I’m pro nuke energy but to pretend there are no downsides is what got us into the climate mess we are in in the first place.
Cost, being a major drawback, space being another. And of course while they almost never fail, they do occasionally, and will again. And those failures are utterly catastrophic, and it’d hard to convince a community to welcome a nuclear plant, and if the community doesn’t want it then it can’t or shouldn’t be forced onto them.
They also represent tactical strike sites in time of combat engagement. Big red X for a missile.
There are also significant environmental concerns, as we really have no good way to dispose of nuclear waste in a safe or efficient manner at this time.
It’s likely that nuclear based energy is the future, but you need to discuss the bad with the good here or we are just going to end up at square one again. There are long term ramifications.
Worth noting that all modern failures have been GE models or ancient Westinghouse models. Modern nuclear reactors built by Westinghouse are virtually immune from meltdown, and Westinghouse is the lead player in new builds. Nuclear safety has come miles since the like of Fukushima, and especially 3 Mile Island. I’d feel perfectly safe living near a new Westinghouse nuclear plant.
There are no unsinkable ships. No matter how safe the Titanic is, keep enough of them on the sea and one will eventually sink the way least people expected. If life on Earth depends on a Titanic never sinking…we’re fucked eventually.
Life on Earth depends on no more than a couple on nuclear plants blowing up catastrophically.
I agree with everything you say. It really is spot on. What I don’t understand is how, with your awareness, do you still consider yourself pro-nuclear. Honest question, I really am curious.
This is a shocker for many on social media but you can accept that something you want is not perfect but still want it, or see good in a bad person, but still not want them on the throne.
Just because I can be realistic about it’s pros and cons instead of blindly parroting that I have been told to parrot doesn’t mean I can’t be pro nuclear.
Other power sources have more problems. And I say just launch the waste into space and eventually the reactors will just be out of the stratosphere and it won’t matter if it explodes.
But you got to walk before you can run.
I just dislike when people pretend there are no downside to nuke, EV, wind, etc, because if they make one little comment on a con suddenly they’re some anti enviro Trump sucker and get dogpiled
There’s a difference in something being not perfect and being fundamentally flawed. My confusion is because you perfectly verbalized why I think it’s flawed.
I could understand being in favor of using nuclear temporarily until renewables are more reliable. I don’t agree but I understand the thought process. It’s a calculated risk, an acceptable gamble. But being aware of all the issues with nuclear and still be in favor of it long term, in my opinion, doesn’t make sense.
Mind you, I’m not trying to attack you, I’m genuinely intrigued and curious.
I dunno what that guy was thinking, but it seems obvious to me that nuclear fusion is the long term solution for energy generation.
Nuclear fission not so much, but it’s definitely debatable which has more fundamental flaws between fission and wind/hydro/solar. All renewable energy sources ultimately depend on natural processes which are not reliable or permanent. And they also tend to disrupt the environment to some extent.
Nuclear fission has no such limitations, but instead trades long term risk for short term stability. Basically renewable sources are and always will be somewhat unreliable, and Nuclear fission is the least bad reliable energy source to pair with the renewables. So in the medium term, fission makes a lot more sense than fossil fuels, and in the long term we should be looking to fusion.
This immediately discards like, everything you’ve said up until now, though. It matters if it explodes on the way up challenger style and irradiates half of the continent with a massive dirty bomb of nuclear waste. It’s way more cost effective, efficient, and safer to just put it somewhere behind a big concrete block and then pay some guy to watch it 24/7, and make sure the big concrete block doesn’t crack open or suffer from water infiltration or whatever.
I mean to be fair you do make it pretty easy to discredit your entire argument, when you’re just gonna say that anyone calling you out on this very obviously stupid idea is a bot. Like that’s the same thing again.
Maybe I’m a victim of Poe’s law, but I’ve seen “launch nuclear waste into space” get way more repute than it deserves as an idea from people who have no clue about the actual issues with, even just normal aspects to do with energy generation. It’s a shorthand signal that lets me know that someone’s had all their thinking on it done for them by shitty pop science and shitty science journalism. It’s like if someone believes in antivax, or something. I’m probably not going to really think they’re a credible source, after that. This is also bad if the shit they’re saying is itself lacking in external sources which I can rely on outside of them.
