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It's the only viable fix we have currently, and if I were elected god king of a nation I would push initiatives to build not only enough capacity with atomic po

It's the only viable fix we have currently, and if I were elected god king of a nation I would push initiatives to build not only enough capacity with atomic power to meet demand but excess to keep costs very low. People are worried about automation, the nation that can cheaply power automated factories and server farms in the future will prosper.

killjoywashere 10y ago
Solar and wind have no catastrophic downside, and storage is a tractable problem. A chronically small, grey-haired workforce that the population depends on both to power their lives and prevent catastrophe makes that workforce too powerful. It becomes a governance problem. I highly recommend The Dictator's Handbook for more insight on this.
- jlarocco 10y ago
  Is large scale energy storage any better than just using nuclear energy? They don't have the "nuclear" tag scaring people away, but modern batteries and capacitors are still very dangerous and have a lot of environmental hazards to go along with them.
  - putsteadywere 10y ago
    Gravity based energy storage is inexpensive to construct and reliable. It is wasteful - but we're capturing an incredibly tiny proportion of the energy available from wind and solar for electricity. [0]: http://www.powermag.com/let-gravity-store-the-energy/ http://www.powermag.com/let-gravity-store-the-energy/ [1]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/energy-storage-hits-the-rails-out-west/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/energy-storage-hi...
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    > Is large scale energy storage any better than just using nuclear energy? Yes. > but modern batteries and capacitors are still very dangerous and have a lot of environmental hazards to go along with them. This is just absurd compared to handling nuclear fuel and waste. https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-safety/ https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-saf... "Tesla set fire to a Powerpack to test its safety features – the results are impressive"
    - cmdrfred 10y ago
      If you generated all of the energy you used via atomic power at the end of your life the total size of that waste is about the size of a coke can. 1. How much lithium waste will be produced each year by this process? Aren't we talking creating more batteries than we ever have before by several orders of magnitude here? We send most of our ewaste to the third world to be burned currently, this sounds like an ecological disaster. 2. Do you really believe that in 75 years time the United States won't have the ability to safely store or simply hurl 400 million coke cans at the sun? A big project for sure but the reward is virtually unlimited, virtually free energy.
      - toomuchtodo 10y ago
        > How much lithium waste will be produced each year by this process? It doesn't matter. It can all be recycled. > Do you really believe that in 75 years time the United States won't have the ability to safely store or simply hurl 400 million coke cans at the sun? I don't believe we're competent enough to manage nuclear waste in any form.
        cmdrfred 10y ago
        >It doesn't matter. It can all be recycled It can be, it isn't happening currently: "As of 2017, the recycling of Li-Ion batteries generally does not extract lithium since the many different types of Li-Ion batteries require a different extraction process.[6] Another reason why it isn't being done is because the extraction of lithium from old batteries is 5x more expensive as mined lithium" Even so when recycled it still creates toxic waste in large quantities. What shall we do with that? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        https://www.tesla.com/blog/teslas-closed-loop-battery-recycling-program https://www.tesla.com/blog/teslas-closed-loop-battery-recycl...
    - 10y ago
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  I'm not sure what the comment about "grey haired workforce" is in regards too, but "storage is a tractable problem" is often said without evidence. I'd need to see a smaller nation decommission all of its base load generators before that claim can be considered valid.
  - weaksauce 10y ago
    > grey haired workforce there was talk in this thread about how the engineers that designed the systems in use are the ones servicing them and have been for 20-30 years or so.

killjoywashere 10y ago

Solar and wind have no catastrophic downside, and storage is a tractable problem. A chronically small, grey-haired workforce that the population depends on both to power their lives and prevent catastrophe makes that workforce too powerful. It becomes a governance problem. I highly recommend The Dictator's Handbook for more insight on this.

jlarocco 10y ago
Is large scale energy storage any better than just using nuclear energy? They don't have the "nuclear" tag scaring people away, but modern batteries and capacitors are still very dangerous and have a lot of environmental hazards to go along with them.
- putsteadywere 10y ago
  Gravity based energy storage is inexpensive to construct and reliable. It is wasteful - but we're capturing an incredibly tiny proportion of the energy available from wind and solar for electricity. [0]: http://www.powermag.com/let-gravity-store-the-energy/ http://www.powermag.com/let-gravity-store-the-energy/ [1]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/energy-storage-hits-the-rails-out-west/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/energy-storage-hi...
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > Is large scale energy storage any better than just using nuclear energy? Yes. > but modern batteries and capacitors are still very dangerous and have a lot of environmental hazards to go along with them. This is just absurd compared to handling nuclear fuel and waste. https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-safety/ https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-saf... "Tesla set fire to a Powerpack to test its safety features – the results are impressive"
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    If you generated all of the energy you used via atomic power at the end of your life the total size of that waste is about the size of a coke can. 1. How much lithium waste will be produced each year by this process? Aren't we talking creating more batteries than we ever have before by several orders of magnitude here? We send most of our ewaste to the third world to be burned currently, this sounds like an ecological disaster. 2. Do you really believe that in 75 years time the United States won't have the ability to safely store or simply hurl 400 million coke cans at the sun? A big project for sure but the reward is virtually unlimited, virtually free energy.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      > How much lithium waste will be produced each year by this process? It doesn't matter. It can all be recycled. > Do you really believe that in 75 years time the United States won't have the ability to safely store or simply hurl 400 million coke cans at the sun? I don't believe we're competent enough to manage nuclear waste in any form.
      - cmdrfred 10y ago
        >It doesn't matter. It can all be recycled It can be, it isn't happening currently: "As of 2017, the recycling of Li-Ion batteries generally does not extract lithium since the many different types of Li-Ion batteries require a different extraction process.[6] Another reason why it isn't being done is because the extraction of lithium from old batteries is 5x more expensive as mined lithium" Even so when recycled it still creates toxic waste in large quantities. What shall we do with that? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        https://www.tesla.com/blog/teslas-closed-loop-battery-recycling-program https://www.tesla.com/blog/teslas-closed-loop-battery-recycl...
  - 10y ago
cmdrfred 10y ago
I'm not sure what the comment about "grey haired workforce" is in regards too, but "storage is a tractable problem" is often said without evidence. I'd need to see a smaller nation decommission all of its base load generators before that claim can be considered valid.
- weaksauce 10y ago
  > grey haired workforce there was talk in this thread about how the engineers that designed the systems in use are the ones servicing them and have been for 20-30 years or so.