It’s not clear what the event is yet. But it’s already somehow confirmed something for you, which maybe means you should question how you’re assessing the risks. And what evidence would ever change your mind on them. Lots of HN commenters are pro nuclear because once you put aside your preconceptions and biases and learn about it you learn it’s one of the safest, cleanest, and most reliable forms of power we’ve ever created, in spite of the big headline accidents.
Is it though? The risk for continuing using coal, oil and gas is a lot higher through global warming, and no accident is necessary, it's a certainty.
Renewables are of course the holy grail, but storage solutions for renewables are a problem, as are supply. Renewables won't supply 100% of energy for the foreseeable future.
No one is unaware that the risk exists for nuclear, its a comparison of risks though.
I think one of the problems with nuclear is the accidents are localised and make headlines, the deaths from fossil fuels are spread out and harder to attribute.
The problem is getting from A to B. Nuclear is proven and works all the time, renewables are variable at the moment, you keeps saying the same thing without facts. If you want to go to 100% renewables what is the path? A path to nuclear is clear, nuclear is a lot safer than fossil fuels, renewables are a bit safer than nuclear (ref. 1). So what's the path without nuclear?
> You're describing nuclear fission as a stop gap solution.
Well yes, so was oil, so is gas, until we have antimatter and fusion this will have to do.
All these problems will have solutions eventually, you can dump waste down a big hole. It's not like radiation is something that never existed before, dump it a couple of miles under ground, problem solved.
Like we have an urgent problem now! we need to stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere now! Nuclear can do this now. I don't like it either, I don't want to live near a nuclear reactor but we're out of options.
Really any issues with nuclear have technological fixes, or will have in the near future.
Edit: like if we treat fission as a temporary solution for say 50 years until other stuff works then we're sweet and the planet won't burn up. Sure there's a small chance of an accident that might damage a very small part of the planet, but, what's the chance if we keep using fossil fuels of things going bad - 100%
Edit 2: and the waste products from coal and oil are awful and spread out, at least with nuclear the waste products are localised.
You never know, I used to be against nuclear energy, now I'm pro - I was a member of CANE - the campaign against nuclear energy in my youth :-). The most significant problem is disposing of the waste, there's some reading on it here [1]. 1000 years is tomorrow in geologic terms, in [1] they're talking about a single canister failure in 150,000 years. Imagine the tech we'd have available by then if we're still around. There's a lot of low level waste to when you have to pull a reactor to bits - all the buildings are a bit radioactive, but its easy enough to put in a hole. The one thing you don't want is the groundwater to be contaminated by radiation leaking out, vitrification seems to be the best current solution - turning it into glass. Have a read, you never know.
A large issue is the reluctance, especially in the US, of approving new designs in nuclear. We tested a molten salt reactor in Idaho once in the 80s and it worked as expected. It can not melt down even in power loss because of the heat transference properties of using molten salt as a coolant and can not build pressure like a more conventional water cooled reactor. But rolling it out into production was killed in the water due to chernobyl and the public response to anything with the word 'nuclear' in it afterwards. We can mitigate a lot of risk now, but it takes lawmakers who don't understand physics or engineering to "bless" it for production. There are some reactor designs that can also reuse already spent nuclear fuel (TERRAPOWER's lightwave reactor). We probably shouldn't also build reactors in areas were earthquakes will occur fairly often and can create tsunamis.
Renewables are great, but that is a long term solution that still needs a lot more iteration. If we are looking to reduce our carbon footprint massively with respect to the electrical grid in 30 years, nuclear is the only viable option to garuntee this.
There are usually a large number of pro nuclear comments on articles related to nuclear power on HN.
Events like this help to confirm my point of view.
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Edit: Here we go, downvoting begins.
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