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>As the article states, they lost their competency. I think people undereatimate how bleak the short term future (50-100 years) is looking right now. We've for

by cc439 8y ago

>As the article states, they lost their competency. I think people undereatimate how bleak the short term future (50-100 years) is looking right now. We've forgotten how to properly build many of the things we once touted as the pinnacles of modern civilization and the current societal status quo is too fractured and stressed to ever pursue the kind of learning process needed to reaquire that knowledge. This is but one example among many.

greglindahl 8y ago
We have plenty of competence in wind and solar energy. What we need to pay attention to is that many of the nuclear plants built in the past are flawed, and so we always had less competence at building them than we thought.
- candiodari 8y ago
  Not at all. We had plenty of competence. We just chose to save a buck instead of using it. And the risk ? "You cannot blame me for that !" (especially since this is taxpayer funds, ie. everyone, decided by democratic vote, at least in France and the US. The democratic contract ought to mean that since we collectively decided to do this, we are also collectively responsible for the results, and yes, even if you voted for the other guy)
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    You appear to be certain that you know a lot about whom to blame, but the reality is that it's unclear that we ever had the ability to build a large number of reliable nuclear power plants.
    - Ygg2 8y ago
      We know we are incapable, because deaths per GWh for nuclear power are lower than solar or wind. Oh wait. No. That's opposite.
    - opo 8y ago
      >…it's unclear that we ever had the ability to build a large number of reliable nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plants have been safer and more reliable than other forms of power. In terms of reliability, nuclear has had the highest capacity factor of any source of power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor In terms of accidents, nuclear has had a much better safety record than any other form of power up this point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents (They don’t cover ground based solar which I would think would actually be the safest. Why do people keep wanting to subsidize roof top solar?) Some other links on deaths due to energy production: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener... https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#25416d10709b https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d... Unfortunately anything at all related to nuclear is covered by the media orders of magnitude more than other power sources so people have an understandable perception that it is much more dangerous than other sources of power. What if the Alison Canyon was a nuclear storage site (instead of a natural gas storage site) and 11,000 people had to be evacuated - how much would the media have covered that? Another recent example would be the evacuation at the Oroville dam - almost 200,000 (YES 200 thousand!) people were forcibly evacuated since the worst case failure scenario would have have been a tidal wave of water 30 feet high rushing down stream. This made the news for maybe a day. I can't blame some for being afraid of nuclear power, but there are many who should know better.
      - Reason077 8y ago
        ”Why do people keep wanting to subsidize roof top solar?” Ground-based solar has a cost in terms of the land being unavailable for other purposes, such as agriculture or housing or even just maintaining ecosystems in their natural state. But roof-top solar is making use of a resource that is otherwise unproductive space anyway. There are also benefits to having energy production right at the point of use, since you avoid grid losses and are offsetting the retail cost of energy rather than selling into the grid at wholesale prices.
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    When you elect representatives, you delegate a lot of authority to those representatives. No one picks who to vote solely on nuclear policy, and you could argue that if it you actually polled voters it probably wouldn't rank very high in terms of priorities, especially not nuclear at any cost.
Bograff 8y ago
I feel like this outlook discredits a lot of wonderful young people out there.

by cc439 8y ago

greglindahl 8y ago

We have plenty of competence in wind and solar energy. What we need to pay attention to is that many of the nuclear plants built in the past are flawed, and so we always had less competence at building them than we thought.

candiodari 8y ago
Not at all. We had plenty of competence. We just chose to save a buck instead of using it. And the risk ? "You cannot blame me for that !" (especially since this is taxpayer funds, ie. everyone, decided by democratic vote, at least in France and the US. The democratic contract ought to mean that since we collectively decided to do this, we are also collectively responsible for the results, and yes, even if you voted for the other guy)
- greglindahl 8y ago
  You appear to be certain that you know a lot about whom to blame, but the reality is that it's unclear that we ever had the ability to build a large number of reliable nuclear power plants.
  - Ygg2 8y ago
    We know we are incapable, because deaths per GWh for nuclear power are lower than solar or wind. Oh wait. No. That's opposite.
  - opo 8y ago
    >…it's unclear that we ever had the ability to build a large number of reliable nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plants have been safer and more reliable than other forms of power. In terms of reliability, nuclear has had the highest capacity factor of any source of power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor In terms of accidents, nuclear has had a much better safety record than any other form of power up this point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents (They don’t cover ground based solar which I would think would actually be the safest. Why do people keep wanting to subsidize roof top solar?) Some other links on deaths due to energy production: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener... https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#25416d10709b https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d... Unfortunately anything at all related to nuclear is covered by the media orders of magnitude more than other power sources so people have an understandable perception that it is much more dangerous than other sources of power. What if the Alison Canyon was a nuclear storage site (instead of a natural gas storage site) and 11,000 people had to be evacuated - how much would the media have covered that? Another recent example would be the evacuation at the Oroville dam - almost 200,000 (YES 200 thousand!) people were forcibly evacuated since the worst case failure scenario would have have been a tidal wave of water 30 feet high rushing down stream. This made the news for maybe a day. I can't blame some for being afraid of nuclear power, but there are many who should know better.
    - Reason077 8y ago
      ”Why do people keep wanting to subsidize roof top solar?” Ground-based solar has a cost in terms of the land being unavailable for other purposes, such as agriculture or housing or even just maintaining ecosystems in their natural state. But roof-top solar is making use of a resource that is otherwise unproductive space anyway. There are also benefits to having energy production right at the point of use, since you avoid grid losses and are offsetting the retail cost of energy rather than selling into the grid at wholesale prices.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  When you elect representatives, you delegate a lot of authority to those representatives. No one picks who to vote solely on nuclear policy, and you could argue that if it you actually polled voters it probably wouldn't rank very high in terms of priorities, especially not nuclear at any cost.

Bograff 8y ago

I feel like this outlook discredits a lot of wonderful young people out there.