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I'm fairly pro nuclear. There was a time when nuclear was probably the best solution to stop climate change. But that time was 5, maybe 10, years back. Since th
by joshuamorton 7y ago
I'm fairly pro nuclear. There was a time when nuclear was probably the best solution to stop climate change. But that time was 5, maybe 10, years back. Since then, solar and wind have caught up significantly in terms of efficiency.
And given the dearth of new nuclear in the us, safely bringing up a reactor, if we started building tomorrow (ignoring the political challenges of where), would take the better part of a decade to be operational. Solar and wind brings faster returns.
Really we just need to stop subsidizing coal and similar.
- rayiner 7y agoIt’s not just a matter of efficiency. Investment in nuclear has major collateral effects that investment into wind and solar does not have. You won’t have wind powered spaceships. You can’t use wind power to for weapons or aircraft carriers. Nuclear fusion is going to be the bedrock of the next generation of world superpowers. Wind and solar are technological dead ends.
- pfdietz 7y agoSpaceships? That's the supposed payoff for an energy source that is 4x the levelized cost of the competition? I tell you what: if someone wants nuclear spacecraft, let THEM pay for it.
- rayiner 7y agoIf we’re going to subsidize a technology we should think about the whole range of benefits.
- pfdietz 7y agoIt's not a benefit, it's a joke. Nuclear spacecraft were never valuable enough for NASA to spend much money on; why should they justify the enormous cost penalty of new nuclear power plants? (BTW, the reactors in power plants would be useless for spacecraft.)
- rayiner 7y agoThere are lots of uses for nuclear technology in space other than propulsion. Nuclear has huge power to weight advantages, critical for space. Nuclear would also be vastly cheaper if we deregulated the industry and enabled mass production of components, as with nuclear and solar. (As it is, China will ship us subsidized solar while developing thorium technology itself, enabling it to become the dominant technological superpower.)
- pfdietz 7y agoThe point is these are niche applications that cannot carry the weight of justifying civilian nuclear power.
- rayiner 7y agoThese are not “niche applications.” Increased energy production to enable better weapons, better transportation, and increased production is what has historically enabled leaps in civilization. The first country to perfect nuclear fusion is going to have a huge advantage over everyone else. Conservation and wind power aren’t going to take you in that direction.
- pfdietz 7y agoWait, you were talking about space, not "energy production" in general. The space applications are niche, because space itself is niche. Your claims there with respect to terrestrial energy production are not justifications for nuclear. Wind and solar are much cheaper than nuclear, and rapidly getting even cheaper.
- chipsa 7y agoSpace is niche right now, and will always be niche until we get off this rock and have space colonies.
- pfdietz 7y ago
- joshuamorton 7y agoInvestment in fission technology has no practical impact in fusion development. Practically speaking, better solar will be more helpful to spacefaring than better fission.