Personally I get defensive when people pit nuclear as a solution to the climate disaster because I am skeptical that it is. And worse I think considering nuclear as a solution to be harmful to the effort to combat the climate emergency. It reminds me of how people would pit GMO as a solution for world hunger, when better food distribution is a better solution; or when people pit self driving cars to combat traffic congestion when public transit infrastructure is a better solution.

I consider this harmful because in some cases it might affect public policy. See example of city governments delaying or canceling needed public transit infrastructure because of the promise of the self driving car, or hyperloop and whatnot.

New nuclear sounds to me like a similar pipe dream. It is not a good solution to combat the climate disaster (renewables are), and people advocating for it risk affecting public policy that might get much needed renewable infrastructure delayed or cancelled.

> It reminds me of how people would pit GMO as a solution for world hunger

You lost me here. How is this not? Because Monsanto is a bad company? GMOs can be good and Monsanto can be bad at the same time.

Also I stressed a lot in my comment that you don't have to use nuclear, just don't take it off the table. My comment complaining about how people are saying "only nuclear" vs "only renewables" is being replied to as if I said "only nuclear". Sorry, this is exactly what I'm upset about.

Climate is complex. It is strange to me to hear a bunch of non-experts talk with so much confidence about one of the most complex topics we face in science.

Like I said, I get defensive when people pit nuclear as a solution to the climate crisis, this is regardless of the context. I get equally defensive if the pit is “nuclear + renewables” or “nuclear only”. The reason is that I am skeptical of the claim that it is (there are ample nibling comments that demonstrate why) and that a false premise might affect public policy that hinders politicians from pursuing real solutions (like renewables).

I mentioned GMO as a prime example of this, as—if I remember correctly—the debate was most heated about a decade ago. The argument went that we needed GMO in order to get food security for our growing population. This was a distraction (or a red herring if you will) food security was not a problem of technology but of distribution. This distraction caused politicians to focus on the wrong things to solve world hunger. Instead of looking to change market regulations in order to distribute food more equally, politicians were contempt to lift trade restrictions on GMO crops and technology which solved nothing.

What I am saying is not that GMO is bad, or a lousy technology, but that GMO is not a solution to world hunger, and pitting it as such is distracting from actual solutions. Nuclear fits exactly the same bill in today’s world of the climate emergency.

> Like I said, I get defensive when people pit nuclear as a solution to the climate crisis, this is regardless of the context.

I'm sorry, I get defensive when people go against expert advice and think their own opinions supersede decades of research by those that devote their lives to the subject matter. I've worked in nuclear technologies (not reactors) and closely with energy and climate people. I trust their advice (not mine, theirs) and my work experience put me in close proximity to allow me to ask an annoying amount of questions (to refine my understanding of their advice). What I'm upset about here is this comes off as some random person on the internet being aggressive about a subject matter that is extremely complex (extremely is an understatement), where they have no expertise, and goes against the expert consensus. Such claims come off as exceedingly arrogant and I honestly don't see it as any different from the anti-vaxers who think a few youtube views and blogs makes them experts on difficult subjects. You're throwing your gut feelings against the livelihood of many researchers. This is an unacceptable thing in our society and doubly so on HN.

> GMOs

You're over simplifying (which was my original complaint). It isn't a food security problem or a distribution problem but a food security problem and a distribution problem that also got highly politicized. It is not an either or situation but an and. Besides, many GMOs are also aimed at increasing the shelf life of foods, which directly affects the distribution and logistics aspect. It was also discussed about how to make plants more resilient, provide extra vitamins, and grow in places they couldn't before. We've directly seen this increase the well being of many (and would be more if golden rice wasn't controversial simply for the fact that it is a GMO and nothing else). But this problem is itself complicated since transporting food is a traveling salesman problem. There's also a question about food security in America and The West vs elsewhere. In the former it isn't that large of an issue but in the latter it is a huge issue and we can't conflate the two. As for the politicization, you need to differentiate the scientific consensus from the media consensus. When the news starts being shitty, go to the source. If the source is wrong stop trusting the source. If the source tells a different story, stop trusting the soapbox (but not the source). If the source disagrees with you, maybe it is you that is wrong (sure, you might also be right, but chances are someone who has dedicated their life to studying a subject is more knowledgeable about said subject).

