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You don’t have to be “pro-nuclear” or “anti-nuclear.”

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Re: You don’t have to be “pro-nuclear” or “anti-nuclear.”

#121

Post by realusername »

bjourne wrote: post #117
realusername wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> See https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.... . Main finding is that newly built nuclear power is about twice as expensive as wind and 40% more expensive than solar power. Other studies come to similar conclusions. With the cost of solar and wind expected to decrease due to mass production and technology advancements, their advantage grows even larger. I highly doubt they take the unreliabilit…

Modern wind farms are built offshore and with towers 200 meters high or higher. At those altitudes in such locations wind power is quite reliable. Anyway, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If nuclear power megawatts was worth much more than wind power megawatts then why are many new wind farms being built but so few nuclear power plants? It seems to me that those who put their money where their mouth is do n…

> new wind farms being built but so few nuclear power plants?

Because of the initial investment, private companies already have trouble to project themselves just 5 years into the future and they lack the big picture. That's also why privately managed electricity generation just doesn't work.

> Anyway, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

I'll believe what I see as well, there's not a single country in the world which manages to use wind & solar as their primary electricity source and there's nothing indicating any could in the future.

Re: You don’t have to be “pro-nuclear” or “anti-nuclear.”

#122

Post by rmrfrmrf »

The_rationalist wrote: post #115
jay_kyburz wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to evaluate nuclear using reason alone, because a large part of the equation is a moral issue, and we all have different morals. Many of us believe it's immoral to leave behind nuclear waste for future generation to care for. Not only do you have to store it somewhere, you have to secure it so that it can't be misused, for thousands of years.

Please, just quantify . we all have different morals No we do not, all non irrational humans are utilitarists, and many are without even knowing the "concept". believe it's immoral to leave behind nuclear waste for future generation to care for. Do you understand that nuclear waste is just a kind of pollution, which should be compared with other pollutions such as C02 emissions. It is estimated that C02 kill 1000000…

Meanwhile, incidence rates of thyroid cancer continue to rise.

Re: You don’t have to be “pro-nuclear” or “anti-nuclear.”

#123

Post by rmrfrmrf »

nickik wrote: post #82
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #12

If it's really the case that the only way to make nuclear viable is to deregulate the industry , then Bernie is absolutely right that we need to end reliance on nuclear power.

I just so much hate how anytime the solution to anything is 'deregulation' its meet with utter horror. Just using the word 'deregulation' is basically a political death sentence. Even when deregulation things like airplanes, logistics and lots and lots of other industry has been very beneficial. I don't think people even realize to what absurd extend the anti-nuclear movement had managed to attack nuclear energy. To…

I mean, regulation was introduced due to the Three Mile Island meltdown. Acting like it's irrational to regulate an industry that has proven itself unable to self-regulate is entirely dogmatic, especially given the disastrous consequences.

Furthermore, the Trump administration is already deregulating the nuclear industry, so you're getting your wish.

Re: You don’t have to be “pro-nuclear” or “anti-nuclear.”

#124

Post by wazoox »

gnopgnip wrote: post #44
wazoox wrote: post #27

The main argument against nuclear is that it absolutely requires a highly educated, well organized society and workforce. If something really serious disrupts our elaborated, complex societies, then nuclear plants will become really dangerous. With looming climate change, energy crisis, overpopulation and other problems, you can't be sure that we'll be in a stable enough world long enough to be completely safe.

The alternative can be even worse though. Even well maintained coal and natural gas plants pollute more, and are responsible for more deaths than the worst case of nuclear power

Nuclear is better than fossil fuels on many aspects. To keep the Earth inhabitable to humans, we should start closing down coal plants RIGHT NOW and never touch coal again. We should be all working frantically towards stopping using any fossil fuels as quickly as possible. This isn't where we're going...

Re: You don’t have to be “pro-nuclear” or “anti-nuclear.”

#125

Post by wutbrodo »

belltaco wrote: post #56
wutbrodo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I often hear this described as a peculiarly (or at least mostly) American phenomenon, but that's well beyond the type of thing I'd imagine happening in even the hyper-sensitive US city I live in. I know I'm being a little reductive here, but your story is a pretty substantial outlier relative to what I'm used to.

I think it's because large SUVs are much rarer in the Europe compared to the US.

Hm, that makes some sense, but taking SUVs out of the picture, I can't think of any analogue that would happen here.

