All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

Post by quonn » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 3:07 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #239

newacct583 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> treat it as literally unlocking the next level of human development That was literally the way it was thought about a three quarters of a century ago. It... didn't work out. It's just not there. It's fine. It's safe enough. But it's outrageously expensive relative to other equally advantageous sources, and all the magic technologies needed to "fix" that are always a decade away.

No longer true. New reactors coming that are way, way less expensive. If we can stop thinking in terms of a quarter century ago, we can finally get to that future we used to imagine.

Post by tenuousemphasis » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

arrrg wrote: post #6

chuckee wrote: post #3

It's so frustrating seeing nuclear pitted against renewables, while fossil fuel powerplants are still operating/being built, whose baseline power could be replaced by nuclear. But somehow the idea took hold that nuclear would be built instead of solar, and not instead of coal.

With renewables baseline doesn’t make sense. Nuclear doesn’t combine well with renewables, not in a way that would complete the picture. Meaning: you can’t build something that works with only those two building blocks. Even more: baseline is not at all needed with renewables. Renewables need to be combined with power sources that can be turned on and off quickly and on demand. Nuclear emphatically cannot provide tha…

Post by throw0101a » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

chefkoch wrote: post #231

q1w2 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a nuclear reactor does not produce nuclear weapons. This is simply fear-mongering fake news. Also, modern nuclear reactors are dangerous. The GenIII+ specification for all new reactors requires the use of passive shut off. Which means the operator must actively keep the reactor on. If they were to all turn into zombies, for example, the reactor would simply shut off. Omega Tau podcast also did an extensive se…

> We have a PROVEN solution ready to go that can be deployed in literally 10-15 years. We just need to end the ignorance. No we don't. We don't have even one new Gen reactor running and even more important we don't have the people educated to build them in a massive scale. It would take at least ten years to educate the nuclear engineers needed to build dozens or even hundreds of them. And even then they don't have e…

Post by throw0101a » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

lostmyoldone wrote: post #207

lokimedes wrote: post #182

As long as nuclear energy is treated as PICK_ANY(obsolete, uneconomical, systemically dangerous) it leaves me with zero hope for humanity. Nuclear is way more than technology, it's Prometheus' fire. It may burn the unprepared but it is incomparable to anything else we possess. That factor million more energy per gram than chemical reactions should be enough for us to treat it as literally unlocking the next level of…

If it is Prometheus' fire, we are not ready to handle that fire yet. When one of the core concerns of using a technology is to prevent it being used to create weapons capable of obliterating entire cities, we are not as a species mature enough to use it on a wider scale. This is only one example of why we are not ready yet. Nuclear (fission) technology is not the problem, we are the problem. Looking at the recent his…

Post by cnlevy » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 3:16 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #263

throwaway894345 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the cost of 1GW of reliable solar (i.e., with storage and/or over-provisioning such that we have similar reliability to nuclear)?

You'd need both overprovisioning and storage.