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The discussion and debate about nuclear energy needs to be a constant war of attrition against the long held and stubborn inertia of anti-nuclear sentiment. Th

by qqtt 5y ago

The discussion and debate about nuclear energy needs to be a constant war of attrition against the long held and stubborn inertia of anti-nuclear sentiment. This letter signed by 25 "intellectuals" (oddly vague name for writers and journalists) is part of the puzzle insofar as it gets the discussion into the news. But unless there is a sustained conversation which carries the attention of the public and really drives and beats back the misinformation back to the shadows, nothing will change. The same tired anti-nuclear talking points need to be systemically deconstructed and refuted over and over again until it is pushed into being a fringe belief. Unfortunately humans are really not set up to have these conversations about "boring" things like global warming and nuclear energy. Unless there is a crisis front and center (like the pandemic) it is hard to reverberate change throughout society. I'm not sure what the answer is, but watching all this play out is like witnessing a devastating car crash happen in slow motion, and being helpless to do anything to prevent it.

kazinator 5y ago
The Cold War takes a lot of the blame: everything from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, to the subsequent ugly arms race, to bomb testing and its environmental effects. Plus events like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Generation X kids were born into an era which felt the threat of global nuclear war, and those people are decision makers today.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  Frankly, non-nuclear is austerity in disguise. "Too cheap to meter" electricity is like full employment, objectively better but a huge target politically. It's not a coincidence that US gave up on both at the same time. https://delong.typepad.com/kalecki43.pdf https://delong.typepad.com/kalecki43.pdf does justice to the full employment situation, and the same arguments apply. In the econ case it's kind of incredible we filled our minds with nonsense to convince ourselves the thing we had been doing is no longer possible. I suppose the nuclear hysteria served the same roll. To be clear, I am not trying to argue some sort of conspiracy here. I think it all happened organically, which is frankly even more fascinating. Shows that "truth is endogenous" and the post-modernists had a point long before people whined about Trump.
  - freemint 5y ago
    > "Too cheap to meter" electricity How about electricity that doesn't flow through a meter because it goes from the roof into the socket?
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      I do like solar on roofs more than huge solar farms. Might as well take better advantage of the land we already annihilated. But taking out a bunch more is iffy.
      - freemint 5y ago
        With rising temperature it might be a good idea to put solar on metal trusses over fields and annihilate almost no land. Helps with soil erosion, hail and saves irrigation.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    I agree with you on both points of full employment and abundant energy. And IMO the same political forces are behind both -- it's a nasty mix of elites and high income professionals who genuinely believe people need to suffer. They love austerity, and micromanagement of the population. It's the same reason we have ugly architecture, because the architects think we deserve to be surrounded by ugly, inhuman buildings. And the econ-sadists are more than happy to punish the eco-masochists.
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      > ugly architecture An interesting one to bring up. There is a cultural dimension, but also the fact the modern architecture is much less labor intensive even though it will break down. Generally I like such a response to labor shortages, but clearly we've gone wrong. Perhaps we just need to value key buildings more, based on a long lifespan, and just admit they will be crawling with craftsman to a large degree? Or, we can get more serious about improving construction productivity to make it less 0-sum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka are pretty ugly, but might nonetheless have a better "beauty * efficiency" score than much more prestigious modern architecture?
- proctrap 5y ago
  Why invest into something that will only last 100 years in fuel, take 30k years to deconstruct and may blow into your face at every point in time. Sounds insane.
  - adfrhgeaq5hy 5y ago
    Nuclear reactors cannot explode. It is not physically possible. It isn't even close to physically possible. Reactor-grade uranium is about 5% U235 while you need >90% to make something that can explode. May as well ask why we use wind turbines when they might take off and start dropping napalm.
    - cesarb 5y ago
      > Nuclear reactors cannot explode. It is not physically possible. It isn't even close to physically possible. They can and they do (see: Chernobyl, Fukushima). But it's not a nuclear explosion (as you say, it's not possible with their fuel enrichment and geometry); it's a steam or hydrogen explosion.
      - adfrhgeaq5hy 5y ago
        Lots of things can go wrong and I certainly don't intend to downplay the risks. Mismanagement like at Fukushima or Chernobyl can do a lot of harm. But there are a lot of people who think a nuclear reactor can level a city, which is totally impossible.
  - zizee 5y ago
    Can you provide more info around nuclear fuel running out in 100 years? I had been thinking we had an abundance of nuclear fuel available tIo us. I have not heard of a 100 year limit before and am interested to learn more.

