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You are treating "because it doesn't generate profit" and "because it's obsolete" as equivalent conditions. This is pretty normal, but let me suggest that the t

by amw 4y ago

You are treating "because it doesn't generate profit" and "because it's obsolete" as equivalent conditions. This is pretty normal, but let me suggest that the two don't have to exist together, because the market is, in fact, not a dispassionate force of nature but a creation by men to serve the needs of a subset of those men. In this particular case, even, it is a market that has decided to keep the secondary costs of nuclear associated with its generation, while dramatically underweighting the secondary costs of fossil fuels, even though the latter kills more people per month than have ever died from any nuclear event or waste in the entire lifetime of the tech. But even from there, nuclear is constantly under development. Its leading edge is miles beyond the nuclear of the generation when it was being built out commonly in the US, and the new tech is both very safe and produces way more manageable waste output. China is building both more nuclear and more renewable energy than any other country in the world, and is just one place showing that that the combination is a viable way of meeting our needs. Put another way, I do think you're right when you say (lack od) profitability is the major problem. But I think, given a frank assessment of the technology (preferably from sources not funded by people with an interest in maintaining the status quo), we should consider seriously that the problem isn't nuclear tech, but the concept of profit, itself.

dale_glass 4y ago
> In this particular case, even, it is a market that has decided to keep the secondary costs of nuclear associated with its generation, while dramatically underweighting the secondary costs of fossil fuels, even though the latter kills more people per month than have ever died from any nuclear event or waste in the entire lifetime of the tech. True, but arguing in favor of nuclear is unlikely to fix that. That's more of a matter of passing some sort of carbon tax legislation, which I very much support. > But even from there, nuclear is constantly under development. Its leading edge is miles beyond the nuclear of the generation when it was being built out commonly in the US, and the new tech is both very safe and produces way more manageable waste output. That's I think is one of the issues with the tech. You can make a new solar panel or new wind turbine quickly. Experimenting with nuclear is an enormous ordeal, which nobody seems to want to engage in all that much. If building a powerplant is already not profitable, imagine building an experimental one, stuffed to the gills with instrumentation. My view is that on the tech angle it also almost certainly loses. Renewables are just simple and amenable to mass manufacturing. > we should consider seriously that the problem isn't nuclear tech, but the concept of profit, itself. I think for a thing as core as energy, we can't really ignore money. Say, what happens if your power is 3X more expensive than your neighbour's? That's unlikely to be competitive, so why wouldn't industry just move across the border? You might have noble ideals, but industry as a whole doesn't.

by amw 4y ago

dale_glass 4y ago

> In this particular case, even, it is a market that has decided to keep the secondary costs of nuclear associated with its generation, while dramatically underweighting the secondary costs of fossil fuels, even though the latter kills more people per month than have ever died from any nuclear event or waste in the entire lifetime of the tech. True, but arguing in favor of nuclear is unlikely to fix that. That's more of a matter of passing some sort of carbon tax legislation, which I very much support. > But even from there, nuclear is constantly under development. Its leading edge is miles beyond the nuclear of the generation when it was being built out commonly in the US, and the new tech is both very safe and produces way more manageable waste output. That's I think is one of the issues with the tech. You can make a new solar panel or new wind turbine quickly. Experimenting with nuclear is an enormous ordeal, which nobody seems to want to engage in all that much. If building a powerplant is already not profitable, imagine building an experimental one, stuffed to the gills with instrumentation. My view is that on the tech angle it also almost certainly loses. Renewables are just simple and amenable to mass manufacturing. > we should consider seriously that the problem isn't nuclear tech, but the concept of profit, itself. I think for a thing as core as energy, we can't really ignore money. Say, what happens if your power is 3X more expensive than your neighbour's? That's unlikely to be competitive, so why wouldn't industry just move across the border? You might have noble ideals, but industry as a whole doesn't.