4 ms·

Wait… someone in the realm of politics changed their mind in a… sane… rational direction? I feel like I could count instances of that in my lifetime on one han

by api 4y ago

Wait… someone in the realm of politics changed their mind in a… sane… rational direction? I feel like I could count instances of that in my lifetime on one hand. Everywhere on the political spectrum everyone seems to have been utterly losing their minds for a long time.

sexy_panda 4y ago
Running nuclear power plants isn't a sane thing to do, but let's pretend Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile Island never happend.
- RealityVoid 4y ago
  Yeah, let's pretend thousands of people dying prematurely because of pollution isn't happening as well. Perfect is the enemy of good and looking for a "perfect" solution (zero carbon, zero risk) is just causing suffering and driving us to early extinction.
  - Gwypaas 4y ago
    The alternative isn't fossil fuels. It's renewables. Compare against reality instead of your made up competition.
    - orangecat 4y ago
      The reality is that no country has entirely replaced fossil fuels with renewables. If you're advocating shutting down nuclear plants while any amount of power is coming from coal, you are not being serious.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        Shutting down Fukushima in the years before the earthquake would have been the correct choice no matter what else was going on.
    - gruturo 4y ago
      You will be right one day, and I'll cheer with you. But that day isn't coming terribly soon - the enormous energy storage needed to have the necessary degree of reliability out of intermittent sources, at the level of countries, is far beyond our current practical means. What do we do in the meantime?
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        Storage cost is falling faster than renewables cost ever did. So in the meantime, build out renewables so that you have something other than fossil fuels to charge your storage from. Then build storage. By then it will be radically cheaper than it is now.
        RealityVoid 4y ago
        This, to me, sounds like a pipe dream. We can become carbon neutral with the tech we have _right now_ whereas I fail to imagine how these necessarily exponential improvements in storage capacity will happen. The _one_ thing that gives me hope for storage is maaaaybe synthetic fuels. But currently it's unproved.
        ncmncm 4y ago
        If you mean using nukes, nukes started today will ensure burning fossil fuel for at least ten more years while we wait for them to come online. Money (including cost overruns) spent on them will be unavailable to build out renewables that would displace fossil fuels immediately. Electric synthetic ammonia is mature tech. It just takes a long time to build the factories to produce the needed amount of synthesis equipment.
        Const-me 4y ago
        > Electric synthetic ammonia is mature tech I'd prefer a nuclear plant nearby, ammonia is toxic: https://abc13.com/ammonia-truck-disaster-houston/1332062/ https://abc13.com/ammonia-truck-disaster-houston/1332062/
    - Dma54rhs 4y ago
      We don't have storage. It's like saying to starving nation the simple solution is to grow more crops.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        We don't have storage because we have not built out storage. After we have built out storage, we will have storage. Until we have enough renewables to charge storage from, any storage would have to be charged from fossil fuels. So, it would be stupid to spend money building out storage with money that could be spent building out renewables. After we have enough renewables, we will want storage. Storage will be radically cheaper at that time.
- Beltiras 4y ago
  The safe future of nuclear energy production is in molten salt reactors. They are walk-away safe.
happytoexplain 4y ago
There are many things to bring out the negativity and sarcasm for about politics, but there seem to be reasonable arguments both for and against nuclear power. That's not to say that you can't consider one argument to be obviously better than the other, but the leap to "any opposition to my side is unreasonable and deserves to be snidely made fun of" is part of what's ruining politics.

by api 4y ago

sexy_panda 4y ago

Running nuclear power plants isn't a sane thing to do, but let's pretend Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile Island never happend.

RealityVoid 4y ago
Yeah, let's pretend thousands of people dying prematurely because of pollution isn't happening as well. Perfect is the enemy of good and looking for a "perfect" solution (zero carbon, zero risk) is just causing suffering and driving us to early extinction.
- Gwypaas 4y ago
  The alternative isn't fossil fuels. It's renewables. Compare against reality instead of your made up competition.
  - orangecat 4y ago
    The reality is that no country has entirely replaced fossil fuels with renewables. If you're advocating shutting down nuclear plants while any amount of power is coming from coal, you are not being serious.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Shutting down Fukushima in the years before the earthquake would have been the correct choice no matter what else was going on.
  - gruturo 4y ago
    You will be right one day, and I'll cheer with you. But that day isn't coming terribly soon - the enormous energy storage needed to have the necessary degree of reliability out of intermittent sources, at the level of countries, is far beyond our current practical means. What do we do in the meantime?
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Storage cost is falling faster than renewables cost ever did. So in the meantime, build out renewables so that you have something other than fossil fuels to charge your storage from. Then build storage. By then it will be radically cheaper than it is now.
      - RealityVoid 4y ago
        This, to me, sounds like a pipe dream. We can become carbon neutral with the tech we have _right now_ whereas I fail to imagine how these necessarily exponential improvements in storage capacity will happen. The _one_ thing that gives me hope for storage is maaaaybe synthetic fuels. But currently it's unproved.
        ncmncm 4y ago
        If you mean using nukes, nukes started today will ensure burning fossil fuel for at least ten more years while we wait for them to come online. Money (including cost overruns) spent on them will be unavailable to build out renewables that would displace fossil fuels immediately. Electric synthetic ammonia is mature tech. It just takes a long time to build the factories to produce the needed amount of synthesis equipment.
        Const-me 4y ago
        > Electric synthetic ammonia is mature tech I'd prefer a nuclear plant nearby, ammonia is toxic: https://abc13.com/ammonia-truck-disaster-houston/1332062/ https://abc13.com/ammonia-truck-disaster-houston/1332062/
  - Dma54rhs 4y ago
    We don't have storage. It's like saying to starving nation the simple solution is to grow more crops.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      We don't have storage because we have not built out storage. After we have built out storage, we will have storage. Until we have enough renewables to charge storage from, any storage would have to be charged from fossil fuels. So, it would be stupid to spend money building out storage with money that could be spent building out renewables. After we have enough renewables, we will want storage. Storage will be radically cheaper at that time.
Beltiras 4y ago
The safe future of nuclear energy production is in molten salt reactors. They are walk-away safe.

happytoexplain 4y ago

There are many things to bring out the negativity and sarcasm for about politics, but there seem to be reasonable arguments both for and against nuclear power. That's not to say that you can't consider one argument to be obviously better than the other, but the leap to "any opposition to my side is unreasonable and deserves to be snidely made fun of" is part of what's ruining politics.