4 ms·
1. We have nuclear waste already 2. We will continue to have nuclear waste if we want to have nuclear weapons 3. You can store all the waste you need to store
by charlesju 6y ago
1. We have nuclear waste already
2. We will continue to have nuclear waste if we want to have nuclear weapons
3. You can store all the waste you need to store in a football field (https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...)
Nuclear waste management is messy, but it's something we need to solve no matter what. It is now a sunk cost we have to deal with because of what we have already done and what we plan to keep.
So if we already have to pay the fixed cost, we should reap as much benefit as possible.
- wffurr 6y agoI have this giant pile of nuclear waste that's stored haphazardly and needs to be dealt with at a cost of $XXX billions of dollars. I know! I'll keep shoveling more waste into the haphazard piles! Perfect!
- throwaway894345 6y agoThe parent's point, and I don't know if it's well-founded or not (and consequently I'm not endorsing it, only clarifying), is that adding more waste doesn't seem to worsen the problem. As an aside, if you must snark, it's best to do it when you're following the thread of the conversation.
- jshevek 6y agoYes, even further the guidelines suggest that snark has no place on HN. One day we may undo the damage done by the massive influx of C19 redditers. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: Replying to the misrepresentation of my words: I did not state that HN is turning into Reddit. HN is not turning into reddit. The culture of HN has been damaged, however, by the lack of acculturation of last years influx. Quoting the guidelines is not "throwing them at" other users. Please read the words actually written.
- yellowapple 6y agoThose same guidelines state, and I quote: > Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills. Maybe you ought to try following those guidelines before throwing them at other HN users?
- wffurr 6y agoSetting aside the fact that I ignored the guidelines because I felt that a downvote for the post I was replying to wasn’t sufficient disagreement for a) how wrong it was and b) how it ignored the point, what’s a C19 redditor? I did a quick Google search and only came up with the C19 core magic set. Also you could check my profile and see that I’ve been posting on HN since 2012.
- manfredo 6y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_re... You're overstating the cost of waste storage by two orders of magnitude. It's sealed into concrete cylinders. This doesn't look very haphazard to me: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Nuclear_dry_storage.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Nuclear_...
- jshevek 6y agoI see a sarcastic misrepresentation of the parent's comment, and nothing of substance here. Is there a deeper, substantial point you wish to make?
- marshray 6y agoRarely does one hear the sunk cost fallacy advocated so enthusiastically.
- throwaway894345 6y agoThe sunk cost fallacy is about continuing to incur additional sunk costs. The parent is arguing that we're going to have to pay $X/year to manage the nuclear waste we've already incurred and that the cost is fixed--adding more nuclear waste isn't going to increase the cost. Whether those claims are true may be up for debate, but it's certainly not a sunk cost fallacy.
- marshray 6y agoHe's arguing (to paraphrase) "Because we've already incurred such costs we should continue or even expand the policy which caused them." Claiming that hazardous nuclear waste represents a fixed cost no matter how much you generate is simply absurd.