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Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

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271–280 of 396 posts

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death toll from that incident was one (1). You can see online, nuclear power is actually one of the safest methods of energy generation, behind solar and ahead of wind, because sometimes dudes fall from the tops of the windmills. Could you start looking at the second-order effects of the meltdown to get a higher death toll? Probably, but you could probably also look at all of the pollutants generated by solar pan…

Death toll isn't the only metric for accident severity. Environmental pollution is really important too. And with Fukushima we were kinda lucky. It was still a double meltdown with several hydrogen explosions and could have been much worse.

I think I already addressed this point. You also need to think about second-order effects, but like I said, there are second order effects to all of these solutions. Just because nuclear's side effects are more easy to dramatize doesn't mean that it is necessarily more deadly / harmful to the environment.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#272
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

National stereotypes... Italy's the 3rd largest economy in the EU, and 8th in the world, with an advanced technology sector to boot. And if they somehow cannot figure it out, their French neighbors most assuredly can.

I am Italian and currently live in Italy, and don't trust my government with building nuclear plants. As long as the people in power are famous for lying and twisting reality, we should not touch nuclear.

Would you welcome your comrades Russian when they roll over your country? No? Then deterrent is the only option.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#273
post #85
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mainly by not building reactors designed in the 1960s.

Better and more modern designs with sensible passive features and so on will solve a lot of the problems compared to these ancient plants.

These more modern designs don't solve the primary problem of nuclear, which is cost.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What nuclear industry does Germany have?

The map I found says there's still a couple operating reactors.

They are not operating anymore. Last 3 were shutdown last(?) year. They are now being dismantled. Though, there is research done, but mainly fusion, and some Fusion-reactors. Doesn't help with weapons, but might be your map is not specific enough about this?

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#275
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very, very expensive and (until last week) it was critical to keep the US on side, which would be jeopardized by breaking the nonproliferation treaty. The MAD argument still applies: Ukraine can't threaten to nuke Moscow without Russia obviously threatening to retaliate with nukes.

> MAD argument still applies Ukraine isn’t in and probably never will be in a position to credibly threaten a MAD second strike to Russia. From number of warheads to strategic depth, it’s not a realistic option. Instead it would seek to credibly threaten limited nuclear war using tactical nukes. This would only make sense with European support. And at that point, it almost makes more sense for Europe to directly ente…

> credibly threaten limited nuclear war

Both sides have to agree to the "limited" part for it to stay limited. Mind you, threats of nuclear escalation are routine from Russia.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#276

Maybe not well known, but during the 20th century a number of nations started a nuclear weapons program, but then were convinced to halt the work by security guarantees by the U.S. You better believe that every single one of those nations is now revisiting that decision. For those wondering if Italy can afford to build nuclear: their economy is larger than Russia’s. As is Brazil’s, another nation that put nuclear wea…

the Netherlands has nukes in loan from the US. They are at Volkel Airbase. Officially it's a secret, but it's common knowledge and was also confirmed by a former prime-minister. In exchange for these loaned nuclear weapons the Netherlands promised not to develop nuclear weapons of their own. With the US now showing they are not afraid of doing a "rug pull" on agreements, one starts to wonder if the Netherlands should…

The Netherlands also has elections.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear is very safe and reliable. How do we stop fukushima-like disasters?

The death toll from that incident was one (1). You can see online, nuclear power is actually one of the safest methods of energy generation, behind solar and ahead of wind, because sometimes dudes fall from the tops of the windmills. Could you start looking at the second-order effects of the meltdown to get a higher death toll? Probably, but you could probably also look at all of the pollutants generated by solar pan…

Death toll so far. Projections of cancer deaths from Fukushima go up into the hundreds.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#278
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTW, Ukraine already had nuclear weapons, but agreed to give them up for security guarantees by the US, the UK, France and Russia (!) in 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

The Budapest Memorandum had no security guarantees. > Another key point was that U.S. State Department lawyers made a distinction between "security guarantee" and "security assurance", referring to the security guarantees that were desired by Ukraine in exchange for non-proliferation. "Security guarantee" would have implied the use of military force in assisting its non-nuclear parties attacked by an aggressor (such…

Thats kind of lawyer speak, not much different when insurance company don't wanna cover you because of some tiny font paragraph or different interpretation in the contract.

USA could before this war started (because they publicly on camera warned about invasion days before) tell Putin that in case of invasion they believe they cannot fullfill contract commitment so in this situation the contract would be void and they would have to return few old nukes to Ukraine. This would be enough deterrent and fair to justify.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#279
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you add storage to the network you can store the surplus renewable generation for later dispatch, Europe's largest just went online: https://archive.is/p9qsS

To my understanding the use of nuclear would be to reduce the ammount of spread out battery stations that'd have to cover the base load when cloudy / at night. There'd also be less overbuilding of solar as you have to build for winter weather and day length instead of summer if solar is supposed to cover everything

Covering winter with renewables would use longer term storage than batteries, for example hydrogen.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#280
post #22

The problem with nuclear in Italy is just one: how many time have you read about a public bridge fallen because of bad construction? Same for roads, houses and so on. Most of the time the reason is the company building those, trying to spend less in materials and avoiding regulations - something unfortunately not so unusual in Italy. So imagine what could happen with a nuclear plant... (nuclear is safe, building in I…

France has never had a major nuclear accident. The biggest issue is of course, earthquakes in Italy.

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