Or just stop politicizing everything and listen to the experts (news and science evangelists aren't actually experts btw). "Trust but verify" is great (and _highly_ encouraged) but "distrust and find reasons to ridicule" is not okay. We're talking science, not politics. Opinions aren't what matters, evidence is.

I think it is a mistake to deflate the political aspect of things. There is a ton of politics involved when arguing policy (duh). There is no way to not politicize debate about whether to use our public funds to subsidize nuclear power or renewable power. These things are inherently political, and should be argued with political framework in mind. A good example is in a nibling comment which states the risk of the nuclear lobby (or worse the fossil fuel lobby) spreading misinformation with the agenda of getting the industry they have a stake in to get top funds. It would be a mistake to ignore this.

Listening to experts is also not a good advice on it own, there is a lot of domain specific knowledge out there. A nuclear physicist might be an expert on how to generate nuclear power, but they need a geologist with their own expertise to help them mine the uranium ore needed for the process. They also need electrical engineers to figure out where the powerplant would fit the grid, and a civil engineer to figure out if the plant is needed at all. Being an expert in nuclear power does not make you an expert in nuclear policy.

Off course I am non of these things, my expertise is in front end web development. I am less then a layman in nuclear or power policy. However I am worried about the climate emergency, and I do worry that experts giving advice in favor of nuclear power are misguided—or worse—have their own agenda. I don’t think this puts me on a high horse or—more accurately—under a tin foil hat. Experts failed to stop the climate catastrophe before it was an emergency. Energy experts in the seventies knew the risk fossil fuels posed to the climate, but they failed to influence public policy to stop it. Worse they failed to even warn government officials on it. And worse still, they still influenced politicians to enact policy that made matters worse and doubled down on fossil fuel. I think history shows that blind faith in experts can be misguided.

Again I am not an expert on what I am talking about. And I think I am a fairly typical HN member in that. When reading commentary on HN I usually try to filter out the people that seem to know what they are talking about. I certainly don’t fit that category, reading my comments I would think to my self: “This person is making good points, but they are not providing any meaningful information.” There are other commentators elsewhere in this thread that know a lot more what they are talking about then me, and provide excellent reasons for why you should be skeptical of people promoting nuclear as a solution to the climate crisis.

> I think it is a mistake to deflate the political aspect of things.

It is also a mistake to inflate, which is what I'm concerned with. I'm under the impression that the political aspect is being inflated because this is an aspect that the average person can more easily understand.

> Listening to experts is also not a good advice on it own, there is a lot of domain specific knowledge out there.

This is why I specifically mention consensus and the vast complexity of the problem. You can easily replace the instances of nuclear in this paragraph with any power source and the basis would still hold true (honestly even the concerns of lobbying from the above paragraph). But there are experts in nuclear power, experts in solar, experts in wind, etc then there are people who have worked in these industries for decades that lead these groups (usually the leaders of these groups hold multi-domain knowledge and there are several members). This hierarchical structure provides the communication network for these people. The mistake you're making here is assuming that these people are working in isolation. Go to any DOE lab and you will find reactor researchers eating lunch with solar researchers. These people talk. They talk a lot. It is their job to talk to one another. Half the models that the climate scientists do wouldn't work if these people weren't talking to one another. You're over simplifying the reality of the situation by creating nice and neat boxes for researchers to sit in. I'm not saying "listen to a nuclear expert" I'm saying "listen to the consensus of several disciplines." Having been in those lab settings I don't see the nuclear researchers being anti-solar or anti-wind, but I do see them being anti-fossil fuels. Similarly I don't see the solar or wind researchers being anti-nuclear (actually the opposite) but I do see them being anti-fossil fuels. Even the researchers studying fossil fuels there are anti-fossil fuels and pro nuclear and renewables. There's a very clear consensus here. They disagree about the proportions of the energy portfolio, but not the components. And honestly their disagreement on proportions isn't large and all sides are making different assumptions about technologies that do not yet exist, and they will gladly admit this.

> Off course I am non of these things, my expertise is in front end web development. I am less then a layman in nuclear or power policy. However I am worried about the climate emergency, and I do worry that experts giving advice in favor of nuclear power are misguided—or worse—have their own agenda.

Do you question that of fossil fuels? Solar? Wind? Hydro? If not, why? What's the difference here? Why do you have faith in one set but not the other? They all have their own agendas, and for the most part they are the same (though applied to their own technology). But a researcher also has a very different agenda than the company providing the energy product. Clearly the latter has a more biased position than the former and I'm saying to listen to the former.

> I don’t think this puts me on a high horse or—more accurately—under a tin foil hat.

These are the same. The tin foil hat is often associated with believing that the scientists have missed something that is clear to you. The tin foil hat is the know it all manager who micromanages but doesn't have the first clue about the technical aspects of your work. We've all had that manager. We all know that manager's ego and how frustrating they are. How they make it more difficult to get work done.

> Experts failed to stop the climate catastrophe before it was an emergency.

I'm not sure where this diverges from my main point. It is exactly the problem I'm concerned with. The experts say one thing. That thing gets politicized. The politicization takes over and manipulates the perception of what the experts say to fit the political narrative. Population becomes confused and argues. Policy fails as we fight and experts are scrambling to clarify what they actually mean and how that's different than what people are saying that they mean.

> Again I am not an expert on what I am talking about.

Then don't take a hard position, but rather a soft one. That is all I'm arguing for here. I'm not sure how many times I need to say this, but I'm not advocating for nuclear so much as "let the experts." If that's a controversial position then I'm highly concerned. We can only do the best we can do. I'm quite certain that the best efforts of experts is vastly superior to the best efforts of laymen. Sure, the laymen will have a few wins now and then, but the likelihood of success is magnitudes higher by going with experts. (Again, I'm not saying don't be critical, I'm just saying that if you're a layman don't bring a baseball bat to the debate. Doing so represents extreme arrogance and leads to a regression in progress)

> When reading commentary on HN I usually try to filter out the people that seem to know what they are talking about.

This is great and should be done, but HN is not highly populated by climate nor energy experts, although there are some here. It's easy to say things that sound intelligent without them actually being.

Edit: I want to add, in my original post I also did shit on the typical pro-nuclear commenter, complaining about how they are talking about things they don't know about (thorium, SMRs, liquid, breeders, etc). It should be explicitly clear that my comment is more "hey guys, maybe this is a complex subject and we should stop arguing so strongly and see what the experts say" and not "fuck yeah nuclear power screw those renewables." I'm tired of anything remotely suggesting nuclear is anything but evil is equated to the latter.

Nuclear + renewables = 0 carbon and a consistent reliable base load ... sounds ideal?

GP was not saying that proponents of nuclear are arguing for "only-nuclear" but that arguing in favour of nuclear might be a net negative in the progress against fossil fuel.

This happens everywhere, every movement needs to be both diverse (to avoid being too close minded to the complexity of the problem at hand) and focused (to avoid wasting efforts in pipe dreams). You and GP disagree on where to apply the cut off line of this separation.

(G)GP is arguing against the scientific consensus in a extremely complex subject matter. My comment was about the arrogance of people going against expert consensus in complex subjects. We call anti-vaxers out for specifically this reason and I'm tired of pretending like climate (or many other hot topics) is any different. When it comes down to it, if it is some random person on the internet vs someone with decades of domain experience, I'm going with the advice of the latter. It is insane not to.

I am perfectly fine (and actively encourage) asking critical questions of the experts. I encourage getting domain knowledge. But there's a large difference between having some expertise and being an expert. We can argue over that line but that's not what the (G)GP was doing, or the vast majority of these threads.

Rereading your comment (but not the related, thread) I think there was a slight miscomunication. I guess you cared more about the GMO than nuclear (of both of them), while I considered the GMO as a one-off comment distinct from the main argument and focused on (G^n)P argument against arguing in favour of nuclear.

Without GMO foods you'd already be starving. Also GMO is another great example about emotional based arguments - corn is GMO grass from cross breading. Yes, they did it over hundreds of years instead of a few dozen in a lab - but it's still GMO.

As for nuclear, molten salt reactors are also well understood technology. There are new designs that address many of the issues with current reactors. And the burn the existing waste. Instead of arguing about where to bury it, let's use it for energy!

More smaller distributed reactors also help dramatically lower transmission costs and reduce our vulnerability we currently have with our fragile electrical grid.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/llewellynking/2020/10/13/new-de...

That's just one article - there is plenty more out there. Pretty sad when China is the biggest proponent of molten salt reactors.

Energy drove the industrial revolution. Access to abundant and plentiful energy did more to lift the majority of the world population out of poverty and into relative opulence. Think opulence is outlandish? We can walk over to a thing on a wall and adjust the temperature of our dwellings - if you don't appreciate how significant that is just consider as little as a few hundred years ago even Kings didn't have that luxury.

Nuclear is here. It's well understood. It works all the time - whether the sun is out or the wind is blowing. It doesn't require acres of space nor does it kill millions of birds. It doesn't generate noise pollution. Yes it has some maintenance costs - every technology does. If you truly look at it holistically, it's pretty hard to argue against it.

>Being pro nuclear isn't "nuclear vs renewables" it is "nuclear + renewables vs fossil fuels".

Since nuclear competes with renewables for subsidies it is kind of a competition.

Propaganda is dictates by market realities. We likely wouldn't be seeing this much pro nuclear stuff pushed to the front of hacker news if nuclear didn't require subsidies and hence favorable public opinion to survive in the face of cheaper green competition.

>It is "if the experts think that would be best for the situation

And if the experts are paid off by the in question? Brookings has a pretty long history of this and takes money from Lockheed, general dynamics, etc. who would be keen to profit from nuke subsidies by building next generation nuke plants.

> Since nuclear competes with renewables for subsidies it is kind of a competition.

This gives me the take that you didn't read what I said. Because it was about the complexity and not limiting experts.

> Brookings has a pretty long history...

Even more so since I was specifically critical of this article and mentioned that you can make the numbers go any way you want.

I'd love to have a good faith discussion but at this point I do not feel the response is giving one.

The reason that we see this much articles being posted on hacker news is that we are still using fossil fuels and there is no active plans to stop it. Everyone* agree that climate change is happening. Everyone agree that burning fossil fuel for power is bad. And then there is a void for what to do next.

Can we all agree that we should stop subsidize existing fossil fuel infrastructure? No more paying oil power plants just so they can exist and be used when demands goes up?

Can we also all agree to stop expanding capacity for more fossil fuels? What we are burning today is bad enough, we should not expand capacity for more.

Can we then also agree to stop repairing and extending the lifetime of existing power plants that uses fossil fuels?

We are done when the answer is yes on all of those, and then the market will find out what technology works and what doesn't. If any of the answer is no, then the discussion about fossil fuels are not done and so we need to continue discussing about it.

>We are done when the answer is yes on all of those, and then the market will find out what technology works and what doesn't.

The market can only really work when it's allowed to. Between the subsidies, perverse incentives and outright FUD being spread around I doubt there is a market that will solve this automatically.

It's going to have to be fought for.

Perfect example - I was in San Diego in the mid 90's. There was a project to recycle wastewater to use for irrigation and eventually work back into the water supply. Some news organization sensationalized it - dubbed it "Toilet to tap", got everyone riled up and the community voted it down. All my co-workers were congratulating themselves on not drinking toilet water until I pointed out the majority of water they were using to make the coffee they were drinking came out of the Colorado River. Towards the end of the Colorado River. They were already drinking "toilet water".

Bah. I also predicted since we were in a desert, the project would happen anyway within 20 years. I was wrong, it ended up being within 7 and about four times the cost to boot.

