What is the RNC's stance on nuclear? Does nuclear now enjoy bi-partisan support? Or just the Dems?
If the Democrats are for it, then they are against it.
After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
311–320 of 489 posts
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not quite why rigorous regulations were put in place. There have been thousands of tanker oil spills, 3,000,000 gallons of oil spilled from US pipelines each year, hundreds of coal-ash spills... In that context, Nuclear wasn't over-regulated, other power sources are severely, dangerously under-regulated. The excellent safety record of Nuclear points towards the regulations being rather effective. I will grant…
>That's not quite why rigorous regulations were put in place. Yes it is. Greenpeace and the like paraded Chernobyl and three mile island around and because it was the 70s and 80s and pollution was a big problem politicians tripped over each other to be seen Doing Something (TM) and that's more or less how we got the current regulatory environment. Of course their intentions were good but it's perfectly possible to bo…
No, really, it isn't. Part of the picture? Sure. But here is literally the history of nuclear regulation [0]
You'll find a tremendous amount of regulation occured long before that time. And yes, in the wake of Chernobyl and our near miss at 3 Mile Island, things were tightened up more, but the lack of new plants was as much about negative public perception than anything else, including very strong coal and gas lobbies that had a vested interest in keeping nuclear energy's market share as low as possible. In the face of multi billion dollar entrenched interests, you over estimate the impact of small non profits. If you really think the industry is over regulated, blame those entrenched interests, not some vocal minority and NIMBY folks.
You also failed to address the point about the excellent safety record of a well-regulated nuclear industry compared to the awful record of significantly less regulated power sources.
Even if you are right about the high cost of regulations, what has that achieved? It has achieved a product that actually prices in the true cost, unlike all of these slipshod practices with oil or coal, where the cost of their incredibly awful safety records is passed indirectly on to everyone. So even if you're right, you've simply described the correct way things should work: potentially unsafe products should have a lot of upfront costs to ensure safety. If we all had to pay for the full environmental impacts of such choices up front, we'd be hammering down the doors of nuclear power to get plants built because, done right, it is safer and cheaper than pricing those same consequences into coal and oil.
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's odd to me that anti-nuclear is being labelled anti-science. It's almost like the pro-nuclear people have blinders on. Nuclear is fantastic, in theory. In practice, in the real world, the consequences of accidents are extraordinarily bad and costly. The odds of a bad accident may be very small, but they are not zero (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident... ). And dealing with the waste…
> In practice, in the real world, the consequences of accidents are extraordinarily bad and costly. ...not really. Fossil fuels kill a simply enormous amount of people. Coal is responsible for something like 13k deaths per year in the US alone; air pollution (from burning fossil fuels) kills something like 10k people per day . > How much do you think it cost to have 1,000 square miles in the Ukraine uninhabitable for…
> I don't think you can handwave that away as an "of course". The externalities around fossil fuels are simply enormous; the issues and costs and risks of nuclear are multiple orders of magnitude less.
That wasn't intended as a handwave. Fossil fuel externalities are indeed enormous and well documented.
It's exhausting to talk to pro-nuclear people, because all everyone ever talks about is nuclear vs fossil. That was the 20th century's fight.
Fossil fuel for the generation of electricity is already doomed, because solar and wind are way cheaper now. Capitalism will take care of finishing off coal, the sooner the better, if we want to keep the planet livable.
In combination with rapid technological innovation in grid-scale storage, we will hopefully end up with a low-carbon power generation solution, one that does not involve risks of a nuclear accident, nor nuclear waste.
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#314I’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 $10…
Maybe it has something to do with fact that Fukushima as of now caused 0 radiation deaths?
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#315[deleted]
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
Partly I think nuclear triggers a cognitive bias where humans will tolerate ongoing low-level shittiness, but really struggle with large catastrophes, even if the catastrophe is far less damaging than the ongoing low-level damage. However, I think the resistance is also because the nature of the catastrophe is different. Have coal or gas plants ever created a Chernobyl-style exclusion zone? I know that mining/drillin…
Burning coal creates fly ash which needs to be stored somewhere, usually large ponds near the power plant. In Tennessee in 2008 a dike ruptured and released 1.1 billion gallons of coal fly ash slurry that flowed into nearby rivers that drained into the Tennessee River. No-one was injured in the initial spill, but people contracted to clean it up developed cancers from being exposed to the toxic coal ash, 300 people d…
You’re off by an order of magnitude. More than 30 of the roughly 900 workers employed during the seven-year cleanup of the nation’s largest manmade environmental disaster are dead (https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2018/12/22/kingsto...)
As stated that not that unusual. At 45 a man has a 0.3285% chance of death per year at 55 that bumps to 0.7766%. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html 3 deaths per year out of 900 works out to 0.3333%. So, depending on the age of workers that’s anything for fairly normal to low.
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#317I’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 $10…
You’re right. We should continue warming the planet while waiting for the pipe dream that is full renewables.
After all, perfect is the worst enemy of good.
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#318For 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…
> We will not be able to "defeat" climate change and keep this planet inhabitable for future generations without mass adoption of nuclear power.
I hope not. Current nuclear technologies are outrageously expensive. It made sense in the 50's-70's only because it was being effectively subsidized by the defense industry who needed the excess breeder capacity for bombs.
It's safe. It's fine. It's good that the democrats have dropped what was always effectively a luddite plank from their platform. But it's not going to save us absent some really disruptive new technology.
Right now we should be putting our electricity investment into straightforward, cheap and easily scaled renewables. That is what is going to replace coal and gas in the short term.
Long term? Fine. If nuclear can make the balance sheet work then let's do that. If not, meh.
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#319I have preached until I was red in the face that nuclear is the only solution we have currently that will get us to zero emissions on a proper time scale when it comes to global warming. I am all for wind and solar, but you have to be practical as well. We don't have anything that is even close to being able to provide stable 24 hour power like nuclear. Obviously we want a mix, but there are safe nuclear designs out…
Neither the US not UK has built and finished a new nuclear plant in 40 years, and the single one (1) in progress in the UK is a 15-20 year project with a construction cost of £23Bn and a subsidy of £50Bn. Trying to turn the small UK nuclear like this would cost £1Tn private construction, £2Tn government subsidies, and take 700 years. Assuming it actually gets finished and not shelved by economic collapse/Brexit as it…
> Neither the US not UK has built and finished a new nuclear plant in 40 years, and the single one (1) in progress in the UK is a 15-20 year project with a construction cost of £23Bn and a subsidy of £50Bn.
This is a great point and its why we should urgently be analyzing the failures of new nuclear projects to understand what’s going wrong and why we can’t do something that we could do in the 1960s and 1970s without issue (France nuclearized its power sector in less than 2 decades!)
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#320For 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…
Partly I think nuclear triggers a cognitive bias where humans will tolerate ongoing low-level shittiness, but really struggle with large catastrophes, even if the catastrophe is far less damaging than the ongoing low-level damage. However, I think the resistance is also because the nature of the catastrophe is different. Have coal or gas plants ever created a Chernobyl-style exclusion zone? I know that mining/drillin…
> Have coal or gas plants ever created a Chernobyl-style exclusion zone?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire
Maybe not a Chernobyl-style exclusion zone, but its devastating a town and the fire will be ongoing for 250-years.