Re: You don’t have to be “pro-nuclear” or “anti-nuclear.”

#126

Post by gnusty_gnurc »

bjourne wrote: post #118
realusername wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why insist on new nuclear power when so much evidence shows it is not needed? Which evidence? IPCC reports nuclear as being highly needed.

Which IPCC report recommends building new nuclear power plants in the US?

does the IPCC ever recommend exact allocations of power production per country? It seems like their report on Mitigation Pathways suggests a really wide range for nuclear, with the high overshoot pathway having an upper-bound of 7x increase in nuclear generation, whereas 5x upper-bound for low overshoot.

I find this line pretty interesting cause it suggests that people may very well arbitrarily ignore nuclear: "There are large differences in nuclear power between models and across pathways (Kim et al., 2014; Rogelj et al., 2018). One of the reasons for this variation is that the future deployment of nuclear can be constrained by societal preferences assumed in narratives underlying the pathways (O’Neill et al., 2017; van Vuuren et al., 2017b)."

Re: You don’t have to be “pro-nuclear” or “anti-nuclear.”

#127

Post by gaul »

willis936 wrote: post #21
viburnum wrote: post #6

Placing some bets on nuclear make sense (France gets 80% of electric generation from nuclear) but counting on nuclear is risky because nobody can make nuclear plants cost efficiently anymore. America should probably keep trying on a small scale and if they can figure it, then ramp up. The big problem is that nuclear is essentially a big government project, and America is very bad at those.

One thing to note about America’s “small scale nuclear” is that it produces more energy than France’s “large scale nuclear”.

I was surprised to learn that America makes 805.3 TWh[1] but France only 519.4 TWh[2] of nuclear energy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

Re: You don’t have to be “pro-nuclear” or “anti-nuclear.”

#128

Post by jay_kyburz »

The_rationalist wrote: post #115
jay_kyburz wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to evaluate nuclear using reason alone, because a large part of the equation is a moral issue, and we all have different morals. Many of us believe it's immoral to leave behind nuclear waste for future generation to care for. Not only do you have to store it somewhere, you have to secure it so that it can't be misused, for thousands of years.

Please, just quantify . we all have different morals No we do not, all non irrational humans are utilitarists, and many are without even knowing the "concept". believe it's immoral to leave behind nuclear waste for future generation to care for. Do you understand that nuclear waste is just a kind of pollution, which should be compared with other pollutions such as C02 emissions. It is estimated that C02 kill 1000000…

Yes, leaving behind any pollution is immoral. And I have some concerns about the massive growth we are going to see in batteries in the next century. People say they are easy to recycle but my understanding is that they are not currently.

I also have concerns about heavy metals, such as cadmium and mercury, but I believe we should move our society away from producing those wastes as well.

You say it will never be an issue, but it will always be some issue, even if very small, and I think its just rude to leave waste behind for future generations when we can choose alternate energy sources that don't pollute, or just go without the energy.

Re: You don’t have to be “pro-nuclear” or “anti-nuclear.”

#129

Post by icebraining »

unethical_ban wrote: post #83
ajross wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nobody can make nuclear plants cost efficiently anymore Nobody ever could! Nuclear power generation, from its infancy, has been outrageously subsidized, both directly (i.e. DoE grants, government funding of waste disposal) and indirectly (industrial-scale refining of fuel as a side effect of the weapons industry). Once those sources dried up it just plain stopped making sense. At the end of the day it needs to stan…

>At the end of the day it needs to stand on its own to make sense Why? Why does such a critical piece of civilization NEED to make money on a free market? Why is it absurd to expect governments to help fund power generation like they are expected to fund other infrastructure (and healthcare, in most of the developed world)?

Because the point of a subsidy is to benefit the public, not particular industries. If others can stand on their own, why would you waste public money on subsidizing a less efficient one?

Re: You don’t have to be “pro-nuclear” or “anti-nuclear.”

#130

Post by icebraining »

smileysteve wrote: post #68
mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Plus, with nuclear, even if we do everything as safely as possible, there's always a tail risk of a VERY negative event due to causes outside our control. I'm yet to understand why this part of the argument is often so readily dismissed.

That very negative event is less than the expected externalities of coal and in many types of gas exploration

"It's better than coal" is damning with faint praise. Is there anyone who is openly anti-nuclear and pro-coal?
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