So yeah, I see much of the consternation around nuclear in the same light. It's going to happen sooner or later, and later always costs more. Speaking of higher costs - in the meantime we continue to burn fossil fuels which means we are still emitting significant amounts of CO2. If you are really concerned about CO2 being existence threatening, we should be doing nuclear, solar, wind and whatever else we can throw at the problem - not sitting around arguing what the "best" is while the house is still on fire.

>Can we all agree that we should stop subsidize existing fossil fuel infrastructure?

Yes, but that's not what this article is about.

>Can we also all agree to stop expanding capacity for more fossil fuels?

Yes, but that's not what this article is about.

>Can we then also agree to stop repairing and extending the lifetime of existing power plants that uses fossil fuels?

Yes, but that's not what this article is about.

This article is a fluff human interest story about an "environmental activist" who suddenly "saw the light" and realized that nuclear power can generate "energy at all hours unlike solar" (their words).

I'm sure the New Yorker journalist is not unaware that solar and wind are a lot cheaper than nuclear power even accounting for variability but it's barely hinted at in the article. It doesn't serve their agenda.

One thing that is mentioned is the "onerousness" of safety regulations piled on after Fukushima.

If you think this article wasn't explicitly written on behalf of the nuclear industry trying to garner some green points I've got a coal fired plant scheduled to break ground in 2024 to sell you.

If you're wondering why they'd spend money campaigning for this, well, it's because they desperately need taxpayer money to stay viable.

This conversation match pretty well the phrase "Talking past each other". Environmental activists that are also in favor of nuclear power are not interested in nuclear power for nuclear power itself. The goal is to get rid of fossil fuels, with the strategy to do so simply left open for both storage and nuclear.

Since we are in an agreement on the questions about fossil fuels then everything else are unimportant. Lets implement those things we agree on! Where I live, the government and the green party which decides on the current energy strategy has the opposite strategy. Their strategy for handing grid stability is to subsidize oil power plants and to expand the capacity to buy coal energy from nearby countries. No intention at all to allow existing power plants that uses fossil fuels to shut down. The stated goal of emission free energy grid is reached the moment where the total export of renewables over a year is higher than the import of coal.

I don't need to wonder who is desperately campaigning to get tax money. The government budget for energy subsidizing is public information. It is listed under the term of "reserve energy".

> Environmental activists that are also in favor of nuclear power are not interested in nuclear power for nuclear power itself. The goal is to get rid of fossil fuels

And the is the point with the anti-nuclear campaign. It is to argue that nuclear is not a solution to the climate crisis (or at least a very bad option next to renewables). I would argue that environmental activists that argue for nuclear are doing the cause a disfavor. We might be in an agreement that fossil fuel is bad, and we might agree that renewables are good. But we are in disagreement about whether nuclear is good (hence we argue).

> Since we are in an agreement on the questions about fossil fuels then everything else are unimportant

Quite the contrary. Where we go from here is very important. Firstly because there is world after the climate crisis (hopefully!), and we should be careful how we build that world. Secondly it might turn out (and evidence suggest) that nuclear is not a solution the climate crisis. This is important—as GP suggests—because renewables and nuclear are competing for attention of public policy makers. My government representatives might tomorrow start making the case that we should focus more on nuclear and allocate money and time that would otherwise have been spent on renewables to the nuclear pipe dream. Worst case scenario. New nuclear power plants are build over the next decade instead of renewable infrastructure, and a decade from now we are still emitting more carbon into the atmosphere. This the nightmare we in the anti-nuclear campaign are trying to avoid.

It would look a bit more sincere if the anti-nuclear green party would not be the one talking warmly (in more than one sense) about using oil power plants as reserve energy and increasing the capacity for importing coal energy.

I am sure not all anti-nuclear green activists are like this, but its the reality in the here and now. This is why I started the conversation about those issues. Oil and coal is not the way forward, and since that is the proposed deal currently on the table on the renewable side then I reject it and look to someone who can offer a better deal.

I would be much more open to the anti-nuclear side if they clearly came out against the practice of using fossil fuels for grid stability and reserve.

It's not that the compete for subsidies, it's that they don't work well together on a grid. Nuclear needs to be selling at a high average price; renewables crash the price too often to let the average stay high.