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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
In my view it's about aiming for the stars, sure you may not reach it but you'll at least land on the moon.
(also, Warren has a policy proposal called the Green Apolo so I had to use that argument
)
Well, then maybe it's time for a grass-roots campaign to educate people about the real risks and rewards of nuclear energy. Because this is a (nominally) democratic society, and if the people don't want it, then it is not going to happen. You can't just lay that at Warren's feet like that.
Edited by Kayeka on Sep 5th 2019 at 3:17:27 PM
So we do what she wants and start weaning off nuclear and setting up infrastructure for renewables. Then, when 2038 rolls around, if we aren't there yet, we push back the date and keep working on it.
If we are, fantastic! Continue as planned.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.![]()
Biden is the only front-runner who is even willing to look at nuclear power, and even he's not saying we should be building more plants. The only candidate I can find who is actually advocating for building MORE plants is Booker.
One issue is that she's not just saying that. She was deliberately invoking fears of nuclear waste by going on about spent fuel rods and such.
Edited by M84 on Sep 5th 2019 at 9:28:23 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedI'm pretty sure she literally is. I mean, her proposal is to phase out nuclear power by 2038 by replacing it with renewables.
If replacing nuclear power with renewables isn't possible then that just... won't happen.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
She outright said she was worried about spent fuel rods in that debate.
It wouldn't have been so bad if she "just" outlined a plan to phase out nuclear power for renewables (even if that's not actually possible). But she had to go the extra mile and go on about how scary nuclear waste is.
Edited by M84 on Sep 5th 2019 at 9:36:33 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedI was responding to your argument that she wasn't saying Tobia's argument when she quite literally was.
The nuclear waste bit is just bad, I agree.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 5th 2019 at 6:35:57 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
I said she wasn't just saying that. If she had just outlined that plan, it wouldn't have been so bad (though still kind of bad).
At least she's not as bad as Sanders, whose plan is viciously anti-nuclear. I suspect he's overcompensating for that time he supported dumping nuclear waste near a poor Latino community.
Edited by M84 on Sep 5th 2019 at 9:38:22 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedGoing back a bit...
We actually can. World battery production needs to scale up significantly but it's already in progress, and companies like Tesla (well, only Tesla, but still) are now offering megawatt-scale storage systems for commercial use. It's not just batteries, either; there are other methods being proposed.
These systems serve three primary purposes:
- Boost electricity supply during peak periods, eliminating the need for "peaker" plants that are highly polluting.
- Supplement electricity supply during times when renewables aren't generating enough power, such as solar at night.
- Backstop the grid against outages.
The reason why nuclear power is useful in this system is as a point of stability against scenarios such as a days-long loss of solar or wind power, when storage systems are depleted. It's not absolutely necessary, but it helps a lot.
What you want to do is diversify your energy production into all the available sources: sun, wind, water, geothermal, hydrothermal, nuclear, and use storage systems to back everything up. This way you aren't putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak.
Edited by Fighteer on Sep 5th 2019 at 9:47:48 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
Fair enough.
I see, very informative. Thanks!
That's a relief, considering how extensive Warren's plans are I was beginning to be baffled as to why she'd take a position that is outright impossible. Glad to hear it's not.
The suboptimality of rejecting nuclear power is still bad of course, but it's much less unreasonable with this in mind.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangThere are three very good reasons for a US presidential candidate to want to phase out nuclear power and it has very little to do with the viability or safety of nuclear power itself:
1. The US does not produce enough nuclear on its own to sustain its current needs, (it produces only about 5% of its current needs, in fact) let alone its needs if fossil fuel power plants were replaced with nuclear plants. In order to supply its power needs, the US would need to become dependent on Kazakhstan (via Russia, since most Kazakh Uranium is mined and processed by Russian-owned companies) the same way it's now dependent on OPEC... (Either that or convince Canada to kick even more natives off of their traditional lands and dig up more of their untarnished nature preserves to get at the Uranium there.)
