Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 666 posts

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#111

Post by Retra »

hueving wrote: post #50
Retra wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sex is fun irrespective of it causing breeding. They are evolutionarily linked, but the have no moral relationship within the human brain. The desire to have sex and the desire to have children are for most people, completely independent desires. And for what it's worth, humans have no obligations to our evolutionary past. "How we evolved" has no direct bearing on what we want (or 'are meant') to do with our lives. I…

>Sex is fun irrespective of it causing breeding. I think you're missing the connection. Sex is fun because evolution selects for things that improve reproduction. People that have fun having sex are going to reproduce a lot more than people who don't have fun having sex.

I'm not missing the connection, I am saying explicitly that is is unimportant. The only reason it wouldn't be is a lack of suitable birth control access.

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#112

Post by Retra »

flukus wrote: post #39
Retra wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sex is fun irrespective of it causing breeding. They are evolutionarily linked, but the have no moral relationship within the human brain. The desire to have sex and the desire to have children are for most people, completely independent desires. And for what it's worth, humans have no obligations to our evolutionary past. "How we evolved" has no direct bearing on what we want (or 'are meant') to do with our lives. I…

The desire to have sex is because it's enjoyable, it's enjoyable as a result of evolution.

Yet if you don't want to have sex, you don't have to, despite any evolutionary pressure to do so. So evolution is not a consideration when trying to determine whether you want to have sex.

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#113

Post by fulafel »

pdkl95 wrote: post #70
spodek wrote: post #2

When will the mainstream consider it acceptable to talk about reducing consumption (without confusing it with lowering the standard of living) and reducing the population (without confusing it with eugenics)? We waste incredible amounts and a lower population means more goods for everyone. I'm not saying they solve everything. I'm just asking when we can talk about these issues that are a lot easier to implement than…

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_... Hans Rosling has a very good argument that we need a certain minimum amount of energy usage if we want both social and population stability. Wasted energy in the developed world is an interesting discussion, but if we want to address climate change the focus has to be on the much larger population of the world that is trying to rapidly increase their ene…

It's easy to imagine many proposals that don't restrict access to washing machines. For example a per capita progressive CO2 tax would be one. We generally have the mechanisms to implement binding international agreements about these things, it's just a question of political will.

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#114

Post by Turing_Machine »

optforfon wrote: post #62

One thing that needs to be stressed is that realistically there is a rather limited amount of Uranium than can be extracted from the earth for nuclear power. That if we could magically convert to 100% nuclear power - it wouldn't last that long. from wikipedia "Still, the world's present measured resources of uranium, economically recoverable at the arbitrary price ceiling of 130 USD/kg, are enough to last for between…

That "arbitrary price ceiling" is exceedingly arbitrary. You get a lot more than $130 worth of electricity from fissioning a kilogram of uranium even with present technology. In current U.S. power reactor designs (no breeding) you can get about a million kwH of heat from one kg of uranium. If you figure 30% efficiency and 12 cents per kWH, that's about $40,000 worth of electricity.

It should be clear that even with present technology uranium is economic to recover at prices dramatically higher than $130/kg.

If breeder reactors are used the recoverable energy from a kg of uranium goes up by a factor of 100 or so, making that kg of uranium worth about $4 million in terms of electricity.

With that technology it would be economically feasible to recover uranium from sea water, and there's enough of it in the ocean to last for billions of years.

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#115

Post by jimmaswell »

niels_olson wrote: post #5
spodek wrote: post #2

When will the mainstream consider it acceptable to talk about reducing consumption (without confusing it with lowering the standard of living) and reducing the population (without confusing it with eugenics)? We waste incredible amounts and a lower population means more goods for everyone. I'm not saying they solve everything. I'm just asking when we can talk about these issues that are a lot easier to implement than…

I don't understand what you mean. What consumption shall we reduce? Less oil? Working on it (see: solar). Less food? Working on it (see: /r/progresspics, and all the science and journalism on this, soda bans, etc). Less cars? Working on it (see: Waze, Uber, Lyft, public transit, et al). Do you suggest that China didn't try population control at scale for generations? (1) What, exactly, do you mean? (1) https://www.wa…

Soda bans are not the way to go. If you're referencing the large soda ban proposed in NYC, I'm glad that atrocity was ultimately rejected. There are better ways to combat health problems than going down the road of telling people what portions of food they are and aren't allowed to buy. That legislation was especially hamfisted in that it attempted to target movie theaters - the law potentially being that if you want soda throughout your movie, either hope you can take up two cupholders, put it on the floor where it could easily get knocked over, or miss part of the movie to go back to the concession stand for a refill.

