4 ms·

Hey, that's unnecessary. I admit that my comment was written in haste and is not properly backed up and can't be properly backed up, not like that. It's a melan

by onli 6y ago

Hey, that's unnecessary. I admit that my comment was written in haste and is not properly backed up and can't be properly backed up, not like that. It's a melange of several points, not well distilled. But the essence goes like: 1. France has a very powerful elite system and one specific route to get there (I'm not saying the engineering schools are that way). That's not controversial, that's just how it is. 2. This leads to a specific orthodoxy, symptomatic could be the centralism that leads to a strong centralization of power in Paris. 3. At the same time there is a very strong pro-nuclear sentiment that gets instilled into engineering students (conflicting and in context with a recent strong popularity of ecology), whatever mechanism specifically is responsible for that. 4. And France has (and even more so: had) a pro-nuclear government, linked to the enterprises running the power plants. I'm not saying the engineers are incapable or specifically corrupt and to distrust your doctor, thanks you very much for the cancer thing, but that in this situation it is reasonable to have some distrust for security assessments of nuclear power plants in France.

orwin 6y ago
1. ASN inspectors reports are not edited by their president or directors (commissaires). The whole structure is based on engineers. Inspectors are strictly engineers. 2. Most nuclear engineer are from Grenoble/Saint-etienne or Lyon. Some are from polytech (so Paris) but this is rare. 3. If you say so. It might conflict with greepeace's vision of ecology, but not with the IPCC's and for multiple reasons, i think i would rather follow scientists than ideologists. I also stopped donating to greenpeace around 2015 so i might be biased. 4. Way more complex than that, but true. I think you should read ASN documentation before evaluating them as untrustworthy. I can find a lot of untrustworthy pro-nuclear sources. Those are not ran by engineers. Also nuclear power is a distraction until we fixed our real ecological issue, as are renewable power sources. I don't care if we stop nuclear power in 2080 if we successfully limit the average warming to 2°C (hint: hope for a silver bullet). I'm ready do donate everything i have (not that much) to any anti-nuclear association that explain to me how to effectively reduce our CO2 emission by 4% a year until 2050 (compounds are hard but this is the number i got) while focusing on replacing nuclear plant by solar panels and wind turbines. Really. Covid will be between 2 and 9% for 2020 [0] so i'm waiting for solutions for the following years. Wait! i have multiples solutions. Give every french household using oil or gas a heatpump. Forbid new individual cars sold in France to weight more than a metric ton. Put a carbon tax (start with a small amount 10k€/ton) on transportation instead of a 20% VAT. Not on car gas, on the product directly. This will kill most plane fret, but honestly? i don't care. Forbid plane if the trip can be made in less than 4 hour by train (i think they recently did this, good). But closing a nuclear plant to replace it by gas (and coal, even if temporary) is easier. Gazprom and Total really have more hitting power. [0]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x
- onli 6y ago
  > Wait! i have multiples solutions. ... I think those are reasonable measures. > But closing a nuclear plant to replace it by gas (and coal, even if temporary) is easier. I assume you'd be less angry if you were aware that I oppose that as well. I think it's in general opposed by the people wanting nuclear energy to end. Talking mostly about Germany here. The process basically was 1) Have a strong agreement that nuclear energy is bad, fueled by its insecurity, costs and the waste it produces. This is driven by grassroots movements and green parties. 2) Conservative politicians say "Okay, then we replace them with coal. Oh, and we cut the subventions for renewable energies." 3) The same people that organized the successful protest against the nuclear plants now organize protests against the coal plants. No one is happy about that process. The only good thing that came out of it is the higher usage of renewable energies. And that because of that the coal plants now are unprofitable. But that is partly despite what the conservative politicians wanted. They even blocked the building of new wind turbines because they look bad. Exactly the contrary of what had to happen the last two years.
  - funcDropShadow 6y ago
    You are missing the last step. The same people that oppose nuclear and coal energy oppose updating the power grid such that all the wind turbines, already installed, can all be used at the same time. This is the most ridiculous part of the climate activists in Germany, imho. Yes, Germany has already more renewable energy sources than it can use, due to protests against building new power lines. From north to south and west to east. When I drive to my in-laws, I come along at least a hundred large wind turbines, often in rows of ten or more. Usually, half of them is turned off because, the grid cannot take more energy. At the German energy exchange, the price of electrical energy already dropped below zero several times, because of that.
    - onli 6y ago
      > The same people that oppose nuclear and coal energy oppose updating the power grid such that all the wind turbines, already installed That's not correct. The Nord-Süd-Trasse for example was blocked by the CSU, which is a classic nuclear/coal-proponent. See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suedlink https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suedlink.