2. While nuclear power plants themselves are fairly clean compared to fossil fuel power plants, the mining and processing of the Uranium needed to run them very, very much isn't. Even in ideal conditions, with the greatest of care, radioactive and heavily carcinogenic materials will get in the local ground water and air (in the form of dust) just as a consequence of digging the stuff up and knocking what's around it loose. Both the chemicals used in and the waste products produced by the processing of uranium ore into yellowcake are pretty fucking nasty too.
3. It's really fricking expensive to do in an environmentally friendly way. While it's possible to use several different processes to reduce the amount of waste from nuclear power plants to something reasonable, possible isn't the same as cheap. It certainly would be better for the environment to replace fossil fuel power plants with nuclear power plants equipped to properly reprocess waste, but it may well be even better to spend a fraction of what that reprocessing costs to improve renewable energy collection and storage technologies. And not end up with a bunch of weapons grade fissile material (which is what the reprocessing procedure produces and why most nuclear power plants don't do it).
Edited by Robrecht on Sep 5th 2019 at 5:37:03 PM
Angry gets shit done.One should also keep in mind what happened in Germany when they phased out nuclear energy in favor of renewables. They started burning more coal to compensate, meaning carbon emissions weren't being reduced much.
A Forbes article from a couple years back covers this.
Edited by M84 on Sep 5th 2019 at 11:47:31 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised![]()
I’m pretty sure that the US’s supply of Uranian isn’t dependant on a former USSR country, for reasons that should be rather obvious. I think that both Canada and Australia have large Uranian deposits.
Yep just double check, Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan are the top three Uranian producers, though I’m not certain on the exact order amongst them.
As for the manning process, I don’t think that mining for solar production is particularly environmentally friendly enough, mining tends to not be environmentally friendly.
Personally I’d love to see candidates be challenged on their anti-nuclear stances, with them being specifically called out on how said stances are anti-science.
Edited by Silasw on Sep 5th 2019 at 4:01:50 PM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran![]()
I think you're misunderstanding the issue.
Germany phasing out its nuclear power plants and Germany deciding to focus on investing on renewable energy sources are two separate things linked by them happening to occur in the same sector.
Germany was always going to phase out its nuclear power plants (due to popular demand, I know because the same thing happened in the Netherlands before the focus on renewable energy sources).
Also, James Conca, the author of that article, writes so many articles for Forbes extolling the virtues of nuclear power (that's, like, the only thing he writes articles about) that you'd almost assume he has a controlling interest in a company that works with nuclear power plants. (Spoilers: He does. He's the CTO of a company that processes spent uranium fuels for disposal.)
Edited by Robrecht on Sep 5th 2019 at 6:14:28 PM
Angry gets shit done.![]()
Mining for solar panel production isn't particularly environmentally friendly, no. Neither is the actual production of the panels.
Everything has a tradeoff, including renewables. It's just a matter of which tradeoffs we think are acceptable. Nuclear energy overall has acceptable tradeoffs when considering the potential benefits.
Edited by M84 on Sep 6th 2019 at 12:09:11 AM
Disgusted, but not surprisedLooks like plenty of Canadian and Australia uranium to go around, unless I’m massively underestimating the percentage of world uranium production needed to support nuclear expansion. If I am I’m happy to be corrected with a source.
![]()
Nuclear tech does, I’m uncertain on if the political trade offs are worth the cost. If nothing else better education funding should help remove some of the stigma from nuclear eventually.
Edited by Silasw on Sep 5th 2019 at 5:21:50 PM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI think getting off fossil fuels is a higher priority than getting off nuclear energy. 100% renewable would be the dream, but renewable mixed with nuclear with no fossil fuel is a close second. Anyone complaining about nuclear energy needs to focus their attention back onto fossil fuels, where it's needed more.

That's like saying you want to feed humanity on only organic crops... you cant... It sounds nice but the logistics arent posible.
I don't doubt your sincerity but the idea that Warren would build policy on an axiom that is impossible doesn't sound plausible to me.
But even if that is true, then we can just... not do it. If she were talking about phasing them out in two years then that would be one thing, but she's not, either phasing them out will be viable or it won't. And if it's not then it just doesn't need to happen.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang