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Please don't post sneering, unsubstantive comments like this on HN. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

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thw_9a83c 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I see your point but it's not really that simple in this particular case. Nuclear energy production is clean under assumption:

1. You can operate the facility with a zero critical accident over the whole lifespan of the power plant.

2. You know what to do with a nuclear waste (like keep it safely deeply buried for 10'000 years).

However, point 2) is almost irrelevant now because we already have enough depleted nuclear fuel to deal with it.

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diordiderot 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

1. Only six reactors have had meltdowns, partial meltdowns, serious core damage, or fatalities.

Gen 4 reactors have gravity driven control rods, passive cooling systems, core catchers, safer fuel, and moderators.

If humans were raptured, they couldn't melt down.

2. The entire planets worth of spent nuclear fuel would fit into 15 Olympic swimming pools.

Fast breeder reactors can use almost all of the existing waste and on top of that reduce it's lifespan from 100k+ years to a few hundred.

You'd get more radiation exposure from living in Denver than you would sleeping on a cask in Miami

	▲	thw_9a83c 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not arguing about whether we should or shouldn't use nuclear energy. We should. > 1. Only six reactors have had meltdowns, partial meltdowns, serious core damage, or fatalities. If we assume that everything above INES[0] level 4 is already serious enough, then there were 11 accidents [1] and around 4484 fatalities (mostly 4000 indirect from Chernobyl but still). > Gen 4 reactors have gravity driven control rods, passive cooling systems, core catchers, safer fuel, and moderators. And yet, 100% safety is not achievable. But the risk is probably quite acceptable now. [0]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_and_Radi...> [1]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...>

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sealeck 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Both of these assumptions are true. Obviously these are not trivial problems, and take a lot of work, but they are extremely tractable.

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trentnix 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I had the same response. History has shown that the high-priests of government are the least reliable, least consistent of all we’ve allowed to be the arbiters of truth.

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Spivak 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Multiple US states have ruled that natural gas is green energy. I'm sure that's just as obvious and stating a fact.

The white house in all but name, because calling it green is woke, declared that coal is green energy.