91–100 of 139 posts
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USA builds small nuclear reactors, on time and with reasonable budget ... but then use to power warships instead of cities.
Is that “reasonable” for someone building a warship similarly “reasonable” for someone competing with wind and solar?
This is bad writing for a lot of reason. First the author tells us that if we consider ourselves pro or anti nuclear we can't possibly have thought through the pros and cons of nuclear power. It must be because we identify ourselves as left or right. Or green or not. Then he tells us that if we _do_ have a policy position, we are probably wrong because "its complicated". All of which I find mildly insulting. Then he…
The point of every Vox article is to justify the existence of Matthew Yglesias-style centrist neoliberal wonks. "All problems are too complicated for the average American to understand! The answer is always somewhere in the middle! Go to sleep and let the adults in the room handle this!"
When Bernie/AOC lead with rhetoric like "climate change requires WWII levels of mobilization", it strikes me odd that they think that level of change is feasible, but that the unprecedented mobilization and centralization of efforts can't be applied to nuclear technology. It's bizarre and makes me think that it's a blatant political agenda much more than sensible application of technology to solve problems in the wor…
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No, there is a huge difference. In a house, the AC is powered efficiently by electric power from the grid or even your solar cells. With the car, you keep a combustion engine , that could output 100kW or more running purely to power a 1kW AC unit. This is one of many advantages of electric or hybrid cars, that you can keep AC running.
In a house, you are cooling the entire volume of space enclosed so that wherever a human happens to go, they are comfortable. It is still littering, regardless of the scale.
I assume (perhaps I should not) that by "littering" you are referring to the production of greenhouse gases. If this is so, I'd like to point out that if you are breathing, by your definition, you are littering with every breath.
Sorry folks give up the ghost nuclear was dead at least 3 decades ago. Solar and wind are the future. We don’t have a decade to build a new nuclear plant, in that plan we’d need a time machine going backa decade to abate climate change that’s now locked in. I’ll spare you all the risks and externalities, it’s just dumb. Again sorry.
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> 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…
Subsidized against what? It's main competitor, carbon, has the implicit subsidy of not having to account for the externalities in the waste it creates. Against new green tech yes, it's a better argument.
Right, so I'll take cheap panels and turbines please. We should stop pushing the luxury reactors. We can't afford them if we actually want to spend the limited funds we have to save the planet.
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You can't have the real, workable New Green Deal without nuclear power. Anyone who says we're heading towards a climate catastrophe and is against 4th gen nuclear (thorium) at the same time is a hypocrite. Here we have something both sides of the aisle will support, irrespective even of their views on climate change, let's get to work and if there are safety concerns, let's mount an effort to address those. Once thos…
"4th gen nuclear" that could utilize current waste is years or even decades away from commercial availability. If you want to bet everything on a potential future technology that doesn't currently exist why not choose nuclear fusion? That will really solve all your waste and fuel problems...
It's not: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Russias-BN-800-unit-ent...
I agree with you on fusion. But as a stop gap, thorium and 4th gen nuclear sound awesome to me.
This is bad writing for a lot of reason. First the author tells us that if we consider ourselves pro or anti nuclear we can't possibly have thought through the pros and cons of nuclear power. It must be because we identify ourselves as left or right. Or green or not. Then he tells us that if we _do_ have a policy position, we are probably wrong because "its complicated". All of which I find mildly insulting. Then he…
I found it good informative reading, compared to biased articles or comments that cover only one side. These articles are written for the masses, not people who have spent dozens of hours studying every nuance and came to an opinion. If such people do comment on the article, I'd rather hope they comment on specifics rather than just say "writer is a snob, article sux".
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…
Is this actually the prevailing analysis of the status quo? Is the best unsubsidized nuclear power plant we could technically build today actually cost effective or is it not? Can people with insight chime in? I just tried to google an answer and, from a layman's perspective without a horse in the race, there seems to be no single easily available answer. As a side note, it irritates me how often this is the case for…
The real nail in the coffin are the huge uncertainties and capital costs. Suppose projections show that electricity demand will rise by 1000MW over the next ten years so new reactor is built. But what if demand only rises by 500MW? Then you have wasted billions that won't ever be recouped.
When Bernie/AOC lead with rhetoric like "climate change requires WWII levels of mobilization", it strikes me odd that they think that level of change is feasible, but that the unprecedented mobilization and centralization of efforts can't be applied to nuclear technology. It's bizarre and makes me think that it's a blatant political agenda much more than sensible application of technology to solve problems in the wor…