4 ms·

It's not an either/or though. We can subsidize both. Especially now that, in the US at least, we are not really fiscally constrained.

Krasnol 6y ago
No we can't as the budget is not endless. So you invest in what makes the most sense and that's not nuclear. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nuclear-energy-too-slow-too-expensive-to-save-climate-report-idUSKBN1W909J https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629618300598 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22146...
- imtringued 6y ago
  It's not a bad idea to focus on renewables. But the budget is merely limited by full employment. Think of it this way. If unemployment/underemployment is high then it's like having random people sitting in a bar doing nothing. A government official comes to the bar and sees people doing nothing and tells then what to do. What's being lost by telling these people to do something? The biggest loss is that these people could have done something even better than what the government came up with, however they are in a bar doing nothing, clearly nobody needs them right now. The question is, does the nuclear industry actually generate jobs that would lower unemployment? Is the type of person that is qualified to work on a nuclear reactor unemployed? I am leaning toward no, I simply cannot imagine the highly vocal trump supporter base being filled with academics in hard sciences. If we are going to do a nuclear jobs program it might backfire because it fails to employ the right people.
  - AstralStorm 6y ago
    It's not "people doing something". To make power plants you need factories running. Produce steel, specialized metals, concrete, refine silica sand, produce electronics... You need mines for the base materials, and factories producing mining equipment. You need some rare earth metals, potentially. You need chemical plants too. And of course power and water input for the manufacturing sector. All of which is nontrivial amount of investment nobody does where there is unemployment, because it's cheaper to do it in China as the base and subcomponents are already there... (there's also unemployment) Trap of deindustrialization runs deep.

Krasnol 6y ago

No we can't as the budget is not endless. So you invest in what makes the most sense and that's not nuclear. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nuclear-energy-too-slow-too-expensive-to-save-climate-report-idUSKBN1W909J https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629618300598 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22146...

imtringued 6y ago
It's not a bad idea to focus on renewables. But the budget is merely limited by full employment. Think of it this way. If unemployment/underemployment is high then it's like having random people sitting in a bar doing nothing. A government official comes to the bar and sees people doing nothing and tells then what to do. What's being lost by telling these people to do something? The biggest loss is that these people could have done something even better than what the government came up with, however they are in a bar doing nothing, clearly nobody needs them right now. The question is, does the nuclear industry actually generate jobs that would lower unemployment? Is the type of person that is qualified to work on a nuclear reactor unemployed? I am leaning toward no, I simply cannot imagine the highly vocal trump supporter base being filled with academics in hard sciences. If we are going to do a nuclear jobs program it might backfire because it fails to employ the right people.
- AstralStorm 6y ago
  It's not "people doing something". To make power plants you need factories running. Produce steel, specialized metals, concrete, refine silica sand, produce electronics... You need mines for the base materials, and factories producing mining equipment. You need some rare earth metals, potentially. You need chemical plants too. And of course power and water input for the manufacturing sector. All of which is nontrivial amount of investment nobody does where there is unemployment, because it's cheaper to do it in China as the base and subcomponents are already there... (there's also unemployment) Trap of deindustrialization runs deep.