I’m also flexing my brain right now because none of the shit you said at all really backs up the idea the nuclear energy is the future. Like, if you think it’s inevitable that more plants collapse and it’s inevitable that nuclear power plants get destroyed by missiles in times of war (also a great idea, on par with disposing of it in space, let me irradiate the exact area I’m trying to capture for miles and miles around), then you wouldn’t want nuclear power. If you believe in that and then you also believe in the overblown problem of nuclear waste, then there’s not really a point, there’s no point at which the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
The reason people aren’t going to accept nuclear if they believe it has cons is because like half of those cons are, albeit overblown, catastrophic for life on the planet, and the other half are failures to conceptualize based on economic boogeymen, just the same as with solar power. Political will problems, rather than problems with physical reality or core technologies. But still, problems that conflict with the existence of the idea itself.
You’re not going to convince people to go in on nuclear power, your stated idea, if you only point out it’s flaws, and then also post ridiculous shit.
There are downsides to nuclear these days. Incredibly high cost with a massive delay before they’re functioning. Solar + wind + pumped hydro + district heating is where it’s at in 2024.
Also, tie together more countries’ power grids to even out production and demand of renewables, and reduce the need for other backup sources.
For a fraction of the cost of nuclear, increase the storage capacity as well. We’ve had days where the price per MWh was negative in many hours, because of excess production.
The barriers to carbon free energy aren’t technical, they’re purely political.
it has got cheaper, but it has to get cheap enough that you can buy enough batteries with the difference. I’m not sure it has become that cheap. Maybe these sodium battery things will get developed.
No, there is pumped storage. Honestly, despite the plethora of start-ups claiming to have a solution (sodium batteries, molten-salt, etc) The only really proven way to store electricity for later is pumped storage, but that relies on geography (hills) which not everyone has. Batteries are great for phones, and cars but they simply don’t scale to countries.
That is actually very impressive. Thanks! I remain a bit skeptical as its only 1/5th of what they need and it’s only one region of one (rich) country. Still, 10GW of lithium battery would be one hell of a fire ;-)
Or convert excess to hydrogen and provide resilience, or have arrangements for industry to consume the excess. Or ramp down your generation at those times. Or shift excess to neighbouring grids.
This is wrong. Right now, europe is experiencing high pressure and doesn’t have any wind. Check this out its map that shows you how much wind is being produced right now! Can you provide a source that says " the wind is always blowing somewhere" or is it just a platitude?
You probably also didnt heard about Thorium based molten salt reactors, they are much safer than conventional nuclear, also cheaper, and you can have a 50MW installation in space not much larger than a shipping container. A 50MW solar installation is close to 1km2 and thats without any storage included. It even can be modified to run on spent fuel of conventional nuclear power plants.
Please understand that negative prices are the market for electricity breaking down! That is not a good thing. It should mean that if you have solar panels on your roof you have to pay to participate in the national grid because you are dumping energy into the grid when it can’t use it, but special rules have been made for renewable plants. Literally, imagine a contract-to-supply for wind or solar…
I understand very well the implications of the negative price, which is why I advocated NOT to spend trillions in nuclear, when issues of balancing demand and production can be solved for a fraction of what nuclear costs.
Still not a reason to not build them, the entire point is for nuclear to handle the load when solar/wind can’t provide due to weather. Other renewables will still be producing the bulk of the power we need, but at night nuclear will be handling any demand spikes, each of them would greatly reduce the number of batteries required to satisfy the demand. They can stay until our solar output is so high we can just start electrolyzing water into hydrogen as energy storage.
Though pumped hydro is sometimes opposed by environmental groups because it does absolutely decimate local environments.
I have high hopes for sodium batteries. The ones that have been released on the market are simply perfect (if scaled up) for local grid storage in countries with a lot of space and will hopefully get better energy density in line with Lithium Iron Phosphate with time.
Salt batteries have been the cold fusion of battery tech for like 10 years, but now it is finally coming to fruition. I hope to install a solar installation with salt batteries in 5 years or so, myself.
If you’re suggesting using Nuclear as a peaker plant or to turn it off and on whenever wind/solar is not up for it then I’m sorry to say that it’s not viable. Nuclear generators don’t handle well being turned off and on.
You can make Thorium reactors much smaller and cheaper, basically a 50MW unit is not much larger than a shipping container, while being much more safe than standard nuclear plants. The largest issue is over-regulation of the nuclear power in general.
