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I find it a little odd that a site called Hacker News is so bullish on nuclear power. Could there be anything less hacker than a centralized, exclusively govern

I find it a little odd that a site called Hacker News is so bullish on nuclear power. Could there be anything less hacker than a centralized, exclusively government owned and operated source of power? No thanks. I’d rather put more resources into solar, wind, and other sources of power that don’t depend on the government to not explode and irradiate the immediate area for hundreds of years.

evgen 6y ago
I think the site is bullish on nuclear power because it is overwhelmingly populated by reasonably educated people who are capable of performing risk analysis and understand cost/benefit tradeoffs. If you are looking for a herd of scared sheep who will parrot back whatever propaganda is being pushed by Greenpeace today I think you will have better luck over at Reddit.
- adrianN 6y ago
  Note that the comment you're replying to is not talking about the dangers of nuclear power, but about the spirit of centralization vs diy hacking. I don't think the amount of vitriol in your comment is appropriate.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  That doesn’t really address my comment, at all. These sort of strawman accusations of parroting propaganda are so bizarre. I don’t think I’ve read a single article or book by Greenpeace in my life. I genuinely have no idea what you are referring to.
  - sixstringtheory 6y ago
    Your original comment also commits some logical fallacies. You’re focusing on the label applied to the supposed users of HN, which is ad hominem. Then you employ a no true scotsman to tell them that they aren’t really hackers because they espouse a position that you deem non-hacker.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
wazoox 6y ago
Centralisation is more efficient. Centralisation is good. Because of centralisation and interconnection (power grid is a network) we only need to have power generation capacity equivalent to less than a third of the total power of all electrically powered machinery. If every household had to produce its own power, we would need either to carefully plan our usage, or to have as much production capacity as our peak usage, so globally we'd have 3 times as much production capacity as we have nowadays. That would amount to a tremendous waste or resources, an awful misallocation... It would be absolutely anti-ecological. The more you're using unpredictable energy sources such as wind and solar, the more you need backup power (batteries, gas, coal, nuclear, etc). Case in point: in the EU, there has been virtually no wind at all for two weeks (except in Denmark). So we burn coal and gas, massively. Germany has a power generation capacity 68% larger than France for roughly the same number of TWh produced annually, because it needs backup production capacity for all its windmills and PV solar. What's the result? Electricity is 58% more expensive in Germany than in France.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
You seem to harbor an assumption that decentralized = hacker, centralized = not hacker. It's only true to a limited extent. Hackers tend to like things they can get their hands on individually, and decentralized stuff is usually much easier to get into and do something interesting with. But a part of being a hacker is also thinking rationally. That leads one to recognize the drawbacks of decentralization and benefits of centralization. And not all hackers are anarchists. On top of that, education and rational thought leads one to look at the math and physics behind the energy and climate problems, and that's a straight path to becoming a nuclear supporter.
throwaway522274 6y ago
Because the "hacker" in "hacker" news stands for "I copypaste javascript from stack overflow".
Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
Maybe it's because the more technical audience here is not as susceptible to fear-mongering efforts by anti-nuclear lobby. Nuclear energy is the greenest and cleanest energy currently available to humanity. Also, technical people like complex technology. In this regard nuclear power is very akin to space exploration and artificial intelligence.
samatman 6y ago
This is a weird take in a thread about a "micro modular reactor", which generates 5MW, and is designed to run for twenty years with minimal maintenance, on the order of a few day's work per year. Odd that it's the exact opposite of what you're fulminating about.

evgen 6y ago

I think the site is bullish on nuclear power because it is overwhelmingly populated by reasonably educated people who are capable of performing risk analysis and understand cost/benefit tradeoffs. If you are looking for a herd of scared sheep who will parrot back whatever propaganda is being pushed by Greenpeace today I think you will have better luck over at Reddit.

adrianN 6y ago
Note that the comment you're replying to is not talking about the dangers of nuclear power, but about the spirit of centralization vs diy hacking. I don't think the amount of vitriol in your comment is appropriate.
ceilingcorner 6y ago
That doesn’t really address my comment, at all. These sort of strawman accusations of parroting propaganda are so bizarre. I don’t think I’ve read a single article or book by Greenpeace in my life. I genuinely have no idea what you are referring to.
- sixstringtheory 6y ago
  Your original comment also commits some logical fallacies. You’re focusing on the label applied to the supposed users of HN, which is ad hominem. Then you employ a no true scotsman to tell them that they aren’t really hackers because they espouse a position that you deem non-hacker.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

wazoox 6y ago

Centralisation is more efficient. Centralisation is good. Because of centralisation and interconnection (power grid is a network) we only need to have power generation capacity equivalent to less than a third of the total power of all electrically powered machinery. If every household had to produce its own power, we would need either to carefully plan our usage, or to have as much production capacity as our peak usage, so globally we'd have 3 times as much production capacity as we have nowadays. That would amount to a tremendous waste or resources, an awful misallocation... It would be absolutely anti-ecological. The more you're using unpredictable energy sources such as wind and solar, the more you need backup power (batteries, gas, coal, nuclear, etc). Case in point: in the EU, there has been virtually no wind at all for two weeks (except in Denmark). So we burn coal and gas, massively. Germany has a power generation capacity 68% larger than France for roughly the same number of TWh produced annually, because it needs backup production capacity for all its windmills and PV solar. What's the result? Electricity is 58% more expensive in Germany than in France.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

You seem to harbor an assumption that decentralized = hacker, centralized = not hacker. It's only true to a limited extent. Hackers tend to like things they can get their hands on individually, and decentralized stuff is usually much easier to get into and do something interesting with. But a part of being a hacker is also thinking rationally. That leads one to recognize the drawbacks of decentralization and benefits of centralization. And not all hackers are anarchists. On top of that, education and rational thought leads one to look at the math and physics behind the energy and climate problems, and that's a straight path to becoming a nuclear supporter.

throwaway522274 6y ago

Because the "hacker" in "hacker" news stands for "I copypaste javascript from stack overflow".

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago

Maybe it's because the more technical audience here is not as susceptible to fear-mongering efforts by anti-nuclear lobby. Nuclear energy is the greenest and cleanest energy currently available to humanity. Also, technical people like complex technology. In this regard nuclear power is very akin to space exploration and artificial intelligence.

samatman 6y ago

This is a weird take in a thread about a "micro modular reactor", which generates 5MW, and is designed to run for twenty years with minimal maintenance, on the order of a few day's work per year. Odd that it's the exact opposite of what you're fulminating about.