4 ms·

"the issue with nuclear is cost" the cost is the problem indeed, but the cost is something that can be lowered with sufficient amount of innovation - see how Sp

"the issue with nuclear is cost" the cost is the problem indeed, but the cost is something that can be lowered with sufficient amount of innovation - see how SpaceX managed to lower cost of sending satellites or people to the space. Nuclear energy researches were stagnant for many, many years - anything "atomic" was considered to be "non-green", and green movements were fighting nuclear energy vigorously, as a result there were not much research done in this area - working on that was a dangerous career choice, people who did that were treated like Holocaust deniers, people who do researches on differences between races or try to cure homosexuality. Another "success" of ecologist was that they've managed to scare people. As a result finding location for nuclear plant is very hard, there are protests, people do everything to stop building plants in the area, so there is huge cost associated with paying compensations. Fun fact: in early '90 there was a plan to build nuclear plant in Poland, obviously it was heavily protested, Greenpeace and friends arrived, do their usual stuff like chaining to to whatever they could, etc. The project was abandoned (first government after fall of communism was reluctant to act heavy-handed), however, believe or not, 30 years later people leaving near the planned location still put on their houses "stop atom" banners. I would not believe that myself I hadn't seen them. So instead of having clean energy Poland keeps emitting CO2 (not that the amount is even comparable to Germany emission or other more developed countries, but still). Cost is also a matter of scale. France, which relays on nuclear energy a lot, managed to make it feasible with a great effect for both economy and environment.

pvaldes 6y ago
> Another "success" of ecologist was that they've managed to scare people. And that saves lives and protects the economy of entire areas. In 1974 somebody wanted to build a nuclear plant in Murcia Spain. Same BWR model as Fukushima. A few ecologists marched with home made banners, a famous actor protested, and the plan eventually was dismissed. In 2011, just 37 years after, the same area chosen to hold a nuclear plant suffered a 5.1 earthquake that devastated the city. The idiots were trying to build a nuclear plant over a fault. Sometimes, ecologists just are right. Things would be really different in Europe today without this heroes daring to say the things that nobody wanted to hear.
- ovi256 6y ago
  A magnitude 5.1 earthquake would not have done much to a GE Mark I BWR like the one in Fukushima - the 2011 magnitude 9 earthquake didn't damage the Fukushima Mark I. The tsunami did. This is a bad kind of fearmongering.
  - pvaldes 6y ago
    Not a joke at all. Just the presence of a old nuclear plant in a place being hit by an earthquake would have created enough reasonable doubts to distroy the tourism in the area. Loses by 2% of the country GDP at least since them. Probably much more if we extend the bad publicity to adjacent Mediterranean coasts. Tourism is like 14% of the Spanish GDP so raise your offer or go away with your nuclear crap. No matter how safe you claim that it is, would be still a lose. This in the best case. With even minor damages in the plant, things would turn scarily expensive. Really fast. So it is a mistake to think in terms of either nuclear or fossils. In real life either you have nuclear, or you have tourism plus fisheries plus agriculture plus wind turbines. You can not just say that you want to replace Silicon Valley with a nuclear plant; that would be political suicide. Nuclear needs to use exclusively a lot of room, can damage huge areas if something goes wrong, and is only justified if there is not a better option. At this moment there are potentially dozens of alternative uses that are not only better economically but also much safer.
    - ovi256 6y ago
      It's telling that the same argument didn't work in say, France, which has dozens of nuclear power plants (and a fuel reprocessing plant) on the coasts and yet continues having successful fisheries and tourism. You're implying that Spain couldn't have done the same thing ? Why not ? Are they any less capable ? More sensitive to radiation ?
      - pvaldes 6y ago
        Maybe more smart? Spain has the biggest fishing industry in EU and is the biggest producer of fish in the area. Period. France is not even close in terms of captures or people employed. And the area where the plant was about to be raised exports tomatoes to all EU currently. There are kilometers of greenhouses in the countryside. Another activity totally incompatible with the presence of a maybe-cracking-maybe-not ancient nuclear plant.
nullc 6y ago
> "the issue with nuclear is cost" the cost is the problem indeed, but the cost is something that can be lowered with sufficient amount of innovation - see how SpaceX managed to lower cost of sending satellites or people to the space. so, four nuclear disasters in 13 years? :)

pvaldes 6y ago

> Another "success" of ecologist was that they've managed to scare people. And that saves lives and protects the economy of entire areas. In 1974 somebody wanted to build a nuclear plant in Murcia Spain. Same BWR model as Fukushima. A few ecologists marched with home made banners, a famous actor protested, and the plan eventually was dismissed. In 2011, just 37 years after, the same area chosen to hold a nuclear plant suffered a 5.1 earthquake that devastated the city. The idiots were trying to build a nuclear plant over a fault. Sometimes, ecologists just are right. Things would be really different in Europe today without this heroes daring to say the things that nobody wanted to hear.

ovi256 6y ago
A magnitude 5.1 earthquake would not have done much to a GE Mark I BWR like the one in Fukushima - the 2011 magnitude 9 earthquake didn't damage the Fukushima Mark I. The tsunami did. This is a bad kind of fearmongering.
- pvaldes 6y ago
  Not a joke at all. Just the presence of a old nuclear plant in a place being hit by an earthquake would have created enough reasonable doubts to distroy the tourism in the area. Loses by 2% of the country GDP at least since them. Probably much more if we extend the bad publicity to adjacent Mediterranean coasts. Tourism is like 14% of the Spanish GDP so raise your offer or go away with your nuclear crap. No matter how safe you claim that it is, would be still a lose. This in the best case. With even minor damages in the plant, things would turn scarily expensive. Really fast. So it is a mistake to think in terms of either nuclear or fossils. In real life either you have nuclear, or you have tourism plus fisheries plus agriculture plus wind turbines. You can not just say that you want to replace Silicon Valley with a nuclear plant; that would be political suicide. Nuclear needs to use exclusively a lot of room, can damage huge areas if something goes wrong, and is only justified if there is not a better option. At this moment there are potentially dozens of alternative uses that are not only better economically but also much safer.
  - ovi256 6y ago
    It's telling that the same argument didn't work in say, France, which has dozens of nuclear power plants (and a fuel reprocessing plant) on the coasts and yet continues having successful fisheries and tourism. You're implying that Spain couldn't have done the same thing ? Why not ? Are they any less capable ? More sensitive to radiation ?
    - pvaldes 6y ago
      Maybe more smart? Spain has the biggest fishing industry in EU and is the biggest producer of fish in the area. Period. France is not even close in terms of captures or people employed. And the area where the plant was about to be raised exports tomatoes to all EU currently. There are kilometers of greenhouses in the countryside. Another activity totally incompatible with the presence of a maybe-cracking-maybe-not ancient nuclear plant.

nullc 6y ago

> "the issue with nuclear is cost" the cost is the problem indeed, but the cost is something that can be lowered with sufficient amount of innovation - see how SpaceX managed to lower cost of sending satellites or people to the space. so, four nuclear disasters in 13 years? :)