3 ms·

The question is why wouldn't you want fusion. More options are always better I think.

nickik 6y ago
I'm not saying I don't want it. It just seems as humanity we totally fucked up. We found a revolutionary new energy source and we totally fucked up the deployment of it. We should live in a nuclear age already, fission powered space craft, trains, ships, power stations, remote electricity. There is no fundamental reason why fission should not be used an all of those. Yet we almost don't use it at all, and phasing it out at the same time as we face climate change. At the same time huge money is spent on Fusion that is much less likely to actually help. With the money spent on ITER you could literally run a matcher competitive competition to build 3-4 new fission reactors and likely multible new powerful turbines. A molten salt reactor with a brayton turbine would likely be far more revolutionary then whatever ITER can ever be. In general I just feel like fission is disliked and future has this 'wow the future could be magical', and I'm saying, the present could be magical, we don't need to wait for some magical technology. All that is required is some engineering and a general acceptance that fission is good among politicians, regulators and people. If some start ups want to work on it, I'm not against it. The point is more that even if this magical technology break-threw happens, deploying it in the real world will run against many of the same problems as fission does.
- orthecreedence 6y ago
  The problem, in my view, is mostly regulatory capture and this incessant drive to let markets do their thing. As it stands, fossil fuels should be taxed so high that building, maintaining, and running nuclear power plants is cheap in comparison. Yet we have continued investment into fossil fuels even though we're now fully aware of the damage they're doing. And people say "oh, well we don't have nuclear, because it's so expensive." You know what else is expensive? Entire cities being under 6ft of ocean and having to relocate hundreds of millions of people. In other words, the known externalities are not imbued in the price, because yay capitalism. I think a little market tampering is warranted when planetary survival is at stake. And obviously, the ramp-up should be gradual, ie, we should have been starting this 20 years ago, when it was also painfully obvious that digging up huge amounts of carbon and burning it is a bad idea. Oops.
  - NortySpock 6y ago
    Recently I've been seeing people comment that raising a building 6 feet using jackstands OR filling the first story in with cement isn't "actually" that difficult or uncommon 100 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regrading_in_Seattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regrading_in_Seattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground https://www.asce.org/project/galveston-seawall-and-grade-raising-project/ https://www.asce.org/project/galveston-seawall-and-grade-rai... Feeding them all, that's what I worry about.
    - orthecreedence 6y ago
      I'm having trouble determining the connection between my comment and yours. Can you help me out?
      - NortySpock 6y ago
        I was responding to your off-hand comment "You know what else is expensive? Entire cities being under 6ft of ocean and having to relocate hundreds of millions of people." 6ft of water seems somewhat manageable, relatively speaking, so long as you're willing to move up a story or go full neo-Venice.
        orthecreedence 6y ago
        Oh, interesting. I didn't connect those two. I think my hesitation would not be that 6ft of water is not manageable in the single case, ie, one building. But several thousand of them at the same time? A whole city? Good luck coordinating that in any reasonable amount of time, especially when roads are all flooded. Abandonment is a much more viable option at some point along that particular path.
pfdietz 6y ago
I wouldn't want it because it would be far too expensive.

I'm not saying I don't want it. It just seems as humanity we totally fucked up. We found a revolutionary new energy source and we totally fucked up the deployment of it. We should live in a nuclear age already, fission powered space craft, trains, ships, power stations, remote electricity. There is no fundamental reason why fission should not be used an all of those. Yet we almost don't use it at all, and phasing it out at the same time as we face climate change. At the same time huge money is spent on Fusion that is much less likely to actually help. With the money spent on ITER you could literally run a matcher competitive competition to build 3-4 new fission reactors and likely multible new powerful turbines. A molten salt reactor with a brayton turbine would likely be far more revolutionary then whatever ITER can ever be. In general I just feel like fission is disliked and future has this 'wow the future could be magical', and I'm saying, the present could be magical, we don't need to wait for some magical technology. All that is required is some engineering and a general acceptance that fission is good among politicians, regulators and people. If some start ups want to work on it, I'm not against it. The point is more that even if this magical technology break-threw happens, deploying it in the real world will run against many of the same problems as fission does.

orthecreedence 6y ago
The problem, in my view, is mostly regulatory capture and this incessant drive to let markets do their thing. As it stands, fossil fuels should be taxed so high that building, maintaining, and running nuclear power plants is cheap in comparison. Yet we have continued investment into fossil fuels even though we're now fully aware of the damage they're doing. And people say "oh, well we don't have nuclear, because it's so expensive." You know what else is expensive? Entire cities being under 6ft of ocean and having to relocate hundreds of millions of people. In other words, the known externalities are not imbued in the price, because yay capitalism. I think a little market tampering is warranted when planetary survival is at stake. And obviously, the ramp-up should be gradual, ie, we should have been starting this 20 years ago, when it was also painfully obvious that digging up huge amounts of carbon and burning it is a bad idea. Oops.
- NortySpock 6y ago
  Recently I've been seeing people comment that raising a building 6 feet using jackstands OR filling the first story in with cement isn't "actually" that difficult or uncommon 100 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regrading_in_Seattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regrading_in_Seattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground https://www.asce.org/project/galveston-seawall-and-grade-raising-project/ https://www.asce.org/project/galveston-seawall-and-grade-rai... Feeding them all, that's what I worry about.
  - orthecreedence 6y ago
    I'm having trouble determining the connection between my comment and yours. Can you help me out?
    - NortySpock 6y ago
      I was responding to your off-hand comment "You know what else is expensive? Entire cities being under 6ft of ocean and having to relocate hundreds of millions of people." 6ft of water seems somewhat manageable, relatively speaking, so long as you're willing to move up a story or go full neo-Venice.
      - orthecreedence 6y ago
        Oh, interesting. I didn't connect those two. I think my hesitation would not be that 6ft of water is not manageable in the single case, ie, one building. But several thousand of them at the same time? A whole city? Good luck coordinating that in any reasonable amount of time, especially when roads are all flooded. Abandonment is a much more viable option at some point along that particular path.

pfdietz 6y ago

I wouldn't want it because it would be far too expensive.