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> they're testing some new tech that directly uses the sun to desalinate. We should be implementing technologies we have now today rather than banking on some

> they're testing some new tech that directly uses the sun to desalinate. We should be implementing technologies we have now today rather than banking on something that might or might not pan out. I don't hate the idea of piping water throughout areas or creating artificial enclosed canals of sorts. But then I'm on the side of thinking that we should advance and terraform the planet rather than try to be more one with nature and cut back.

arcticbull 3y ago
So a nuclear power plant adjacent to the ocean and a desal plant?
- zer00eyz 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident We can have safe nuclear power, right after we invent safe people. Till you solve the human problem nukes are bad mmmkay.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    Nobody died in Fukushima, except in a bungled evacuation of the surrounding area. Maybe one person in the fullness of time. Nuclear power is literally the safest power source in deaths per TWh - right between wind and solar. [1] We have safe nuclear power, so I'm pleased to inform you that your concern was mitigated, about 50 years ago. [edit] Also, I would point out the worst nuclear accident in history killed 4000 people according to USCEAR. The next-worst killed 1. The worst hydro accident in history (Bangqiao Dam) killed 240,000, damaged 5 million homes, displaced 10.5 million people and wiped several cities off the face of the earth - yet for some reason it doesn't share the same perception of intense danger. Interesting. [2] [1] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
    - zer00eyz 3y ago
      Great, we're looking at deaths till the point of generation. 4.5 billion years, is the half life of uranium. Come back to me with stats then.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster We're going to be pouring money into that shit show for probably a 1000 years, and an exclusion zone for 20,000. So if you want to move next to Fukushima or Chernobyl you can preach safe nuclear from there, other wise stop the nonsene. The same companies that kill people with coal, and gas lines, and Power lines (lookin at you PGE) dont need to run nuclear plants. They are untrustworthy.
      - arcticbull 3y ago
        This really smacks of Brandolini's law, or the "bullshit asymmetry principle" where debunking claims takes much more effort than making them. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
      - mech422 3y ago
        iirc, I live near the largest nuke plant in the US. No complaints. Perhaps the issue is more with the people running the plants, then the plants themselves. Also, recycling nuke waste like many countries do cuts the amount of waste down dramatically. P.S. - we also use grey water for cooling the plant, limiting the amount of fresh water needed. Edit: According to 1, "All of the nuclear waste collected at Palo Verde over the past 30 years is stored on-site. The waste is currently stored in cement-and-steel containers that take up a space the size of a football field." - seems pretty small for a 30 year life time, maybe a couple of tons / year ? 1) https://chamberbusinessnews.com/2019/10/25/inside-palo-verde-generating-station-the-nations-largest-nuclear-power-plant/ https://chamberbusinessnews.com/2019/10/25/inside-palo-verde...
        zer00eyz 3y ago
        Lets round up its generate to 4gw Solar last year: 228gw was ADDED globally. SO about 57 plants of the size of the one near your house every year. 400 nuclear plants will give us about 2 major accidents every 50 years at current rate. We can assume this is pretty close to a constant as plants age, natural disasters happen and everything gets more complicated. Meanwhile solar is not responsive and doesn't work after dar, so needs storage. In a pure nuclear set up, you still need storage, because it isnt responsive (you can't just crank them up and down like a dimmer) ... Nuclear, all nuclear, has the down side of needing local power. If you have to shut down in an emergency you need to keep shit running (this is what killed Fukushima in part)... so we either need on site generation or a more complex grid, and probably because of safety, both. It's not a question of IF we have an accident but when, and more plants doesn't make them safer it just lowers the time between accidents... We aren't building more nuclear for a good reason. I does not make ANY sense to do so, the cost and complexity is too high for too little power.
  - distortionfield 3y ago
    We can have safe nuclear, full stop. Your FUD notwithstanding.
    - cyanydeez 3y ago
      we can barely get a mentally fit president. good luck with that.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - zer00eyz 3y ago
      We, as a society can't tighten the bolts on plane doors. Its not a question of IF we have an accident its how many, how often and how bad. It's gonna be greed, trying to get more out of the plant, or cutting corners on keeping it safe, its two people who had fights with their partners and dont cross check, Its a tidal wave and a sequence of events that no one thought of. And we know the scope of those things: Chernobyl, 20k years 1000 mile exclusion zone. It will take them 100 years to clean up the buildings that are there, we will likely need to build ANOTHER rolling roof to continue that work. Fukushima is a cluster fuck still. They just recently started removing spent uranium fuel rods that were on site. Most nuclear sites have cooling pools filled with radioactive material, that needs to be stored for a scale that is beyond human comprehension. Meanwhile no one has a good or straight answer on how to deal with the meltdown, the fuel IN the ground, still hot. All that fuel is waiting for someone to turn it into a dirty bomb. Or we can start recycling it and running breeder reactors (and they are dangerous and have the down sides, typically they dont generate much power). Right now we have about 379.79GW of nuclear generation globally from 400 odd rectors. At the ongoing cost of the two meltdowns. Right now solar is growing by 228 GW a year. TO keep pace with solar, you're going to have to build 200 reactors a year, every year, for the next 20 years. The solar has its "death toll" built in at install time. The reactor's death toll is one of human factors, it's not an IF it's a when. And that cost could be 3 mile island, or a Chernobyl. That cost could be some wack job breaking in and stealing waste for a dirty bomb, or an accident moving it to the long term storage that we DONT have right now, and dont know how to secure for the time scale that it will be deadly on.

