ADreamOfLiberty

5000 characters really? Well I know I'll have to do this in the future and can make it pretty next time.

#1 - Pro - Definition of "Better": Sad that it has to be said, tells you something about the shenanigans that go on around here. (comment only)

#1 - Pro - ADRESSING SAFETY CONCERNS: Essentially the claim is that the risk exists but is not substantial per joule produced (specifically compared with coal).

#1 - Pro - WHY NUCLEAR ENERGY CAN AND SHOULD REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS - Nuclear plants has a high energy output: Claims nuclear power plants are powerful, while this is certainly colloquially true the kind of figures that would actually support Pro's case here would be watt/$ maintenance, watt/$ construction, or maybe watt/land area used. If Con fails to make this point this analysis won't affect scoring.

#1 - Pro - WHY NUCLEAR ENERGY CAN AND SHOULD REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS - Nuclear energy is far more fuel efficient than fossil fuels: This is not a fair point, one does not find uranium ingots lying around. A fair comparison is the energy density of uranium bearing ores vs coal or oil. Obviously it would depend on the ore, but this analysis oversimplified. If Con fails to make this point this analysis won't affect scoring.

#1 - Pro - WHY NUCLEAR ENERGY CAN AND SHOULD REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS - Nuclear reliability and longevity: The point is well taken however one of the quotations from a citation is misleading. If X costs 10% of Y in every meaningful way it doesn't matter if X only produces half the time Y does. Only the very smallest country has so few power plants that they cannot alternate and average out. Nations share energy. A useful comparison would incorporate all variables into an average power output and compare costs. If Con fails to make this point this analysis won't affect scoring.

#2 - Con - Nuclear Power is not renewable: Notes that if it does replace fossil fuels the supply will be exhausted sooner than "thousands of years", I find this argument especially poor because this claim is easily susceptible to math. Assuming the previous citations of pro as to the remaining fuel supply (which are subject to many factors) did not account for increasing demand as a replacement for fossil fuels Pro gave a link https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-power-in-the-world-today.aspx which has the yearly energy production breakdown. The additional nuclear fuel used would be proportional to the additional energy produced. The change would be from 10.3->(10.3+2.8 + 23.5 + 36.7) = 1:7.12 so "thousands of years"/7.11 ~= 281 years. That's 281 years to perfect fusion with no carbon emissions. "renewable" was not part of the resolution, only a better alternative and the framework made it clear that the metric of acceptability was carbon emissions. If Pro fails to make this point this analysis won't affect scoring.

In this section Con also claims "nuclear energy cannot be extracted from non-radioactive elements. I will properly explain why this is in Round 2 but Pro made it seem like all elements other than iron could be used, when in reality the sources are limited." I know off the top of my head this is false but most people wouldn't so it isn't common knowledge. We'll see what Pro does.

In this section Con claims that thorium is too precious to be used for energy because it is used for its material properties. As the owner of thoriated TIG rods I can confirm, however this shows that Con's understanding of the relative scales is off by a three or four orders of magnitude. Any controlled nuclear reaction renders the material of that reaction infinitely more valuable as an energy source than a metal. If you have enough to be making metal alloys with it you have enough to power the world for a very very long time.

#2 - Con - The devious history of nuclear energy: Claims "In fact, Pro is wrong to say NE is manageably cheaper at all," and provides a comparison between nuclear and fossil in the 80s. Pro said nuclear was cheaper than the non-carbon emitting alternatives today. He did not say it was cheaper than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are not an option allowed by the resolution. This is not a scoring difference on argument because fossil fuels are excluded however I may consider it a conduct problem as it treads close to a strawman.

Con also claims in this section "Nuclear energy is sprawled with disinformation and cover-ups to enable certain interested parties that profit from its success." welcome to earth Con, on the face of it this can hardly be expected to sway a comparison between different technologies as the problem is in the men not the technology.

#2 - Con - So, why not renewable over nuclear? : Con claims "Pro has one attack on RE; they are not reliable." That is essentially accurate. If I were to make the case for nuclear watt/$ would be my first line of attack as that is what separates feasible from fantasy. I was not making the case however so this is sufficient refutation if a refutation it is.

#2 - Con says "we have to begin using very (ironically) energy-demanding means of mining the radioactive materials", if the energy produced was not thousands of times greater than the energy required to mine it would never have been a realistic option in the first place. This is a non-issue in the energy context, a case could be made that mining unnecessarily destructive but the case has not been made yet. Even coal easily pays for its own extraction.

#2 - Con goes on to say "we actually have all the drawbacks of renewable energy on top and even perhaps worse.", he did not make that case.  The first drawback he mentioned was reliability and he in no way established that a combination of non-nuclear would be any more reliable than nuclear. Certainly having a combination of intermittent power sources increases reliability or more accurately increases 100 year event min power capacity (which is what we really care about). The exact same thing is true of multiple nuclear power sources, and since their base reliability is higher so is the combined reliability.

#2 - Con says "Solar panels themselves are recyclable", I do not know if pro will make this point so it may not affect scoring; but everything is recyclable given enough energy. Solar panels are not easily recycled like say asphalt or glass. Con also does not make the argument but creating a solar panel that lasts thousands of years with no maintenance is actually plausible while systems with moving parts or severe thermal stresses like windmills and nuclear reactors will never get there.

#2 - Con finally gets around to Chernobyl, saying "An entire city can become nearly permanently damaged (literally, life can't sufficiently grow back other than some funky mushrooms and any children born in the area will suffer" which I know to be false, but I have to hear it from Pro. I also need to see Pro point out that such an outcome is not a realistic worst case for a modern reactor.

So at this point Pro stands on reliability of nuclear over zero-carbon alternatives. Pro stands on safety but he admitted in that section that solar and wind are safer. Although interesting, Pro's sections on why nuclear is better than fossil are irrelevant.

Without a priority balancing formula safety vs reliability can't be resolved, I also hope to see some cost/time analysis from both sides. Note also that safety and reliability can often be bought with money.

#3 - Pro - Generally correct about the lack of rebuttable material (in a bad way for Con).

Pro says "Add in that nuclear is the lowest emitter of carbon diokside of the energy sources mentioned", this probably a dishonest way to present the information. No carbon emissions are required for nuclear, hydro, solar, or wind. If there are carbon emissions they are incidental to manufacturing and certainly don't need to be that way. Anyone can burn a bunch of oil making solar panels if they wanted but that's not inherent in the technology.

Pro appears to cite Con about Chernobyl... burn

Pro does point out that nuclear energy does not require initially radioactive elements, with sources, so my previous scoring decision is activated.

Pro points out fusion is renewable, I'd say if fusion isn't renewable nothing is. Also note that if we have fusion reactors nobody is going to need to burn anything much less hydrogen.

Pro points out solar panels cost a lot to recycle, hec they cost a lot to make; and you would need so so many to match a nuclear reactor... but I'm not Pro so let's see what the other rounds hold.

The wind turbines as they are currently being built are a total disaster, they fail when they should be designed to last for centuries, they produce sounds when they could be designed to be quiet. I would argue this is the result of artificial demand, when people want to brag about something more than they actually want that thing... but as they are being built Pro's critique stands.

Pro's points on Hydro are mostly overstated, except for pointing out some countries have more or less of the required resource. In fact having been interested in the subject I can say with confidence that almost no major hydro power flow remains untapped in the world. It's an amazing idea with very few downsides, but it's tapped out. Whatever power we have from them that's all we're getting.