from Hacker News

New York state wants both renewables and nuclear energy (2016)

by curtis on 9/12/19, 8:59 PM with 66 comments

• by payne92 on 9/13/19, 1:03 PM

  Unpopular opinion (though getting less so): the politicization of nuclear energy in the 1960s and the resulting lack of investment & R&D advances may go down as one of the biggest blunders in human history.

  Even with some modest ongoing investments, we'd have designs that are FAR safer than systems currently in operation.

• by cpwright on 9/13/19, 2:19 PM

  This is old. Cuomo is forcing Entergy to close Indian Point 2 and 3 in 2020/2021, which were the only financially viable plants mentioned in the article.

  The governor's desire to prolong their relicensing process made it more cost effective for Entergy to just agree to close them in 4/5 years, which is a shame because nuclear plants are all about the sunk capital costs.

• by scohesc on 9/13/19, 2:36 PM

  Why don't we build these reactors deep underground? Doesn't the United States use an old abandoned mine to store spent nuclear rods while they decay?

  Is it extremely cost prohibitive to dig down into existing abandoned mines (or even quarries)? and retrofit them with nuclear reactors?

  Even if something catastrophic happens, if it's geologically separated by thousands of tons of rocks/dirt/sediment and is away from a water table, it wouldn't be a problem, no?

• by bilbo0s on 9/13/19, 1:31 PM

  This is from 2016.

  A lot of states have been giving carbon credits to nuclear plants for a long time. There are several where it makes good sense to implement subsidies of that nature. So this is not a terribly new idea, nor is it as controversial as the article attempts to make it out to be..

• by bryanlarsen on 9/13/19, 1:44 PM

  2016. I wondered why there was no mention of the debacle that is Illinois.

• by peterkelly on 9/13/19, 2:20 PM

  Correct title: Nuclear power and renewables don’t have to be enemies. New York just showed how (2016)

• by keeganjw on 9/13/19, 12:54 PM

  Nukes makes it sound like they want nuclear missiles but this is about nuclear energy...

• by tomp on 9/13/19, 2:10 PM

  > renewables and nukes

  and? Nuclear power is just as "renewable" as wind, solar & hydro in every sense of the word.

• by cletus on 9/13/19, 2:23 PM

  It's weird to me how many advocates there are for nuclear power on HN. Years ago, I would've been one of them. Now? I don't think I can trust people with nuclear power.

  People aren't capable of having a sufficiently long term view. People make short term decisions that are bad in the long term all the time. You see accident after accident caused by people making short term decisions that have a low probability of failure but where failure has disproportionately bad consequences. Just look at unsafe and drunk driving.

  So the problems with fission power are:

  1. We have no good way of disposing with the waste. This includes the waste produced in enriching Uranium (eg what to do with all the UrF6) as well as reactor waste.

  2. As much as coal and other fossil fuels have negative health effects and probably cause deaths, there is only so much damage a single coal plant can do. A single nuclear plant on the other hand can make an area of thousands of miles uninhabitable for generations.

  3. Storage and transportation of fissile material (ie reactor fuel) presents a bunch of environmental and security issues.

  Renewable (specifically solar and wind) really are the solution here.