Why are greenies so anti-nuclear?

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

As I was researching for the "Which party would you support where" thread, I noticed that virtually every green party is hostile to nuclear energy. Some were even founded explicitly by anti-nuclear activists who attempted to, in many cases quite successfully, shut down existing power plants.

I can understand why a country like Japan would not be the safest place to build nuclear generators, but much of continental Europe has these parties shutting down or halting construction of new plants. These plants take years to build and even longer to pay for themselves, but I'm skeptical of most energy plans that exclude nuclear. In the United States, especially, we have vast regions of vacant land where plants could be established safely, but the Green New Deal has not a single mention of nuclear and while Biden personally supports it, it's definitely going to be one of the first things he concedes if we ever see any major environmental or energy legislation.

These are the people telling us to "follow the science", but at least for the US it is, ironically, an issue where conservatives are less hesitant than liberals. There is not much of an education gap, either.

So given current technology and safety mechanisms, why are environmental activists so shy to embrace nuclear, especially since it's the strongest tool we have to replace fossil fuels and we might already be 20 years too late to get started on it?

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

Nuclear power is an expensive bondoggle and largely pointless now that other renewables are cheaper.

Which is why Germany switched out (virtually) zero-carbon nuclear for more coal and gas?

I mean I guess that’s one reason I’m a registered Dem and not a Green?

[Donerail]

So given current technology and safety mechanisms, why are environmental activists so shy to embrace nuclear, especially since it's the strongest tool we have to replace fossil fuels and we might already be 20 years too late to get started on it?

Waste problem, risk of accidents, sense that it competes with other renewables for scarce dollars. Most green parties predate "climate change" as a political concern so arguing merely that nuclear power is essential to combat climate change is not a persuasive arg here — it's fundamental to the existence of a lot of these parties, they formed around the anti-nuclear movement. Maybe climate will start to take over that role as a central animating issue, but it's difficult to ask a party to 180 on one of their central tenants over just a couple decades.

[Person Man]

So given current technology and safety mechanisms, why are environmental activists so shy to embrace nuclear, especially since it's the strongest tool we have to replace fossil fuels and we might already be 20 years too late to get started on it?

Waste problem, risk of accidents, sense that it competes with other renewables for scarce dollars. Most green parties predate "climate change" as a political concern so arguing merely that nuclear power is essential to combat climate change is not a persuasive arg here.

1) Deaths and pollution from nuclear are on par with renewables.
2) There's plenty of money if we didn't have to subsidize oil, coal, and gas production, exploration and utility monopolies
3) The only potential long-term viable renewable energy project would be space-based transmitted solar power.

[afleitch]

The political Green/Ecology movement emerged from campaigns against the nuclear industry both in energy and defense. It's a bit of a shibboleth. Some in the movement were on record a decade ago of promoting 'clean' diesel of all things.

And I say this as a Green voter.

[Donerail]

So given current technology and safety mechanisms, why are environmental activists so shy to embrace nuclear, especially since it's the strongest tool we have to replace fossil fuels and we might already be 20 years too late to get started on it?

Waste problem, risk of accidents, sense that it competes with other renewables for scarce dollars. Most green parties predate "climate change" as a political concern so arguing merely that nuclear power is essential to combat climate change is not a persuasive arg here.

1) Deaths and pollution from nuclear are on par with renewables.
2) There's plenty of money if we didn't have to subsidize oil, coal, and gas production, exploration and utility monopolies
3) The only potential long-term viable renewable energy project would be space-based transmitted solar power.

What?

[parochial boy]

2. Nuclear energy is extraordinarily expensive when all of the relevant costs are accounted for, and nowhere near cheap enough to compete with renewables or fossil fuels in a strict cost-benefit analysis. At best there might be a place for it as a replacement for base load plants that now rely on fossil fuels, but then the case must be made that nuclear is a better investment than storing energy, increasing efficiency, and shifting utilization.

Is it not almost the other way round in some respects? One of the biggest problems with renewables as it stands is that, with the exception of hydroelectric, they are nearly impossible to use (solar and wind especially) the to respond to peaks in demand as we don't have the ability to control output so well, and storage capabilities are, for the moment at least, not really there yet. And Hydroelectric has the disadvantage that it isn't so viable outside of certain geographical conditions - and can be even surprisingly dirty in the wrong ones - humid, tropical climates for instance

Nuclear has the advantage that is more flexible in output.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The problem with nuclear power (aside from the obvious waste management issue) is that it's simply too expensive. Power plants would require like 30 years to be profitable especially considering how long it takes to build them. That means that no one is going to want to build any without massive government subsidies...subsidies that could be more efficiently spent toward other renewable energy sources.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Nuclear energy is the biggest myth going and Averroes has laid out why quite well: it's ridiculously expensive and takes decades to build. We could equally solve renewable's baseload problem by investing in storage and transmission instead.

