Comment by DennisP
2 days ago
And then there's coal. The difference between nuclear and coal is that when nuclear has a horrible accident, it kills fewer people than coal kills as part of its normal expected operation.
2 days ago
And then there's coal. The difference between nuclear and coal is that when nuclear has a horrible accident, it kills fewer people than coal kills as part of its normal expected operation.
The great thing is that coal is not the alternative in 2025.
Renewables are forcing enormous amounts of coals and fossil gas off grids around the world as we speak.
>The great thing is that coal is not the alternative in 2025.
Unfortunately, there is a country that shut down nuclear power plants while they still have operating coal plants. Over time, coal use is declining in Germany, but that isn't the story so far in 2025:
>…The share of electricity produced with fossil fuels in Germany increased by ten percent between January and the end of June 2025, compared to the same period one year before, while power production from renewables declined by almost six percent, the country’s statistical office
>… Coal-fired power production increased 9.3 percent, while electricity production from fossil gas increased by 11.6 percent.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/fossil-electricity-prod...
Shutting nuclear power plants down when you are still burning coal is almost unbelievable... I don’t think future generations will look kindly on countries who shut down a clean form of power while they still are running the most dangerous and dirty form of power generation ever created.
Personally I would of course prefer to phase out fossil fuels before nuclear power. But we are where we are in 2025 and there is no point crying over spilled milk.
We can only look forward and make sure we spend our money wisely. We also need to decarbonize aviation, shipping, agriculture, industry, construction etc. The grid is not the end, it is only the beginning of our decarbonization journey.
The fastest, cheapest and most efficient way of quickly displacing fossil based energy production today is building renewables and storage.
5 replies →
> coal is not the alternative in 2025.
Except in uncle Donald’s kingdom with “America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry” (yes, seriously):
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/rein...
Lets come back if that leads to an increase of coal usage instead of being posturing like most else they do.
Coal has been uncompetitive since the advent of the CCGT plant and was stagnating long before the fracking boom.
Yes, and in terms of overall deaths per terawatt-hour, nuclear is similar to renewables.
The difference between nuclear and coal is that when nuclear has a horrible accident, it kills as many people right here and makes as much land uninhabitable right here as coal does in our enemy countries within its normal expected operation.
Except for Russia, where else have deaths + land issues happened?
Not a commercial reactor but US lost 3 people trying to hand operate a small reactor with minimal safety: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1
“On Tuesday, January 3, 1961, SL-1 was being prepared for restart after a shutdown of 11 days over the holidays. Maintenance procedures required that rods be manually withdrawn a few inches to reconnect each one to its drive mechanism. At 9:01 pm MST, Rod 9 was suddenly withdrawn too far, causing SL-1 to go prompt critical instantly. In four milliseconds, the heat generated by the resulting enormous power excursion caused fuel inside the core to melt and to explosively vaporize.”
The industry didn’t just randomly get so risk averse there where a lot of meltdowns and other issues over time.
3 replies →
Our enemy countries are West Virginia and Pennsylvania?
Meltdowns aren't physically possible if we're building newer types of plants, so there can't be a new Chernobyl or even Fukushima if we're using modern types of passively cooled plants.
There’s generally significant costs and asterisks around such claims.
You’re much better off paying attention to site placement than trying to design something to safety handle getting covered in several meters of volcanic ash Pompeii style.