by onli 6y ago

orwin 6y ago

1. ASN inspectors reports are not edited by their president or directors (commissaires). The whole structure is based on engineers. Inspectors are strictly engineers. 2. Most nuclear engineer are from Grenoble/Saint-etienne or Lyon. Some are from polytech (so Paris) but this is rare. 3. If you say so. It might conflict with greepeace's vision of ecology, but not with the IPCC's and for multiple reasons, i think i would rather follow scientists than ideologists. I also stopped donating to greenpeace around 2015 so i might be biased. 4. Way more complex than that, but true. I think you should read ASN documentation before evaluating them as untrustworthy. I can find a lot of untrustworthy pro-nuclear sources. Those are not ran by engineers. Also nuclear power is a distraction until we fixed our real ecological issue, as are renewable power sources. I don't care if we stop nuclear power in 2080 if we successfully limit the average warming to 2°C (hint: hope for a silver bullet). I'm ready do donate everything i have (not that much) to any anti-nuclear association that explain to me how to effectively reduce our CO2 emission by 4% a year until 2050 (compounds are hard but this is the number i got) while focusing on replacing nuclear plant by solar panels and wind turbines. Really. Covid will be between 2 and 9% for 2020 [0] so i'm waiting for solutions for the following years. Wait! i have multiples solutions. Give every french household using oil or gas a heatpump. Forbid new individual cars sold in France to weight more than a metric ton. Put a carbon tax (start with a small amount 10k€/ton) on transportation instead of a 20% VAT. Not on car gas, on the product directly. This will kill most plane fret, but honestly? i don't care. Forbid plane if the trip can be made in less than 4 hour by train (i think they recently did this, good). But closing a nuclear plant to replace it by gas (and coal, even if temporary) is easier. Gazprom and Total really have more hitting power. [0]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0797-x

onli 6y ago
> Wait! i have multiples solutions. ... I think those are reasonable measures. > But closing a nuclear plant to replace it by gas (and coal, even if temporary) is easier. I assume you'd be less angry if you were aware that I oppose that as well. I think it's in general opposed by the people wanting nuclear energy to end. Talking mostly about Germany here. The process basically was 1) Have a strong agreement that nuclear energy is bad, fueled by its insecurity, costs and the waste it produces. This is driven by grassroots movements and green parties. 2) Conservative politicians say "Okay, then we replace them with coal. Oh, and we cut the subventions for renewable energies." 3) The same people that organized the successful protest against the nuclear plants now organize protests against the coal plants. No one is happy about that process. The only good thing that came out of it is the higher usage of renewable energies. And that because of that the coal plants now are unprofitable. But that is partly despite what the conservative politicians wanted. They even blocked the building of new wind turbines because they look bad. Exactly the contrary of what had to happen the last two years.
- funcDropShadow 6y ago
  You are missing the last step. The same people that oppose nuclear and coal energy oppose updating the power grid such that all the wind turbines, already installed, can all be used at the same time. This is the most ridiculous part of the climate activists in Germany, imho. Yes, Germany has already more renewable energy sources than it can use, due to protests against building new power lines. From north to south and west to east. When I drive to my in-laws, I come along at least a hundred large wind turbines, often in rows of ten or more. Usually, half of them is turned off because, the grid cannot take more energy. At the German energy exchange, the price of electrical energy already dropped below zero several times, because of that.
  - onli 6y ago
    > The same people that oppose nuclear and coal energy oppose updating the power grid such that all the wind turbines, already installed That's not correct. The Nord-Süd-Trasse for example was blocked by the CSU, which is a classic nuclear/coal-proponent. See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suedlink https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suedlink.