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I got downvoted in another thread for saying this, but I’ve yet to see any nuclear advocate explain how these systems will fair in a war or state collapse. We’r

I got downvoted in another thread for saying this, but I’ve yet to see any nuclear advocate explain how these systems will fair in a war or state collapse. We’re less than a hundred years out from when wide swathes of Europe were reduced to rubble, but expected to believe that current political formations are going to be stable as far into the future as nuclear materials need to managed. It may be the case that nuclear energy is required to stave off climate disaster, but given the political instability that’s also likely to engender, I’d like to see anyone speak to this with anything like a historical perspective.

pdonis 7y ago
> expected to believe that current political formations are going to be stable as far into the future as nuclear materials need to managed With proper management (reprocessing), we're talking a hundred years or so. That seems like a reasonable time frame to me.
barry-cotter 7y ago
Do not complain about being downvoted. It’s boring, it often leads to further downvoting for whining and it shows a complete lack of perspective to be complaining about meaningless message board points. As for how nuclear power will fare in the event of war or state collapse, really badly, like everything else. Any state capable of running a nuclear reactor built by someone else, never mind building their own, has the capacity for modern industrial warfare, which is insanely expensive in lives and capital. A doubling or trebling of cancer rates due to a Chernobyl level disaster would be background noise compared to war. I wouldn’t worry excessively about state collapse. There’s a great deal of ruin in a nation. If North Korea can keep going and there hasn’t been an instance of non-war induced state collapse in Europe since Rome’s withdrawal from Britain I wouldn’t worry. Think of Libya, Yugoslavia or Somalia. The first fell to outside aggression, the second was a civil war massively prolonged by outside interference and the third had state capacity too low to be relevant in this context.

pdonis 7y ago

> expected to believe that current political formations are going to be stable as far into the future as nuclear materials need to managed With proper management (reprocessing), we're talking a hundred years or so. That seems like a reasonable time frame to me.

barry-cotter 7y ago

Do not complain about being downvoted. It’s boring, it often leads to further downvoting for whining and it shows a complete lack of perspective to be complaining about meaningless message board points. As for how nuclear power will fare in the event of war or state collapse, really badly, like everything else. Any state capable of running a nuclear reactor built by someone else, never mind building their own, has the capacity for modern industrial warfare, which is insanely expensive in lives and capital. A doubling or trebling of cancer rates due to a Chernobyl level disaster would be background noise compared to war. I wouldn’t worry excessively about state collapse. There’s a great deal of ruin in a nation. If North Korea can keep going and there hasn’t been an instance of non-war induced state collapse in Europe since Rome’s withdrawal from Britain I wouldn’t worry. Think of Libya, Yugoslavia or Somalia. The first fell to outside aggression, the second was a civil war massively prolonged by outside interference and the third had state capacity too low to be relevant in this context.