arcticbull 3y ago

So a nuclear power plant adjacent to the ocean and a desal plant?

zer00eyz 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident We can have safe nuclear power, right after we invent safe people. Till you solve the human problem nukes are bad mmmkay.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  Nobody died in Fukushima, except in a bungled evacuation of the surrounding area. Maybe one person in the fullness of time. Nuclear power is literally the safest power source in deaths per TWh - right between wind and solar. [1] We have safe nuclear power, so I'm pleased to inform you that your concern was mitigated, about 50 years ago. [edit] Also, I would point out the worst nuclear accident in history killed 4000 people according to USCEAR. The next-worst killed 1. The worst hydro accident in history (Bangqiao Dam) killed 240,000, damaged 5 million homes, displaced 10.5 million people and wiped several cities off the face of the earth - yet for some reason it doesn't share the same perception of intense danger. Interesting. [2] [1] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
  - zer00eyz 3y ago
    Great, we're looking at deaths till the point of generation. 4.5 billion years, is the half life of uranium. Come back to me with stats then.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster We're going to be pouring money into that shit show for probably a 1000 years, and an exclusion zone for 20,000. So if you want to move next to Fukushima or Chernobyl you can preach safe nuclear from there, other wise stop the nonsene. The same companies that kill people with coal, and gas lines, and Power lines (lookin at you PGE) dont need to run nuclear plants. They are untrustworthy.
    - arcticbull 3y ago
      This really smacks of Brandolini's law, or the "bullshit asymmetry principle" where debunking claims takes much more effort than making them. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
    - mech422 3y ago
      iirc, I live near the largest nuke plant in the US. No complaints. Perhaps the issue is more with the people running the plants, then the plants themselves. Also, recycling nuke waste like many countries do cuts the amount of waste down dramatically. P.S. - we also use grey water for cooling the plant, limiting the amount of fresh water needed. Edit: According to 1, "All of the nuclear waste collected at Palo Verde over the past 30 years is stored on-site. The waste is currently stored in cement-and-steel containers that take up a space the size of a football field." - seems pretty small for a 30 year life time, maybe a couple of tons / year ? 1) https://chamberbusinessnews.com/2019/10/25/inside-palo-verde-generating-station-the-nations-largest-nuclear-power-plant/ https://chamberbusinessnews.com/2019/10/25/inside-palo-verde...
      - zer00eyz 3y ago
        Lets round up its generate to 4gw Solar last year: 228gw was ADDED globally. SO about 57 plants of the size of the one near your house every year. 400 nuclear plants will give us about 2 major accidents every 50 years at current rate. We can assume this is pretty close to a constant as plants age, natural disasters happen and everything gets more complicated. Meanwhile solar is not responsive and doesn't work after dar, so needs storage. In a pure nuclear set up, you still need storage, because it isnt responsive (you can't just crank them up and down like a dimmer) ... Nuclear, all nuclear, has the down side of needing local power. If you have to shut down in an emergency you need to keep shit running (this is what killed Fukushima in part)... so we either need on site generation or a more complex grid, and probably because of safety, both. It's not a question of IF we have an accident but when, and more plants doesn't make them safer it just lowers the time between accidents... We aren't building more nuclear for a good reason. I does not make ANY sense to do so, the cost and complexity is too high for too little power.
- distortionfield 3y ago
  We can have safe nuclear, full stop. Your FUD notwithstanding.
  - cyanydeez 3y ago
    we can barely get a mentally fit president. good luck with that.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - zer00eyz 3y ago
    We, as a society can't tighten the bolts on plane doors. Its not a question of IF we have an accident its how many, how often and how bad. It's gonna be greed, trying to get more out of the plant, or cutting corners on keeping it safe, its two people who had fights with their partners and dont cross check, Its a tidal wave and a sequence of events that no one thought of. And we know the scope of those things: Chernobyl, 20k years 1000 mile exclusion zone. It will take them 100 years to clean up the buildings that are there, we will likely need to build ANOTHER rolling roof to continue that work. Fukushima is a cluster fuck still. They just recently started removing spent uranium fuel rods that were on site. Most nuclear sites have cooling pools filled with radioactive material, that needs to be stored for a scale that is beyond human comprehension. Meanwhile no one has a good or straight answer on how to deal with the meltdown, the fuel IN the ground, still hot. All that fuel is waiting for someone to turn it into a dirty bomb. Or we can start recycling it and running breeder reactors (and they are dangerous and have the down sides, typically they dont generate much power). Right now we have about 379.79GW of nuclear generation globally from 400 odd rectors. At the ongoing cost of the two meltdowns. Right now solar is growing by 228 GW a year. TO keep pace with solar, you're going to have to build 200 reactors a year, every year, for the next 20 years. The solar has its "death toll" built in at install time. The reactor's death toll is one of human factors, it's not an IF it's a when. And that cost could be 3 mile island, or a Chernobyl. That cost could be some wack job breaking in and stealing waste for a dirty bomb, or an accident moving it to the long term storage that we DONT have right now, and dont know how to secure for the time scale that it will be deadly on.