A 50MW of solar installation is HUGE, and thats 50MW at the sunniest part of the planet: newsaf.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-15/…/index.html, We are basically talking about close to a square kilometer installation…
there is simply no way to call a 50MW solar plant cleaner than nuclear and its probably not even that much cheaper in the end. Compare that to a shipping container sized reactor… Only thing in the way, is the nuclear scare and government regulations.
The cost is less from the design and more from the safety regulations. Best case scenario the state just starts making nuclear power plants, it’s just not a good idea to mix profit incentive with nuclear.
Huh? Quick search shows that Oliver Tree is 30 years old, so birth year ~1994 or so. The jazz design came out in 1992 and was widely available through the early 2000s, by solo cup after they purchased it from sweetheart cup in 2004… I really don’t see how he shouldn’t know where the design came from, but regardless it’s become a pop culture/nostalgia symbol because it’s just a good, widely recognizable design. What else does he need to know?
I’m just checking my social media apps for any new messages and maybe droify for updates. After checking them in the morning I kinda think to myself that now job is done and any more time I spend of my morning on them is kinda wasted. Checking social media from time to time and speaking with your friends seems kinda healthy, but doomscrolling is kind of a waste after a point (happens if I’m too bored to start my day).
The thing is, after I check all these, I might go in a loop due to boredom (boredom may have many many reasons behind it). When I have tasks to do or I’m in a period that my friends and I are busy, this is more intense. The phone is an easy and portable distraction. All these contribute to an increase of phone usage (currently I’m in one of those situations and phone usage has increased probably by at least 50%).
I had to move to a country with a more introverted culture than the one I grew up in (not the US), and I’ve struggled finding friends to spend my free time with so far, so I spend it on apps :-( They really are just a last resort and I’d much rather spend my time with actual people like in the olden days :-/
About the former, I recently realized in practice that it’s important to pick up activities etc. that you like and that attract people you can bond with. For example I like weightlefting at gym, but I realized it attracts so many people with repulsive ideologies, while I tried dancing and mobility classes the same gym offers and the environment was much much better, I found many good people there. (I still do weightlifting though and I found some good people there too.)
Plus, voicing your opinions helps a lot to filter people (I’m struggling a lot with this though).
Plus, voicing your opinions helps a lot to filter people (I’m struggling a lot with this though).
This is massive. “Filtering” is the perfect way to put it. If you don’t risk saying something potentially disagreeable, then no one will ever know who you are.
That goes for both repulsive and inclusive ideologies, I guess, but I definitely prefer the latter (this is an example of one of your “filtering” statements - now spectators to this conversation know I value inclusivity).
Join some Whatsapp group that piques your interest and meet with them IRL. I wouldn’t have thought that drinking beer and shooting the shit with total strangers could be so much fun, but here we are.
Yes. I think what makes these apps appealing is that 1) they can be used unplanned and your time in them doesnt have to be structured, and 2) they can fill up an arbitrarily long or short amount of time.
Hmm that is a very good description of how I use social media. Fill up unstructured downtime, or to bridge a gap between two other activities (god forbid I go thirty whole minutes without stimulation lol)
Then sometimes just hours and I come out of it feeling like total trash
When I was a kid, I used to play video games while jumping around. I’d stand in front of the TV, bounce around, play Mario, run in circles. My parents didn’t care.
At some point, society said that was weird, and I had a gaming chair?
Watching myself balloon (and already using a standing desk for work) went back to standing while playing video games. I enjoy it!
Condolences. I’ve taken to going to the coffee shop to meet my friend. Yeah it’s not free, but it’s cheap. For games, that’s a bit of a blindspot for me since I only play good games these days.
I’m a doctor so I know how dying people act. It’s unrealistic that a dying person, like a couple of seconds before he/ she’s completely gone, to talk much sense. They speak random stuff, disoriented, or in a complete panic state until they lost their consciousness and then die short after.
So are you people in this meme just on your phone all day looking at stupid phone apps? God, what a waste of life.
Smartphones are just boring little tools guys. Don’t make it your life. Be a real nerd, get a PC, and surf the web where there are no limitations set by apps. Play some video games, look at porn sites, do some online shopping or whatever. If you’re done with all that, go outside and ride a bike or something.
I started reading books and mags while pooping. I like it. Highly recommended.
Just got to have system to make sure you don’t do anything unhygienic to your reading material. I make sure to set it down before I touch myself. I touch myself.
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