Mini reactors might be a different story but that's an experimental technology at present.

[Alcibiades]

Afleitch hits the nail on the head: the green movement essentially emerged from anti-nuclear activism, and to give that up would be to take away one of its foundational elements.

We can, as has been going on in this thread, have a reasonable debate over whether expanding nuclear is the best thing to do going forward. What I hope we can all agree on is that closing down existing plants and in their place, say, burning more lignite coal as has happened in Germany is patently absurd from a green perspective.

[darklordoftech]

It’s important to remember that most Democratic politicians and voters aren’t “kooky green” types.

[Astatine]

Afleitch hits the nail on the head: the green movement essentially emerged from anti-nuclear activism, and to give that up would be to take away one of its foundational elements.

We can, as has been going on in this thread, have a reasonable debate over whether expanding nuclear is the best thing to do going forward. What I hope we can all agree on is that closing down existing plants and in their place, say, burning more lignite coal as has happened in Germany is patently absurd from a green perspective.

Absolutely. I am a supporter of nuclear energy in general, but see the difficulties such as cost and waste disposal, but especially when the power plants have been running anyways and regular high-standard safety checks find no issues, it is simply dumb to not let them run for some years instead of continuing to burn coal until 2038 and constructing new gas fired power plants.

The waste that has been produced already would still have to be stored anyways, so whether it'd be a bit more wouldn't make much of a difference compared to the global effects of carbon dioxide emissions. The deal is done here unfortunately, no company would extended running a nuclear power plant over here anymore simply because conditions would be unpredictable.

But at least us Germans will have a great new pipeline soon to import even more Russian gas.

[7,052,770]

4. The political obstacles to building a nuclear plant in most democracies will be virtually insurmountable: What community in the United States would welcome a new nuclear plant? Most of the areas that host old ones are eager to shut them down. Unless your idea of democracy is "whole process democracy" (), nuclear development is impossible without sliding toward centralized authoritarian rule.

I'd be more than happy for Mississippi to go from 1 nuclear plant providing 20% of the state's electricity to 5 providing all of it. I don't think there would be a lot of protest if the state government decided to make that happen, although as stated already it would take a huge federal subsidy.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

A lot of good discussion here. I'm getting a far different impression about the safety aspects of the generators than I'm used to seeing, although it's possible the article I read a year ago didn't have much to say on it.

It’s important to remember that most Democratic politicians and voters aren’t “kooky green” types.

Nuclear energy skepticism is not a "kooky green" position. The concerns are valid. 2020 was the first year since the 70's that the Democratic Party officially endorsed nuclear on their platform committee. It's the one issue I was in far more agreement with Biden than Bernie on.

20% of Mississippi isn't bad for a single power plant, but if it's too expensive and long-term to invest in nuclear then it's not the silver bullet it's promoted as when there are cheaper renewables other than wind or solar.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Funny thing is for the reasons outlined above, nuclear is impossible to thrive in a pure "free market" scenario while wind and solar energy definitely will. Coal won't be viable in a pure "free market" for much longer either. We all know Republicans don't care about "free markets" except as a talking point but this is a textbook example.

[H. Ross Peron]

Funny thing is for the reasons outlined above, nuclear is impossible to thrive in a pure "free market" scenario while wind and solar energy definitely will. Coal won't be viable in a pure "free market" for much longer either. We all know Republicans don't care about "free markets" except as a talking point but this is a textbook example.

It's ironic to me that so many nuclear power proponents are libertarians, neoliberals, and other kinds of centrist "rationalist" types who dislike the left. The high start up costs of nuclear power as well as its regulatory burden actually strengthens the case for heavy state subsidies if not outright nationalization of nuclear power plants which in turn can be run as a public utility. As an old-school social democrat, I'm all for publicly owned, unionized nuclear power plants that can be the emblem of the power of the State to build back better.

[PSOL]

Funny thing is for the reasons outlined above, nuclear is impossible to thrive in a pure "free market" scenario while wind and solar energy definitely will. Coal won't be viable in a pure "free market" for much longer either. We all know Republicans don't care about "free markets" except as a talking point but this is a textbook example.

