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- Switzerland seems like a country where they wouldn't have trouble hiring enough very responsible serious people capable of running nuclear plants. Aside from being able to acquire fuel is there any reason they are not near 100% nuclear?by t1234s
- Yes. Environmentalists.
There are people which want the best we can do (eg, no Ng, coal, etc) in electricity generation. Sensible reductions, that sort of thing. Then there are those that just want no electricity to be used at all, ever, period.
They'll complain about hydroelectric(carbon in cement production), about things which can happen with nuclear(accidents), about birds in windmills, about the production methods of making solar panels, and so on. To such people, doing anything is bad for the environment, so therefore, every type of power generation is bad.
To listen to such people is, of course, madness, as is listening to all extremists. We should simply ignore them completely, but of course the news exists, fake protestors exist which are paid, and so on and so forth.
by b112 - They built their existing nuclear plant in order to hide their nuclear weapons program. So the point really wasn’t energy generation. Nuclear weapons is the main reason countries build nuclear power.by DownGoat
- I'm amazed that the main debate on how clean or dangerous nuclear energy is still circles around the plants themselves and storage of spent energy. I believe that glaring oversight here is that enriched nuclear fuel doesn't grow on trees. Somehow no one ever seems to talk about how efficient and clean the mining of these rare earths is and in which countries that happens. Nuclear being a clean energy is a myth as far as I know. Actually relevant information would be how the necessary mining for uranium etc. compares to coal. I suspect it is only slightly betterby Handrail
- To add to what the other comment said, you have to take into account a reactor is normally refueled every 18-24 months. A coal plant, for example, takes in trains of coal a day.by LtdJorge
- For the storage, check Onkalo for example
Enriched fuel can be gotten from Urenco/Orano or you can build Candu units otherwise. Over half of global uranium mining is already in situ (with several exceptions, Canada among them for good reasons) which is more or less ok enviromentally. Especially considering nuclear requires least amount of mining vs alternatives per kwh. "Nuclear being a clean energy is a myth as far as I know" - then you should inform yourself better. You can start for example with UNECE report https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/LCA_3_FINAL%20...
Trying to say nuclear mining is as bad as coal without even trying to inform yourself about the topic is fascinating
by Moldoteck - Keep in mind that the energy density of nuclear fuel is astronomically higher than that of coal, so even if the processes were equivalently wasteful (and I'm fairly certain they are not) coal would still cause significantly more damage. The process also differ significantly:
Uranium is often pumped out of the ground after being chemically extracted.
Coal is almost always carted out after being blasted.
by itishappy - Nuclear lifecycle calculations include mining. The human cost is terrible, but a separate problem (we could theoretically have ethical mining practices that don't produce more CO2).
Here's some numbers I was able to find on total carbon lifecycle for the energy types: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5... - Coal is 68x more CO2 than Nuclear https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/LCA_final.pdf - Coal is 165x more CO2 than Nuclear https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy - Coal is 161x more CO2 than Nuclear
by mortoc - Citizens should take note that no nuclear plants are ever built without many billions in state loans and guarantees.
It's not a cheap source of electricity, it's a way for someone to get money from taxpayers to subsidize their business.
by Kon5ole - That's what infrastructure is, yes.by kdheiwns
- Could we try to make companies compete and reduce a bit the amount of corruption ?
Note that it’s similar with eoliens wind turbines, they are heavily subsidized
by ttoinou - Cannot be worse than wasting many billions in F35s, can it?by palata
- Is that meaningfully different than modern coal and natural gas plants?
- It's not like Germany is not subsidizing renewables and building gas plants in parallel to firm them... Entire EEG is already double the price of entire french nuclear fleet...by Moldoteck
- The estimated levelized cost of electricity changes dramatically with financing cost: from roughly the low-$100s/MWh under cheap capital to well above $200/MWh under high capital-cost assumptions. But wasn't that the case for wind and solar too?by hereme888
- Energy security is something I expect the government to invest my tax dollars in especially energy generation that is resilient to international politics and reduced carbon emissions.
- You should take note that you’re uninformed or intentionally spreading false information and misrepresenting reality.
Fact of the matter is it takes a large upfront investment to build a nuclear reactor and it has a longer time horizon before it becomes profitable in comparison to something like a gas or coal power plant.
It comes down to whether or not the country, government, citizens and country have the ability to think beyond a 4 year horizon or not.
by cloudie78 - The pro-nuclear propaganda in this discussion reminds me of the tobacco companies that claimed smoking was harmless, or of Monsanto, which insisted that its pesticides were safe, and so on. It is always the same pattern: obvious facts are denied, doubts are exaggerated, legitimate concerns are downplayed, and blatant lies are spread. I wonder how many undercover lobbyists for the nuclear industry are active here on HN.by Archelaos
- Probably only few. Nuclear attracts dreamers. But would they pay the price, literally? Cost is the real reason nuclear is dying.by olau
- Fascinating how ppl mention pro nuclear propaganda when we already know the facts. France and Sweden have among the lowest emissions in EU and got them in 90's by building both ren and nuclear. Germany built only ren, DK built only ren and both have far worse emissions.
The antinuclear lobby in Germany achieved a wonderful feat https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-025-01002-z
by Moldoteck - Switzerland, Norway and Austria are probably the country that needs nuclear the less, but anything to start the discussion in other European countries is good.
Probably not economically viable in Switzerland though.
by orwin - They can always sell the electricityby philipwhiuk
- Norway already wants to build nuclear. Austria still has worse emissions vs France/Sweden despite much more hydro...by Moldoteck
- Yes, it may be more of a symbolic gesture for Switzerland's own needs but it's still good to correct the historical error of prohibiting a broad range of potentially viable approaches from ever being considered.by mrandish
- With little land usable for solar and wind I was thinking that Switzerland and Austria would need it more
Edit: Not Norway - Doh!
by iso1631 - Small land area, mountainous, northerly latitude… it’s not that wind and solar won’t work, but I don’t think you can automatically compare costs to giga-scale solar farms in spacious and sparsely populated equatorial countries. Even if more expensive, nuclear will have a niche, and it’s madness to rule it out.by jl6
- It is no coincidence that countries which need it least can unban it. Deindustrialization activists will focus their efforts on countries where the ban matters.by nrds
- I think we (as in Switzerland) are preparing for a future in which there is not much snow melt/precipitations to fuel hydro production year round.
In fact, if the AMOC weakens/stops then there will be a drastic drop in precipitation across Europe and funnily enough maybe the temperature drop so much that the little snow there will be won't melt in big enough quantities.
Of course this is just a ban lift, meaning that there are no concrete plans to build one or more, but if there is a need to move "fast" (nuclear is not, I know) at least there is one less hurdle. I sincerily hope we invest in other technologies, especially now that Sodium batteries seem on their way to solve grid level storage, but I don't necessarily see this as a bad move per se.
by marcyb5st - Hard disagree. As a. swiss voter, this is close to my heart.
50% of all energy in the swiss economy is oil / gas. Of the remaining 50% (electricity), 2/3 are generated by hydro. The remaining ~1/3 by nuclear fission.
Swiss electricity prices are sky-high, and the demand for electricity is going to continue to rise.
To remain a competitive industrial economy, to transition away from oil/gas, and to offset any potential losses of hydro power as glaciers melt, nuclear + solar is the only real path for switzerland.
by _diyar - Nuclear energy is really the energy of the future, fission still has bright days ahead of it. the startup market for SMRs is going to boom once the core challenges will have been solved, sure that we will see many ETH founders go into that worldby GL26