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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.”

#51

Post by littlestymaar »

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.

> nobody can make nuclear plants cost efficiently anymore.

Russia and China disagree with you. The French and American troubles with building new nuclear plants is more linked to the demise of the state-driven industry in those countries than to some inherent difficulties with nuclear itself.

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

#52

Post by rhino369 »

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.

Sure, if suddenly society is disrupted that is a very big issue. But in that sort of sudden collapse, humanity is pretty screwed already.

Making the collapse of society a little worse isn't something we should worry about.

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

#53

Post by belltaco »

Roritharr wrote: post #8
murftown wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? As an aside, I was surprised by the repeated use of "climate hawk" throughout the article as an identity that we might be interested in taking on. Could they have said e.g. "people concerned about climate change"? I may just not know the term's history.

I find this focus on identity politics so toxic it's starting to make life miserable. I'm currently driving a VW SUV company car in a german suburb and the amount of hate I receive because of it is ramping up daily. Even from people driving similar polluting cars, like high-powered station wagons. The other day my wife was breastfeeding our child in our car while I was quickly grabbing something from a store when it…

Interesting, on the other side of the coin, there has been outright vandalism against eco friendly cars.

15 hybrid cars' tires slashed including a Smart car.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Vandal-Targets-Priu...

Similar story in California. https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/daily-news/080908-vandal...

Also in Seattle.

Things are decidedly weird.

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

#54

Post by Knufen »

makomk wrote: post #49
The_rationalist wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"nobody can make nuclear plants cost efficiently anymore." Wrong, China and South Korea does,some private enterprises too. Unlike most technologies nuclear power plant building cost has increased over time (5 times) Mostly among other things (e.g lack of standardization except France), the huge current cost is because of irrational, overengeenered safety specifications. America could trivially build cheap power plant…

Ah yes, the good old seventies, when nuclear plant construction workers could get away with stuff like using a candle to find air leaks in the highly flammable insulation within an already-live nuclear plant: https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featureremembering-the-... Let's not go back there. That could've turned out a lot worse than it did.

An absurd strawman, the guy you are responding to said building a plant whereas you are talking about finding leaks.

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

#55

Post by monieseee »

> One thing I hope to convey is that “pro-nuclear” and “anti-nuclear” are not considered policy positions. They are identities, ways of signaling membership in a tribe. You sign up for one team and then scold the other team on social media (you will have lots of company).

Funny to read this in Vox, which is as tribal as it gets.

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

#56

Post by belltaco »

wutbrodo wrote: post #24
Roritharr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this focus on identity politics so toxic it's starting to make life miserable. I'm currently driving a VW SUV company car in a german suburb and the amount of hate I receive because of it is ramping up daily. Even from people driving similar polluting cars, like high-powered station wagons. The other day my wife was breastfeeding our child in our car while I was quickly grabbing something from a store when it…

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.

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

#58

Post by rhino369 »

dagw wrote: post #41
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 main argument against nuclear is The other main argument I hear all the time is that building a new nuclear power plant today is so expensive that it will never pay for itself at current electricity prices.

I wouldn't go so far as to say never. But that's generally the reason why nobody in building them in the United States.

But countries with high nuclear usage, like France, show that doesn't have to be the case.

If the US proclaimed a new Manhattan Project to go nearly full nuclear for new energy production, it could probably standardize designs, implement fall back safety features, and reduce regulatory costs.

A lot of the cost for nuclear in the United States is that you need an army of 800 dollar an hour attorneys to get approval/fight lawsuits trying to stop you.

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

#59

Post by makomk »

Knufen wrote: post #54
makomk wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the good old seventies, when nuclear plant construction workers could get away with stuff like using a candle to find air leaks in the highly flammable insulation within an already-live nuclear plant: https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featureremembering-the-... Let's not go back there. That could've turned out a lot worse than it did.

An absurd strawman, the guy you are responding to said building a plant whereas you are talking about finding leaks.

It's not a strawman, this was how the US built nuclear plants in the 70s. The folks looking for leaks were construction workers building Unit 3 of the nuclear plant, using a candle to test the newly-installed seal on the reactor building for leaks. Units 1 and 2 were already live. The fire spread through the cable ducts into the wiring for the in-use reactors, taking out both redundant sets of control and monitoring systems. (Which is of course a design flaw too and lead to much tighter regulations.) There's a reason we don't build nuclear power plants like in the seventies.

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

#60

Post by littlestymaar »

jhayward wrote: post #11
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.

France is in the process of phasing out 35% of their nuclear fleet, and the remaining fleet will need to be retired within a few decades. With one exception (Flammanville, 11 years over schedule and 400% over budget) no new plants are planned.

> France is in the process of phasing out 35% of their nuclear fleet

No we aren't. The only plant expected to close soon is Fessenheim, but every others are planned to work for at least twenty more years. EDF just started «le grand carénage»[1] which is a big investment plan to make the plants work 10 more years, up to 60. (Which is in twenty years)

Source: my wife works at Dampierre en Burly's plant, which is one of the oldest running plant in France, and is part of this program (starting next year there).

A law («loi TECV») was voted in this direction a few years ago, stating that 35% of the reactors should be closed by 2025, but none of the four leading political parties in France have any will to respect it (including the current government, which is here to stay until 2022…). This law was 100% communication and nobody really believed it when it was passed.

[1]: https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_car%C3%A9nage (in French only though)

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