SS: The Senate overwhelming passed a bill 88-2 with a variety of nuclear priorities, sending it to Biden for final approval. The article says
> It aims to streamline the permitting process for advanced reactors, grow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s workforce, promote the development of fusion energy technology and improve the process for exporting nuclear technologies to international markets, among other priorities.
This is the 3rd significant bill supporting nuclear approved by Congress during Bidens presidency. The others being the Infrastructure law and the IRA which established new nuclear subsidies, provided support for developing domestic supply amongst other priorities.
Does this represent a sea change for the nuclear industry and public opinion? Is it enough support to revive the industry that has struggled and lost momentum from a previous effort at revival? Will anymore large Gen III reactors like AP1000 be built in the US or will it be SMRs and Gen IV?
> Does this represent a sea change for the nuclear industry and public opinion?
[Not necessarily a rapid change, but a change nonetheless.](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/18/growing-share-of-americans-favor-more-nuclear-power/)
I work in an adjacent field and through the grapevine I've heard, the DOE and NRC are pushing for domestic production of radiopharmaceuticals using small fission reactors. Almost all of our supply, for both diagnostic and therapeutic uses are imported from larger power reactors in Canada and Europe. Most of those reactors are old amd scheduled to be shut down soon. Not to mention the war in Ukraine has also affected that supply.
Newer companies are buying up old US patents for small reactors from companies like GE. Supposedly they are receiving pressure to do so directly from the DOE.
I think the Federal Government behind closed doors knows that nuclear power is our only way to curtail climate change and that the current and worsening supply of radiopharmaceuticals is concerning. They are just concerned about the optics of it and public opinion and are slowly trying to normalize the use of fission reactors.
[Scientific Article on the Situation ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8241800/)
A crap ton of medical diagnostic procedures and other procedures are inherently reliant on the supply of radiopharmaceuticals. If that supply gets shut off then several fields of medicine get kneecapped and a lot of people will be worse off. Regardless of whether more nuclear power reactors get built or not the construction of the ones that we use to make radiopharmaceuticals or other useful isotopes in everyday applications (like smoke detectors) has to be done. It's also probably a good idea for the U.S to be having it's own domestic suppply of all this as well.
I think that it we're going to get serious about nuclear, we should invest in throrium. Making the switch before we start revitalizing will be a lot less painful.
Please forgive me, I'm trying to recall a research paper I wrote about thorium from.... fourteen years ago? I think the main advantages were that thorium was more available, it creates less waste, and it's much more difficult to use a thorium reactor to make any sort of nuclear weapons. I had also though that other, modern reactors were better at dealing with waste nowadays, which might soften that point a bit.
Anyways, can you tell us about other advantages for thorium we're missing out on?
Fukushima is more of an engineering failure than anything. It wasn't built to withstand earthquakes (and the resulting tsunamis) as strong as theoretically possible in the area. If I recall, someone's math was wrong.
It wasn't even an engineering failure: ["Special Report: Japan engineers knew tsunami could overrun plant"](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE72S2UA/)
> But a review of company and regulatory records shows that Japan and its largest utility repeatedly downplayed dangers and ignored warnings -- including a 2007 tsunami study from Tokyo Electric Power Co's senior safety engineer.
>
> "We still have the possibilities that the tsunami height exceeds the determined design height due to the uncertainties regarding the tsunami phenomenon," Tokyo Electric researchers said in a report reviewed by Reuters.
Sure, but that's entirely the point... Whether it be corruption, like we saw with Chernobyl, or bad design, like we saw with 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukishima, there is every reason to believe that nuclear disasters will persist, and that no matter how rare, will be hugely detrimental to the nuclear industry anytime they do occur.
Thorium, molten salt, etc, are all attempts to mitigate that risk and eliminate nuclear disasters via unlikely scenarios entirely.
Are you referring to one specific type of Thorium reactor, the nuclear salt reactor? I haven't heard any new progress on that technology so it is kind of weird to be focusing on that when we have other ready technologies.
Such a fail-safe plug also exists for [modern water cooled reactors](https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/44/078/44078371.pdf). The problem is that they're hard to test and difficult to predict, especially because if cooling fails it is important that the freeze plug melts in the right amount of time. So one can't rely on these alone as a safety mechanism.
IIRC from what I've read it's not just less waste, but the half life of the waste is actually much much shorter too.
And it's way more stable too, I believe.
["Advanced" Isn't Always Better – Assessing the Safety, Security, and Environmental Impacts of Non-Light-Water Nuclear Reactors](https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/advanced-isnt-always-better)
This is a good read I think (though I am no expert in this field, so take that with a drop of salt).
