3 ms·

Yeah, it's too bad that we make our decisions based on emotion, a problem affecting the "eco" side as well as the "right wing reactionary" side. The "eco" side

by xp84 3y ago

Yeah, it's too bad that we make our decisions based on emotion, a problem affecting the "eco" side as well as the "right wing reactionary" side. The "eco" side pushes solar and wind for everything and thinks nuclear plants inevitably explode. The "right wing" side pushes coal exclusively because it's sad that the few thousand coal miners left could lose their jobs. Nobody's weighing these things with fair metrics.

tstrimple 3y ago
The "eco" side aren't the ones making decisions about nuclear power investment. That would be the for-profit energy companies. Maybe think a little more about why an executive whose purpose is to generate profit doesn't want to invest *billions* of dollars and *over a decade* of construction time at a minimum and would rather put money into a wind turbine that turns a profit in under a year. The economics of nuclear power makes absolutely no sense. Literally every study into the subject confirms this. If you really want substantial nuclear power, you've got to take capitalism out of the equation. Nationalize the energy sector and remove representative democracy then you can build nuke plants like China.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  Nuclear power plants and coal power plants fundamentally work the same way. Generate heat, make steam, spin turbines, make electricity. Nuclear power plants without passive safety features need extra redundancy on the cooling systems, e.g. you need backup generators. There is no way that should add billions of dollars to the price of the plant. They cost billions of dollars more because competitors (primarily coal and natural gas) lobby for rules that make them cost more on purpose, because they don't want to compete with a technology that should have a similar construction cost and negligible fuel cost. Especially when they're the suppliers of the fuel. Fortunately for them nuclear is scary and then you can lobby not just for safety measures that make sense but also for ones with poor cost benefit ratios that only serve to make the plants uneconomically expensive. Then the coal companies shrug and say the market has decided.

by xp84 3y ago

tstrimple 3y ago

The "eco" side aren't the ones making decisions about nuclear power investment. That would be the for-profit energy companies. Maybe think a little more about why an executive whose purpose is to generate profit doesn't want to invest *billions* of dollars and *over a decade* of construction time at a minimum and would rather put money into a wind turbine that turns a profit in under a year. The economics of nuclear power makes absolutely no sense. Literally every study into the subject confirms this. If you really want substantial nuclear power, you've got to take capitalism out of the equation. Nationalize the energy sector and remove representative democracy then you can build nuke plants like China.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
Nuclear power plants and coal power plants fundamentally work the same way. Generate heat, make steam, spin turbines, make electricity. Nuclear power plants without passive safety features need extra redundancy on the cooling systems, e.g. you need backup generators. There is no way that should add billions of dollars to the price of the plant. They cost billions of dollars more because competitors (primarily coal and natural gas) lobby for rules that make them cost more on purpose, because they don't want to compete with a technology that should have a similar construction cost and negligible fuel cost. Especially when they're the suppliers of the fuel. Fortunately for them nuclear is scary and then you can lobby not just for safety measures that make sense but also for ones with poor cost benefit ratios that only serve to make the plants uneconomically expensive. Then the coal companies shrug and say the market has decided.