What are some good arguments against building new nuclear power plants?

post by RomanS · 2022-08-12T07:32:26.298Z · LW · GW · 5 comments

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It seems there is a consensus in the EA community that building new nuclear power plants is a net positive for the world. For example, this video by Kurzgesagt summarizes some arguments in support of nuclear power as a tool to mitigate the global warming.

I wonder if the consensus is premature.

So far, I've encountered the following counterarguments worth pondering about:

1. Solar and wind power plants can be fully controlled and owned by individuals and small communities, with zero intervention from the gov. On the other hand, there is a strong societal consensus that nuclear plants must be strictly regulated or even owned by gov. Thus, a nuclear-powered country is a statist country, which is bad. 
   1. See also: Hydraulic empire
2. Judging by the number of nuclear-power-related fatalities, nuclear plants are rather safe. So far. But in the systems that can go horribly wrong unless properly maintained, the past performance is not a good indicator of the future performance. E.g. if Russians ruin the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the catastrophe will dwarf all the past nuclear disasters, combined. Thus, nuclear power plants are safe-on-average but horrible-in-the-worst-case. One human mistake can make a London-sized area uninhabitable for decades. And humans tend to make mistakes. In comparison, solar and wind are safe on average and in the worst case.
   1. Nuclear plants are safe in the times of peace. But it's reasonable to expect that we'll have more war and terrorism in the future, due to technogenic unemployment and the effects of global warming. 
3. In the West, nuclear power is not the fastest way to get a lot of new renewable energy. A nuclear power plant is a large and complex piece of engineering, with the strictest regulations and the strongest NIMBY tendencies. If you disregard the opposition of the local residents, you can build nuclear plants relatively fast (e.g. China). But in democratic societies, it may be a better idea to build new solar / wind / energy storage factories instead.  
   1. The solar/wind option is also more acceleratable.
      1. Solar / wind tech is already mass produced, and can be easily scaled up. Nuclear power plants are too complex and too regulated to be mass produced in the near future. 
      2. Individuals and small communities can apply direct action to speed up solar and wind, and do it efficiently. In the simplest case, you can install a solar roof, and then brag about its (quite real) financial benefits until your friends do the same. On the other hand, there is no realistic way for you to speed up the nuclear option. "This pundit's witty tweet convinced the president to change the country's nuclear policy, to rewrite all the regulations, and to build 50 new nuclear plants in 5 years" - is a rather unlikely scenario. Instead of chirping into the void, one can invest the same time into installing additional solar panels in the backyard, with a greater impact. Direct action is almost always more efficient than trying to change governmental policies or public opinion. 

Some other reasonable counterarguments?

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