot;cheap&quot; because we don&#x27;t factor in the added transmission lines, and natural gas peaker planets needed to currently make it happen. Also many of the groups pushing for wind and solar + batteries also happen to be against adding additional mines and transmission lines required to make it happen, and honestly you cant really blame them, mines can pollute local water supplies and transmission lines are ugly.<p>All and all a balanced approach is probably the cheapest and most viable path forward, solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, grid storage all working together on the grid.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;James_Bay_Project" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;James_Bay_Project</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;madison.com&#x2F;wsj&#x2F;news&#x2F;local&#x2F;govt-and-politics&#x2F;cardinal-hickory-creek-wisconsin-residents-speak-out-against-proposed-power-line&#x2F;article_6ceb0747-9bdc-5c12-b7d0-18e8d2d3209c.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;madison.com&#x2F;wsj&#x2F;news&#x2F;local&#x2F;govt-and-politics&#x2F;cardina...</a><p>[3]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.miningminnesota.com&#x2F;duluth-complex&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.miningminnesota.com&#x2F;duluth-complex&#x2F;</a><p>[4]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.greatlakesnow.org&#x2F;2020&#x2F;06&#x2F;polymet-copper-nickel-mine-litigation-indigenous-environmental-groups&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.greatlakesnow.org&#x2F;2020&#x2F;06&#x2F;polymet-copper-nickel-...</a>

Renewables fail at heating in the winter because they generate electricity directly. SMR nuclear district heating might be the only way to cover the shortfall. Thermal power plants have an inherent advantage when it comes to producing heat.

Everyone always says nuclear is expensive but what if the world (or significant portion of it) decided to go all in and build enough nuclear to replace fossil fuels in the next 2 decades. What would the price be then?

The premise is fallacious on several levels. Nuclear power and renewables are a dichotomy even if one is better for stable baseload power and the other lower in kWhr cost. France isn&#x27;t going to give up MAD just because renewables are cheaper - it is still a budget synergy since they will have reactors anyway. No country has or will go 100% CO2 reduction focus. The perfect shouldn&#x27;t be the enemy of the good.

For anyone interested in more depth, the full report linked in the article is worth looking at. In general, it&#x27;s not been a good year for the industry. Uneconomical plants in operation, stalled and cancelled projects, criminal fraud and theft of public money, and the unsolved problem of how to decommission anything plague the business. If the real costs were addressed, it seems many more plants would have shut down by now. The report does a great job of linking to original sources and it would be hard to find fault with the facts in it. TLDR, nuclear is in decline worldwide and maybe completely over in the US as far as new construction. The proposed new modular reactor designs have safety issues that keep them from being a quick fix.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;michaelshellenberger&#x2F;2019&#x2F;02&#x2F;05&#x2F;if-saving-the-climate-requires-making-energy-so-expensive-why-is-french-electricity-so-cheap&#x2F;?sh=55f4df11bd98" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;michaelshellenberger&#x2F;2019&#x2F;02&#x2F;05...</a>

Solar and off loading batteries from like Ambri is probably a good idea. Nuclear is great, but is simply annoying in every right despite being an existing &quot;throw megawatts at it&quot; solution that&#x27;s also not spewing gas.

Complete crap. Anyone who makes statements about solar energy costing 2c a kwhr is either a fool or a liar. I&#x27;d suggest the latter in this case.<p>There&#x27;s nothing independent about this clown

&gt; The second point is that renewables today have become so cheap that in many cases they are below the basic operating costs of nuclear power plants.<p>Because nukes have stagnated for close to half a century. Bit of a head slapper.

I&#x27;m going to hesitate to say this article is very short sighted... it talks about &quot;nuclear is expensive, renewables are cheap and we don&#x27;t know how to store nuclear waste&quot;.<p>Nabla&#x27;s comment is a good start on the conversation (good frame but no real apples to apples comparisons).<p>Personally, with the talk about &quot;what about all that nuclear waste&quot;...<p>where&#x27;s the talk about the recyclable waste? Batteries, solar panels, wind mills are all very hard to recycle and add &quot;after the fact&quot; costs like nuclear does that&#x27;s being unaccounted for - and is happening at a MUCH larger scale currently.<p>Where&#x27;s the talk about all the &quot;rare earth minerals&quot; that&#x27;s going to have to be strip mined around the world to keep up with &quot;clean energy&quot;?<p>I think this article has some valid points wrapped up in talking points to strengthen its argument while ignoring massive talking points that go unmentioned (True comparisons of costs, storage&#x2F;recycling of materials and the massive increase in &quot;plundering&quot; Earth goes unmentioned... to name a few).<p>Edit: Not saying I&#x27;m &quot;pro nuclear&quot; or &quot;anti renewable&quot;... I&#x27;m more of a balanced approach person - I think the future will include Coal, Gas, Nuclear, Solar, hydro and various mixes there-of and we need to work on making all of them better because none of them are going anywhere any time soon - and they ALL have strengths and weaknesses.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fee.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;the-environmental-costs-of-renewable-energy-are-staggering&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fee.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;the-environmental-costs-of-renewabl...</a><p>&gt; Far from it. The transition to renewables is going to require a dramatic increase in the extraction of metals and rare-earth minerals, with real ecological and social costs.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.futurity.org&#x2F;nuclear-waste-recycling-2355402-2&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.futurity.org&#x2F;nuclear-waste-recycling-2355402-2&#x2F;</a><p>New, better ways of recycling Nuclear &quot;waste&quot; is being researched constantly<p>&gt; A new simple, proliferation-resistant approach offers a way to reduce nuclear waste, researchers say.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;05&#x2F;wind-turbine-fiberglass-landfill-disposal-renewable-energy&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;05&#x2F;wind-turbine-fiberglass-landf...</a><p>&gt; Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years. Europe, which has been dealing with the problem longer, has about 3,800 coming down annually through at least 2022, according to BloombergNEF. It’s going to get worse: Most were built more than a decade ago, when installations were less than a fifth of what they are now.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;michaelshellenberger&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;23&#x2F;if-solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;michaelshellenberger&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;23...</a><p>&gt; The problem of solar panel disposal “will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment” because it “is a huge amount of waste and they are not easy to recycle.”

Why do all the anti-nuclear people just through out the marginal cost and then move on...

Good look getting to Mars or exploring space without nuclear power of some sort. It&#x27;s the safest and cleanest energy source we have have.

The solution is smaller, modular nuclear reactors. Run them for 30 years, and then just leave them in place- waste included - forever.<p>Eventually we can probably figure out how to operate them for 50, then 100 years.<p>The downsides of this are much less than the potential downsides of excess CO2 in the atmosphere, which are civilization-ending.

We will end up with nuclear, we can take as many different path as we wish. Any nation which goes full nuclear first will reap the benefits.

Haha sure..<p>What&#x27;s your alternative? American Nuclear Fusion?<p>This kind of people aren&#x27;t european, they worship america, and want us to depend more and more on their companies<p>I&#x27;m tired of hearing the same people saying we should exit nuclear energy, this is beyond crazy