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  • Hacker News
  • 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
  • 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 world
    by GL26
  • Like the F-35 fighter jet, this is just another victory for lobbyists in the industry who will be able to siphon public money into over-budget, deadline busting white whale projects that will never recoup its costs.

    Especially nuclear. It is now economically non-viable.

    by Arodex
  • I wish Italy did the same.

    We still have to deal with the consequences of a referendum hold not so long after che Chernobyl accident which made it illegal to build and operate nuclear power plants.

    by reddalo
  • It's a world-wide competition to generate the most expensive electricity! The record is currently held by Vogtle in Georgia US, but Ontario Canada is trying to take the crown by spending $500B on nuclear.
    by bryanlarsen
  • This is going to be a huge waste of time and money until we realize that building new nuclear power plants will be too expensive and too late, since we'll have figured out a renewable energy concept that'll handle the load by then. Instead we could also just join a French project, who have way more experience.

    We should focus on extending our hydro power storage capacity instead.

    There will be a referendum anyways, so I think it's unlikely the ban will actually be lifted.

    by starbix
  • Two things to keep in mind when thinking about nuclear

    1) Has the lowest deaths/TWH: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

    2) Any country that is not US absolutely needs to invest in nuclear technology. This is for your own security. In addition to providing energy security, it also provides physical security (with a bit more work).

    Without nuclear, your country will remain vulnerable to:

    1) Direct attacks

    2) Sanctions which destroy your economy and quality of life of your citizens

    3) Fossil fuel disruptions, either intentional or malicious

    With nuclear + solar, you have an unbeatable combination of all forms of security. Every country wastes lots and lots of money on many useless initiatives. Nuclear might seem costly, but security is somewhat important.

    The rest of the world on clean energy will ultimately help people in US, because there will be less foreign adventures and oil will be a lot cheaper when all that demand is destroyed, supply chains are not disrupted by these wars.

    by thelastgallon
  • This still has to pass with the people in a referendum.

    The discourse on nuclear is still quite chaotic in politics in Switzerland. All left leaning parties and greens parties are strongly against nuclear. I am not expecting informed and civil discussions about this topic.

    Switzerland has a summer/winter energy problem. We have lots of potential of producing energy in the spring and summer (when our dams are full from the melting of snow and the sun is shining), and much less so in the winter. We can still improve 10 to 20% our hydro production, but that's it. All the water sheds are already well used and rely on our glaciers to replenish, which will become less predictable with climate change.

    We shouldn't completely closing the doors to all forms of nuclear technology. Obviously, we can't build blindy without any considerations. But we may need it on the second half of the century, especially if we are going to electrify all forms of transport. We can't be buying France's nuclear energy all the time.

    by jokteur

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