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I don't care what it is that keeps power running. If removing nuclear reactors means that the whole energy grid is at risk, then I prefer having nuclear reactor

I don't care what it is that keeps power running. If removing nuclear reactors means that the whole energy grid is at risk, then I prefer having nuclear reactors compared to suddenly having a huge chunk of a population out of power. No fucking thanks.

MattGaiser 5y ago
They are deciding to use natural gas instead.
enragedcacti 5y ago
I don't understand how your response relates to the article. Only two of the ten arguments apply to existing reactors: cascading accidents from internal or external problems some of which will be amplified by climate change, and dealing with nuclear waste. His position is that building more reactors isn't the most effective method for combating climate change, primarily because the vast majority of reactor projects have been massively late and massively over-budget. Because of this, the window for investment in nuclear to stop the most severe results of climate change has already passed. If he has argued for shutting down existing reactors then I apologize, but to me that is a major misrepresentation of the argument.
- MrYellowP 5y ago
  I'm sorry. Let me explain. My perspective is a european one. Germany turned off three of its reactors while at the same time tons of people are screaming out of their lungs that it's a really bad idea doing so, because of technical reasons related to the safety of the european power grid. From our, the people's perspective, we should only care about making sure that the power keeps running, while it does so without harming the environment more than really necessary. I don't care about governments building new reactors when they shut down the old ones. New ones aren't going to help us, when the grid starts to fail, because they're not even going to be built yet. Talking about new reactors is just distracting from the fact that powergrids need to be in order, which apparently they aren't. The reason, why talking about new reactors is a waste of time, is because more reactors help NOTHING when the powergrid fails, which is a far more pressing matter than literally anything else related to power and energy. The reason, why my words don't really relate to the article, is because it's bullshit. Complete, utter bullshit.
VLM 5y ago
Power loss shouldn't matter. Its a chicken and egg problem. It would be trivial in 2022 at a technical level for my electric clothes dryer to "pause" for five minutes mid cycle if a cloud passes over the solar farm. Nobody implements that because its not needed. It can't be implemented because nobody uses it now. We can't have it in the future because we didn't have it in the past. If solar power was "too cheap to meter" I'd use 10 KW to dry my clothes in 30 minutes instead of 60 and I wouldn't care if a cloud interrupted the solar panel and it took an extra five minutes at 35 minutes. But we can't have that because we never had that in the past so we'll never have that. We'll have uninterrupted electric clothes drying until we have no electric clothes drying at all due to catastrophic system collapse. Nobody insulated aluminum refinery crucibles, in fact they worry about cooling. Because nobody ever considered cutting power to a crucible, its now impossible to cut power to a crucible without destroying it. Nobody ever built a battery backed up CNC machine tool, because nobody ever needed to, so flipping the circuit breaker at a machine tool shop will cause thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage. It would be trivial to include circuitry and CAM design models to prevent that but the first guy to spend the money will go out of business because it provides no advantage next quarter. Therefore its impossible to interrupt power to a CNC machine tool without mass destruction therefore solar powered factories are "impossible". Although if someone wanted to, it would be pretty trivial to implement. The load on the grid at midnight for charging cell phones must add up to a nuclear power plant or two. We can't tell those chargers to chill and charge up later if there's a lull in the breeze and advertisers market how fast they charge. So we can't charge phones, or cars, with wind power we must use coal or nuclear. There's no technological reason interrupting the power would matter. This even gets to house or hospital issues. Don't want to lose power during a surgery? Who cares, just make sure the UPS is bigger than the surgery. The batteries should last a long time if they're rarely used. Ditto my TV, I don't care if it runs off battery for five minutes as long as I can't tell the difference. But no TVs can do that right now so they MUST be coal or nuclear powered instead of wind powered. Repeat thousands of times for every device that makes power interruption "impossible". If everything you owned was like your laptop and as long as on average the charge rate was higher than the use rate and the battery was "big enough" then you wouldn't care if the power was out 50% of the time, as long as it was 100% green and "too cheap to meter" the other 50% of the time.

MattGaiser 5y ago

They are deciding to use natural gas instead.

enragedcacti 5y ago

I don't understand how your response relates to the article. Only two of the ten arguments apply to existing reactors: cascading accidents from internal or external problems some of which will be amplified by climate change, and dealing with nuclear waste. His position is that building more reactors isn't the most effective method for combating climate change, primarily because the vast majority of reactor projects have been massively late and massively over-budget. Because of this, the window for investment in nuclear to stop the most severe results of climate change has already passed. If he has argued for shutting down existing reactors then I apologize, but to me that is a major misrepresentation of the argument.

MrYellowP 5y ago
I'm sorry. Let me explain. My perspective is a european one. Germany turned off three of its reactors while at the same time tons of people are screaming out of their lungs that it's a really bad idea doing so, because of technical reasons related to the safety of the european power grid. From our, the people's perspective, we should only care about making sure that the power keeps running, while it does so without harming the environment more than really necessary. I don't care about governments building new reactors when they shut down the old ones. New ones aren't going to help us, when the grid starts to fail, because they're not even going to be built yet. Talking about new reactors is just distracting from the fact that powergrids need to be in order, which apparently they aren't. The reason, why talking about new reactors is a waste of time, is because more reactors help NOTHING when the powergrid fails, which is a far more pressing matter than literally anything else related to power and energy. The reason, why my words don't really relate to the article, is because it's bullshit. Complete, utter bullshit.

VLM 5y ago

Power loss shouldn't matter. Its a chicken and egg problem. It would be trivial in 2022 at a technical level for my electric clothes dryer to "pause" for five minutes mid cycle if a cloud passes over the solar farm. Nobody implements that because its not needed. It can't be implemented because nobody uses it now. We can't have it in the future because we didn't have it in the past. If solar power was "too cheap to meter" I'd use 10 KW to dry my clothes in 30 minutes instead of 60 and I wouldn't care if a cloud interrupted the solar panel and it took an extra five minutes at 35 minutes. But we can't have that because we never had that in the past so we'll never have that. We'll have uninterrupted electric clothes drying until we have no electric clothes drying at all due to catastrophic system collapse. Nobody insulated aluminum refinery crucibles, in fact they worry about cooling. Because nobody ever considered cutting power to a crucible, its now impossible to cut power to a crucible without destroying it. Nobody ever built a battery backed up CNC machine tool, because nobody ever needed to, so flipping the circuit breaker at a machine tool shop will cause thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage. It would be trivial to include circuitry and CAM design models to prevent that but the first guy to spend the money will go out of business because it provides no advantage next quarter. Therefore its impossible to interrupt power to a CNC machine tool without mass destruction therefore solar powered factories are "impossible". Although if someone wanted to, it would be pretty trivial to implement. The load on the grid at midnight for charging cell phones must add up to a nuclear power plant or two. We can't tell those chargers to chill and charge up later if there's a lull in the breeze and advertisers market how fast they charge. So we can't charge phones, or cars, with wind power we must use coal or nuclear. There's no technological reason interrupting the power would matter. This even gets to house or hospital issues. Don't want to lose power during a surgery? Who cares, just make sure the UPS is bigger than the surgery. The batteries should last a long time if they're rarely used. Ditto my TV, I don't care if it runs off battery for five minutes as long as I can't tell the difference. But no TVs can do that right now so they MUST be coal or nuclear powered instead of wind powered. Repeat thousands of times for every device that makes power interruption "impossible". If everything you owned was like your laptop and as long as on average the charge rate was higher than the use rate and the battery was "big enough" then you wouldn't care if the power was out 50% of the time, as long as it was 100% green and "too cheap to meter" the other 50% of the time.