I don't want to eventually live in a world where I'm only allowed to order 8oz steaks (with the fat helpfully removed by law in case I got funny ideas about eating some of it) and small fries. It's a serious issue that people take that soda initiative as some kind of good thing.

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#116

Post by wallace_f »

sounds wrote: post #94
niels_olson wrote: post #3

My undergrad is in Physics and I took engineering classes in Rickover Hall. I was stationed on a nuclear ship. Even after deploying for the Fukushima disaster, I am a fan of nuclear power. But I have a hard time justifying new investment in an era where solar is competitively priced. The downside of solar is approximately 0 compared to the downside of a reactor accident. I'll even allow for the high, high likelihood…

So let me get this straight: 1. It's a given that somehow, somewhere, a nuke is going to get away from humanity. I'm honestly optimistic that it'll just be a reactor problem, and that we -- humanity -- learn every time one happens. (Because engineers are a careful lot.) Then the environmental damage will be less than Fukushima. 2. Solar + A Storage Miracle (that much storage would be a certifiable wonder of the world…

> Once a country hungry enough (China) succeeds with nuclear, US politics will catch up. They always do.

At least one journalist believes we are already trailing behind China, and have been for a while now[1]

1 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_prit...

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#117

Post by labster »

ianai wrote: post #51
DennisP wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar plus all the infrastructure required to run a wind/solar grid without fossil backup is not yet competitively priced. It looks great at low market penetration but we need to eliminate emissions, not just lower them a little. We're going to end up with plenty of mass hysteria if we don't put the brakes on climate change as fast as we possibly can, by every means available.

Only mass hysteria will force societal change.

This is the kind of comment that sounds sarcastic on first read, but is entirely genuine. Human societies, en masse, are terrible rational decision makers.

Or maybe it's that they're very good rational decision makers on the individual level, leading to the tragedy of the commons? So we'd need mass hysteria to cause group rationality? Ooop, that's the bell, Pretzel Logic class dismissed!

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#118

Post by Turing_Machine »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #108
Turing_Machine wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We've got these things you know, batteries." Batteries are expensive, low-capacity, and absolutely horrendous from an environmental perspective. "Nuclear lost. Its never coming back." There are currently 55 new power reactors under construction and scheduled to be in operation by 2020. China alone has 20 in active construction, with many more planned. http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and...

> Batteries are expensive, low-capacity, and absolutely horrendous from an environmental perspective. Compared to nuclear? That very few nations recycle or reprocesses? And where all the waste ends up in cooling pools forever? Don't be disingenuous. > There are currently 55 new power reactors under construction and scheduled to be in operation by 2020. China alone has 20 in active construction, with many more planned…

"Compared to nuclear?"

Yes. Compared to nuclear.

"That very few nations recycle or reprocesses?"

Way wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#List_of_s...

I count ten countries on that list.

" And where all the waste ends up in cooling pools forever?"

No country keeps waste "in cooling pools forever".

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#120

Post by blondie9x »

You need a combination of solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, and yes nuclear. What some forget is base load power. One of the main reasons natural gas is used as an alternative for coal despite still producing carbon emissions is because it also can be used as a base load electric grid fuel. Nuclear can provide clean base load power.

I understand many are concerned, especially after the terrible tragedy at Fukushima; however there are ways we can prevent that tragedy from ever reoccurring. By transitioning to nuclear technologies utilizing fuel cycles that consume nuclear waste or use fuels capable of reducing risk of meltdown accidents, we can get closer to both clean energy and safety. We don't primarily need nuclear but it should be considered in the mix at least for baseload considerations.

Post reply on HN