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Who'd have thought that the targets of perhaps the world's largest anti-anything campaign can slow them down so much? In the 1991 the anti-nuclear industry publ
by acidburnNSA 3y ago
Who'd have thought that the targets of perhaps the world's largest anti-anything campaign can slow them down so much? In the 1991 the anti-nuclear industry published its strategy to use everything in their power to slow down nuclear plants and especially nuclear waste sites. It's in black and white. [1]
[1] https://atomicinsights.com/anti-nuclear-movement-strategy-circa-april-1991/ https://atomicinsights.com/anti-nuclear-movement-strategy-ci...
- tuatoru 3y agoHow does that work in China and Russia?
- acidburnNSA 3y agoChina and Russia regularly deliver nuclear plants (VVERs, Hualong One) roughly on time and budget.
- tuatoru 3y agoBut not at a rate that can keep up with the growth in demand, especially in China. Demand in China has grown more than 20-fold over the 21st Century but nuclear installs have not come close to keeping up with that. In contrast solar PV and wind have now grown to the point where they are overtaking the growth in demand, meaning that fossil plants can soon start to be be retired.
- emmelaich 3y agoAnti-pollution activists share a lot with anti-nuclear activists. In China and Russia they don't have as much clout, so they use lots of coal, if it's cheaper.
- konart 3y agoAccording to https://www.worldometers.info/coal/coal-consumption-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/coal/coal-consumption-by-count... Russia's coal consumption is notably lower than that of the US per capita.
- lupusreal 3y agoChina and Russia funded the antinuclear sentiment in other countries, not in their own.
- cycomanic 3y agoSo how to anti nuclear activists cause massive cost overruns? The nuclear industry is a multibillion dollar industry with extremely close ties to government (probably one of the closest after the military industry). But somehow a movement, that still gets largely dismissed by politicians as environmental nutters managed to get them to overrun costs? I mean the myth of the supposedly all powerful anti-nuclear lobby is actually hilarious. I mean took fukushima to get Germany (arguably on of the most nuclear sceptical countries) to decide on stopping nuclear (despite the majority of the population being against nuclear power for years prior) and under quite favourable conditions for the nuclear industry.
- roenxi 3y agoIf you think about it, what is the argument for why nuclear is to plan? Nuclear is impossible to plan because ... pixies steal the computers the planners are using? Note that whatever factors you identify, the people estimating the plant build process are aware of that. The planners know exactly how long it takes to build a nuclear plant, and they learn just as quickly as everyone watching from the sidelines. Their assumptions are being thrown by something - almost certainly anti-nuclear campaigners in government or regulatory forces warping incentives. Those are the only things that can consistently diver overruns. Otherwise it is hard for overruns of a nuclear plant to be different from any other project.
- RNAlfons 3y agoAre you joking? This is a blog post by some guy from a venture which invests into nuclear outlining a conspiracy theory where the Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS), the Safe Energy Communication Council (SECC), and Greenpeace slowed down nuclear around the world? What?
- acidburnNSA 3y agoThe blog post simply links to a scanned 1991 document from the major anti-nuclear players laying out their strategy. It includes folks like Ralph Nader. ICYMI: https://atomicinsights.com/wp-content/uploads/Antinuclear-strategy-April-1991.pdf https://atomicinsights.com/wp-content/uploads/Antinuclear-st... Given the absolutely massive popularity of the antinuclear movement, the fringe belief is actually to think the legal intervenors that came out of it had negligible impact. Germany for example had a 100% complete fast breeder reactor called SNR-300, designed to provide sustainable low carbon 24/7 energy for decades. Before it could turn on for the first time, protestors rioted. They never turned it on. Today it's an amusement park. Now that is impact.
- RNAlfons 3y agoNeither you nor the blog post "just" do something. You both imply a conspiracy resulting from this document. You have no proof for any connection to anything relevant going from that. The SNR-300 story is also completely unrelated. You just stacked it upon the conspiracy theory.
- acidburnNSA 3y agoNot to double-spiderman you or anything, but from my perspective, your claims that the anti-nuclear movement was not a significant cause of nuclear power cost escalations worldwide appear to be baseless. Not sure how old you are, but the scale of the movement worldwide is pretty flabbergasting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement
- 3y ago