Wanting to try a different breakfast sandwich. Pull up. Cant see menu because last guys order is showing. Flicks over to menu. Can i help you? Ill take a <same old thing> because i didnt get enough time to see the menu and dont wsnt to hold up the line.
So, no, sorry, nuclear power isn’t relevant anymore. I know it’s tempting to cling to outdated technologies sometimes, I enjoy using a typewriter for example, but when it comes to solving climate change, I think we should use the best tools available, which nuclear is definitely not. It’s just too expensive and slow to provision.
DOE Announces $2.7 Billion From President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda to Boost Domestic Nuclear Fuel Supply Chain
Wow, some industry lobbyists got government funding, amazing. Global fossil fuel subsidies are at $7 trillion, so I guess those are really relevant to our future as well!
I don’t want developing countries to waste their money on nuclear power when they can get much more cost effective renewables.
Global fossil fuel subsidies are at $7 trillion, so I guess those are really relevant to our future as well!
No of course not. The subsidies at this point at a crime against humanity.
I don’t want developing countries to waste their money on nuclear power when they can get much more cost effective renewables.
If the renewables are cost effective and provide stable power then I too want them to be priority -near zero risks-, but more importantly industry and business will seek them on their own. I just hold that nuclear power should be part of the mix. Take the UAE for example it is investing in both nuclear and solar.
Lol I KNEW HE WAS ALREADY DEAD!! That picture was taken in the cooler fridge where they keep his body in storage in-between sessions of weekend at Bernies style puppeteering.
I can’t believe I have to vote for an actual corpse…
I would rather see more investment on better renewable tech then relaying on biohazard.
You would be surprised to know the amount of scientific research with actual solutions that aren’t applied cause goes against the fossil fuel companies and whatnot. Due to the fact that they have market monopoly.
Nuclear is the best and most sustainable energy production long term. You get left with nuclear waste which we are still figuring out how to deal with, but contemporary reactors are getting safer and more efficient. Not to mention breeder reactors can use the byproducts of their energy production to further produce energy.
What are you talking about? In 2023, solar power alone generated 1.63 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity. Twice as much as was generated by coal, and more than half as much as was generated by nuclear. Solar plus wind out performed nuclear by hundreds of gigawatts.
The only thing holding back renewable power is grid level energy storage, and that’s evolving rapidly.
The problem with renewables is the fluctuation. So you need something you can quickly spin up or down to compensate. Now you can do that with nuclear reactors to some extent - but they barely break even at current energy prices, and they keep having the same high cost while idle.
So a combination of grid storage and power plants with low cost when idle (like water) is the way to go now.
I would rather see more investment on better renewable tech then relaying on biohazard.
Modern nuclear energy produces significantly less waste and involves more fuel recycling than the historical predecessors. But these reactors are more expensive to build and run, which means smaller profit margins and longer profit tails.
Solar and Wind are popular in large part because you can build them up and profit off them quickly in a high-priced electricity market (making Texas’s insanely expensive ERCOT system a popular location for new green development, paradoxically). But nuclear power provides a cheap and clean base load that we’re only able to get from coal and natural gas, atm. If you really want to get off fossil fuels entirely, nuclear is the next logical step.
Every commercial fuel recycling plant in existence releases large amounts of radioactivity into the air and water, so I dont really see them as a good alternative.
Considering how long it would take to build safe reactors, how expensive it would be and how much radioactive contamination would be created both at the production of fuel and later when the storage ever goes wrong after thousands of years, I just dont see any reason to ever invest into it nowadays, when renewables and batteries have gotten so good.
I just dont see any reason to ever invest into it nowadays, when renewables and batteries have gotten so good.
Renewables and batteries have their own problems.
Producing and processing cobalt and lithium under current conditions will mean engaging in large-scale deforestation in some of the last unmolested corners of the planet, producing enormous amounts of toxic waste as part of the refinement process, and then getting these big bricks of lithium (not to mention cadmium, mercury, and lead) that we need to dispose of at the battery’s end of lifecycle.
Renewables - particularly hydropower, one of the most dense and efficient forms of renewable energy - can deform natural waterways and collapse local ecologies. Solar plants have an enormous geographic footprint. These big wind turbines still need to be produced, maintained, and disposed of with different kinds of plastics, alloys, and battery components.
Which isn’t even to say these are bad ideas. But everything we do requires an eye towards the long-term lifecycle of the generators and efficient recycling/disposal at their end.
Nuclear power isn’t any different. If we don’t operate plants with the intention of producing fissile materials, they run a lot cleaner. We can even power grids off of thorium. Molten salt reactors do an excellent job of maximizing the return on release of energy, while minimizing the risk of a meltdown. Our fifth generation nuclear engines can use this technology and the only thing holding us back is ramping it up.
Unlike modern batteries, nuclear power doesn’t require anywhere near the same amount of cobalt, lithium, nickel and manganese. Uranium is surprisingly cheap and abundant, with seawater yielding a pound of enrichable uranium at the cost of $100-$200 (which then yields electricity under $.10/kwh).
We can definitely do renewables in a destructive and unsustainable way, recklessly mining and deforesting the plant to churn out single-use batteries. And we can do nuclear power in a responsible and efficient way, recycling fuel and containing the relatively low volume of highly toxic waste.
But all of that is a consequence of economic policy. Its much less a consequence of choosing which fuel source to use.
Economicaly might be viable, but there is so much unused experimental tech that has higher potential and scales better (higher scientific development as well).
Henry Ford’s right hand man had uneven steps in his home as a defense mechanism. he fell down them and died while drunk (apparently this is urban legend)
I think they did that in castles, because it’s generally pretty hard to build castles. If the enemy is inside the walls you are practically done anyway.
I enjoy the idea that some shitass mason hated whatever king hired him, built all the stairs as quickly and poorly as possible, and then to save his ass later had to be all “oh hmm yes the stairs? That’s a feature actually” and somehow it winds up catching on
every time the story comes back up it takes me ages to figure out who I was talking about again. I can never remember the name, but he was featured in an episode of last podcast on the left
You are talking about Henry Bennett. This is a myth though. While he did have stairs like that, he died in a care home after years of declining health. His actual cause of death wasn’t announced, but it was likely because he had been in rapid decline for years and just before going into the care home, had a stroke.
Most areas in the US have that as a building code violation for the safety issue of it. Usually, there’s a “first” when any regulation regarding inherent safety is created.
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