It's ironic to me that so many nuclear power proponents are libertarians, neoliberals, and other kinds of centrist "rationalist" types who dislike the left. The high start up costs of nuclear power as well as its regulatory burden actually strengthens the case for heavy state subsidies if not outright nationalization of nuclear power plants which in turn can be run as a public utility. As an old-school social democrat, I'm all for publicly owned, unionized nuclear power plants that can be the emblem of the power of the State to build back better.

You’re making it seem like they and you are it. Basically the left outside the UMC and the Green Party supports expanding nuclear.

[parochial boy]

This is a sensible response but I wrote my post as I did because I anticipated it - it's often mentioned as a counterpoint to the point about how expensive nuclear energy is - and I think that people who object to nuclear energy, as I do, have a responsibility to provide an answer.

My point was that we have other strategies for dealing with this problem, and that they become much more viable over the kind of timeline under which nuclear would come to make up a substantial portion of base load capacity, which is at best 15-20 year proposition in the US even if you can decide where to site them.

Energy storage has improved a great deal within our lifetimes, as have smart technologies that allow users of electricity to time their utilization better. Technology around energy efficiency can even help to reduce the amount of base capacity needed. Advances in producing electricity from tidal energy might be the single most promising hope for meeting this need through renewable energy production. Yes, none of these technologies are quite there yet, but on the timescale for redeveloping nuclear energy they will be significantly more viable than they are today.

That's fair enough, in all honesty, my position on nuclear energy is totally up for grabs and principally winds up on a sort of logic that as much as it is flawed at the time being - there aren't really any forms of green energy that aren't. Even then, some of nuclear energy's more obvious downsides are being resolved in the same way as other forms of green energy. For instance, progress on recycling impoverished uranium which would reduce the level of waste and so on. It's not quite there either, but it's getting there - and is useful for a country like France that already gets most of its energy from nuclear and has the cleanest energy in Europe, and where any retreat from nuclear energy would inevitably mean more carbon emissions.

In that respect, if nuclear is a route to lower carbon energy then it shouldn't be excluded from the mix; at least in the short term where it is a viable option for at least overcoming the deficiencies of other forms of low carbon energy.

In that respect, I agree that the point about the time frame to setting up a plant is almost the most damning one. Not just the PR/democratic case, but as you say the actual construction time. For example, the Flamanville nuclear plant in France is 10 years overdue and counting; because the project is so complex and because decades of not building new plants meant a loss of know how and competency. In that respect, new plants are possibly not a good idea if you are of the logic that decarbonisation is and immediate urgent priority - but decommissioning or not replacing plants as they approach the end of their lives seems a bad idea. See the case of Belgium, which is in the process of replacing nuclear power with gas fired plants, and increasing its carbon emmissions in the meantime. At the moment, I think those existing plants are probably the best way of covering things like demand fluctuation while storage capacities continue to be developed.

Funny thing is for the reasons outlined above, nuclear is impossible to thrive in a pure "free market" scenario while wind and solar energy definitely will. Coal won't be viable in a pure "free market" for much longer either. We all know Republicans don't care about "free markets" except as a talking point but this is a textbook example.

It's ironic to me that so many nuclear power proponents are libertarians, neoliberals, and other kinds of centrist "rationalist" types who dislike the left. The high start up costs of nuclear power as well as its regulatory burden actually strengthens the case for heavy state subsidies if not outright nationalization of nuclear power plants which in turn can be run as a public utility. As an old-school social democrat, I'm all for publicly owned, unionized nuclear power plants that can be the emblem of the power of the State to build back better.

Is the energy market private in the US? That seems even more delightfully insane than the incomprehensible and byzantine form of public ownership that we have here

[Person Man]

So given current technology and safety mechanisms, why are environmental activists so shy to embrace nuclear, especially since it's the strongest tool we have to replace fossil fuels and we might already be 20 years too late to get started on it?

Waste problem, risk of accidents, sense that it competes with other renewables for scarce dollars. Most green parties predate "climate change" as a political concern so arguing merely that nuclear power is essential to combat climate change is not a persuasive arg here.

1) Deaths and pollution from nuclear are on par with renewables.
2) There's plenty of money if we didn't have to subsidize oil, coal, and gas production, exploration and utility monopolies
3) The only potential long-term viable renewable energy project would be space-based transmitted solar power.

What?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power