by qqtt 5y ago

kazinator 5y ago

The Cold War takes a lot of the blame: everything from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, to the subsequent ugly arms race, to bomb testing and its environmental effects. Plus events like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Generation X kids were born into an era which felt the threat of global nuclear war, and those people are decision makers today.

Ericson2314 5y ago
Frankly, non-nuclear is austerity in disguise. "Too cheap to meter" electricity is like full employment, objectively better but a huge target politically. It's not a coincidence that US gave up on both at the same time. https://delong.typepad.com/kalecki43.pdf https://delong.typepad.com/kalecki43.pdf does justice to the full employment situation, and the same arguments apply. In the econ case it's kind of incredible we filled our minds with nonsense to convince ourselves the thing we had been doing is no longer possible. I suppose the nuclear hysteria served the same roll. To be clear, I am not trying to argue some sort of conspiracy here. I think it all happened organically, which is frankly even more fascinating. Shows that "truth is endogenous" and the post-modernists had a point long before people whined about Trump.
- freemint 5y ago
  > "Too cheap to meter" electricity How about electricity that doesn't flow through a meter because it goes from the roof into the socket?
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    I do like solar on roofs more than huge solar farms. Might as well take better advantage of the land we already annihilated. But taking out a bunch more is iffy.
    - freemint 5y ago
      With rising temperature it might be a good idea to put solar on metal trusses over fields and annihilate almost no land. Helps with soil erosion, hail and saves irrigation.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  I agree with you on both points of full employment and abundant energy. And IMO the same political forces are behind both -- it's a nasty mix of elites and high income professionals who genuinely believe people need to suffer. They love austerity, and micromanagement of the population. It's the same reason we have ugly architecture, because the architects think we deserve to be surrounded by ugly, inhuman buildings. And the econ-sadists are more than happy to punish the eco-masochists.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    > ugly architecture An interesting one to bring up. There is a cultural dimension, but also the fact the modern architecture is much less labor intensive even though it will break down. Generally I like such a response to labor shortages, but clearly we've gone wrong. Perhaps we just need to value key buildings more, based on a long lifespan, and just admit they will be crawling with craftsman to a large degree? Or, we can get more serious about improving construction productivity to make it less 0-sum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka are pretty ugly, but might nonetheless have a better "beauty * efficiency" score than much more prestigious modern architecture?
proctrap 5y ago
Why invest into something that will only last 100 years in fuel, take 30k years to deconstruct and may blow into your face at every point in time. Sounds insane.
- adfrhgeaq5hy 5y ago
  Nuclear reactors cannot explode. It is not physically possible. It isn't even close to physically possible. Reactor-grade uranium is about 5% U235 while you need >90% to make something that can explode. May as well ask why we use wind turbines when they might take off and start dropping napalm.
  - cesarb 5y ago
    > Nuclear reactors cannot explode. It is not physically possible. It isn't even close to physically possible. They can and they do (see: Chernobyl, Fukushima). But it's not a nuclear explosion (as you say, it's not possible with their fuel enrichment and geometry); it's a steam or hydrogen explosion.
    - adfrhgeaq5hy 5y ago
      Lots of things can go wrong and I certainly don't intend to downplay the risks. Mismanagement like at Fukushima or Chernobyl can do a lot of harm. But there are a lot of people who think a nuclear reactor can level a city, which is totally impossible.
- zizee 5y ago
  Can you provide more info around nuclear fuel running out in 100 years? I had been thinking we had an abundance of nuclear fuel available tIo us. I have not heard of a 100 year limit before and am interested to learn more.