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After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

forbes.com

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Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#61

Post by burfog »

Ancapistani wrote: post #40
khuey wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Existing already-operating nuclear plants can barely compete with cheap fracked gas in the United States. Capital investment in new nuclear is never going to pencil for a private operator without carbon taxes or enormous price drops.

The existing regulatory structure for nuclear power was designed for the previous generation of reactors. I don’t have deep knowledge in this area, but it’s clear to me that more modern designs have very different risk profiles, and the regulatory structure should change to reflect that. This should reduce the compliance cost, which is a very large portion of the initial and operational costs of nuclear power. In sho…

It's not just that "The existing regulatory structure for nuclear power was designed for the previous generation of reactors."

It was designed specifically to bankrupt them. It was designed to make them unprofitable.

Just changing an ordinary light bulb in a nuclear power plant is all sorts of certification and paperwork.

There was a ratchet effect on regulations. You could always add more, but nobody would take responsibility for removing regulations. The existence of regulations makes the reactors seem even more terrifying (because why else need the regulations) and then the resulting terror was used to justify more regulations.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#62

Post by cure »

erikerikson wrote: post #17
sg47 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stand corrected then. I wonder why for a cohort that doesn't believe in science.

You may need to get to know more Republicans. Yes, they host a fair bit of anti-climate science sentiment. Democrats host a fair bit of homeopathic sentiment. Both persuasions include competent scientists. Republicans are no more unidimensional than Democrats. In my observation, the conversations between them are far more tribal fueding than epistemological clarification: epistemology is just a prop. It seems to me t…

> It seems to me that when we allow ourselves to be distracted by the category conflicts, we are distracted from the fight between those trying to maximize our well-being and those happy to throw us all under the bus to optimize for their individual circumstance.

That's a reasonable point I agree with. But you're just practicing bothsideism here.

It is quite obvious that the ones throwing everyone under the bus to optimize for their individual circumstance are the Republicans. Pretty much every Republican policy is a form of "screw the poor, screw the planet, it's all fine as long as I become richer".

Sometimes it's a bit disguised but it's often quite blatant. For example, all the gutting of regulations at the EPA so that the coal industry can keep polluting to their hearts content.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#63

Post by ozborn »

Folks should parse the article and the platform carefully, it actually reads "existing and advanced nuclear". This could be interpreted as maintaining existing reactors and building advanced (fusion?) reactors and NOT building new fission reactors.

From my perspective this interpretation would be desirable (although probably wishful thinking) given that nuclear energy is too expensive in practise (really only existing plants are competitive with solar), too slow to construct (10 year average construction time in the US?!), centralized and generally poorly managed. The construction of new nuclear fission plants for grid power in the United States isn't going anywhere, since it makes absolutely no economic, environmental or political sense. Yes, most of us on Hacker News know it is better than fossil fuels - but renewable energy is the new competition. Nuclear is going directly against solar with (or without) battery backup and it's been losing for years now - even China has slowed down the pace of construction.

Nuclear grid power advocates should take their arguments to Mars where they will actually have a case. Not much of an atmosphere to spin a turbine, far away from the sun and an environment that makes the Antarctic look like a Garden of Eden should anything go wrong.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#64

Post by tbenst »

I’m continuously baffled by those that claim that nuclear power is safe. Look at Fukushima for example. It seems hard to imagine a nuclear power plant design, even Gen III or IV that would be immune to any possible natural disaster.

Analysis of nuclear power should take into account Black Swan events: no matter how well designed, some fraction of plants will cause INES Level 7 disasters. If the resulting cost (ie $100s of billions for cleanup), environmental damage, and health impacts are still less than wind or solar, I’m all for it, but pro-nuclear arguments continuously give the tired argument that with new designs “this time is different.”

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#65

Post by School-Cotton »

dan-robertson wrote: post #51
notRobot wrote: post #4

For the uninitiated, nuclear power is actually much, much safer than it was in the previous century, and fossil fuel power plants have killed exponentially more people through pollution than all nuclear power accidents combined – it's just not something that happens all at once so it doesn't seem like a big deal to most people. We will not be able to "defeat" climate change and keep this planet inhabitable for future…

What does it mean to say that fossil fuel plants killed exponentially more people? Isn’t this just the triviality that any two points (with different y values) are exponentially related?

It’s the common colloquial usage of “exponential” to mean “a lot”, rather than its technical meaning.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#66

Post by legulere »

notRobot wrote: post #4

For the uninitiated, nuclear power is actually much, much safer than it was in the previous century, and fossil fuel power plants have killed exponentially more people through pollution than all nuclear power accidents combined – it's just not something that happens all at once so it doesn't seem like a big deal to most people. We will not be able to "defeat" climate change and keep this planet inhabitable for future…

Nuclear also got much, much more expensive than it was in the previous century, making it economically completely unreasonable in the west.

Nuclear is also the only energy source where people get displaced from their homes in thousands of square kilometers in catastrophic events.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#67

Post by rriepe »

dmm wrote: post #53
rriepe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish one person who mentioned the long game would also mention that nuclear accidents can make a place uninhabitable for thousands of years. If I had a dollar for every time a pro-nuclear person (not that I'm not) ignored that, or peak uranium...

Anti-nuclear people like to ignore the fact that the status quo _will_ result in many equatorial regions being uninhabitable for thousands of years.

Carbon's a doomsday cult

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#68

Post by gautamcgoel »

dan-robertson wrote: post #51
notRobot wrote: post #4

For the uninitiated, nuclear power is actually much, much safer than it was in the previous century, and fossil fuel power plants have killed exponentially more people through pollution than all nuclear power accidents combined – it's just not something that happens all at once so it doesn't seem like a big deal to most people. We will not be able to "defeat" climate change and keep this planet inhabitable for future…

What does it mean to say that fossil fuel plants killed exponentially more people? Isn’t this just the triviality that any two points (with different y values) are exponentially related?

Yeah, usage of the phrase "exponentially more" is widespread and always almost meaningless. It drives me crazy, especially as a CS theory person, where this phrase has a precise meaning.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#69

Post by retrac »

legulere wrote: post #66
notRobot wrote: post #4

For the uninitiated, nuclear power is actually much, much safer than it was in the previous century, and fossil fuel power plants have killed exponentially more people through pollution than all nuclear power accidents combined – it's just not something that happens all at once so it doesn't seem like a big deal to most people. We will not be able to "defeat" climate change and keep this planet inhabitable for future…

Nuclear also got much, much more expensive than it was in the previous century, making it economically completely unreasonable in the west. Nuclear is also the only energy source where people get displaced from their homes in thousands of square kilometers in catastrophic events.

Dam failures would like a word.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#70

Post by Nimitz14 »

legulere wrote: post #66
notRobot wrote: post #4

For the uninitiated, nuclear power is actually much, much safer than it was in the previous century, and fossil fuel power plants have killed exponentially more people through pollution than all nuclear power accidents combined – it's just not something that happens all at once so it doesn't seem like a big deal to most people. We will not be able to "defeat" climate change and keep this planet inhabitable for future…

Nuclear also got much, much more expensive than it was in the previous century, making it economically completely unreasonable in the west. Nuclear is also the only energy source where people get displaced from their homes in thousands of square kilometers in catastrophic events.

> Nuclear also got much, much more expensive than it was in the previous century, making it economically completely unreasonable in the west.

Because we stopped building them. Of course costs are going to explode when every time you do it the people on the project are doing it for the first time.

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