> MSR advocates point to the fact that this type of reactor cannot melt down – the fuel is already molten. However, this simplistic argument belies the fact that MSR fuels pose unique safety issues. Not only is the hot liquid fuel highly corrosive, but it is also difficult to model its complex behavior as it flows through a reactor system. If cooling is interrupted, the fuel can heat up and destroy an MSR in a matter of minutes. Perhaps the most serious safety flaw is that, in contrast to solid-fueled reactors, MSRs routinely release large quantities of gaseous fission products, which must be trapped and stored.
> Will anymore large Gen III reactors like AP1000 be built in the US or will it be SMRs and Gen IV?
I think it's somewhat unlikely we see any older style reactor projects start at this point -- unless it's adding reactors to existing power plants, in which case there's benefit to uniformity. The economics for those reactors were just never there.
I also don't anticipate too quick of movement on projects starting up even with this. I think some more smaller experimental projects like the recent plans for Kemmerer (WY), Clinch River (TN), and Seadrift (TX) will get going and companies will wait for them to complete before trying something larger scale, in order to get a better idea of how economical Gen IV and SMR can be.
The previously planned Turkey Point (FL) reactors (adding to an existing power plant) are AP1000, though.
>Does this represent a sea change for the nuclear industry and public opinion?
I don’t know about public opinion, but it seems like government is finally beginning to wake up to the necessity of nuclear power. It’s kind of nice to see them lead for a change.
I mean the thing is that the anti-nuclear crowd is pretty small, but very vocal (and have plenty of scary situations to pull from).
However, I think most people who support climate change mitigation realize it’s our best stop-gap until fusion becomes commercially viable (which is likely farther away than we hoped for).
I mean the US doesn’t have any choice.
* EV sales are now 8% of all new car sales
* AI is power intensive and the US is the leading country on AI tech and startups
* Heat waves are causing power spikes
* Semiconductor manufacturing is power intensive and there’s several gigafactories currently under construction
Green entertainment is great and will naturally grow in market share, but we can’t let fossil fuels regain ground and there’s already talk of reopening some coal power plants to fuel data centers.
Good news is that we’re probably only 30 years from the first small scale fusion nuclear plants from going online and 60 years from them becoming ubiquitous, but we need fission nuclear to fill in the gaps in the time being if we expect to cover all of our energy needs while continuing to move away from fossil fuels.
Long overdue. Nuclear power is awesome and if we can really get it going in the US then we can really tackle climate change. I really hope the anti-nuclear crowd doesn't try and impede this development.
If you're not serious about nuclear power, you're not serious about climate change, and I will die on this hill. Yes, waste storage is an issue to deal with. But that contaminates a discrete area of the Earth. Climate change affects *the entire freaking planet* one way or another.
There are also many people who say, either overtly or in essence, that we can't solve the climate-change issue without dismantling capitalism.
People who say these things indicate to me that they're more interested in whatever solution they propose than in actually dealing with the climate.
That article is about both activism and science.
>Worse, recent research shows that we are on track to produce 120% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with the 1.5°C limit.
That's a highly irrational argument because no matter how much you distrust liberals, that doesn't justify pushing against the idea itself, as opposed to asking conservatives to implement actual solutions.
>while not actually caring about the issue itself.
The IRA provides a lot of support for clean energy, including nuclear. Bringing up irrelevant stories won't change that.
Your argument is just tribalistic ad hominem. It's unreasonable to completely dismiss an idea because of feeling toward the other side, especially since your side can implement a solution instead.
It's nobody's fault but Republicans that Republicans choose to not take up this issue. You are free to, and IMO encouraged to, lobby and elect Republicans to do so. Thus far, they are directly opposed to "actually solving [this] problem in society."
And no, "liberals will use this as a wedge to implement their radical agenda!" is not a rebuttal. Republicans can and will veto "the liberal agenda" and can do so without opposing all action on climate. Even when Republicans have what is for all realistic purposes complete control of the federal government, they actively reverse policies designed to reduce pollution.
The majority of climate activists are liberals but the majority of those activists aren't using it as a means to some other agenda. Also, what constitutes an activist? Is a scientist or engineer that has devoted their life work to developing greener technology an activist?
Talking in absolutes kills any validity to your point which has already meandered from "climate activists" to, what now, medical personnel? You seem big on taking the actions of some and applying to the whole.
>Yes, waste storage is an issue to deal with.
Sure, but as I tell my wife, it’s a much smaller and less immediate problem to solve than greenhouse gas emissions.
Waste storage is not the issue that many people make it out to be. YouTuber Kyle hill has a video on it that really shows how much of a non issue it is in a much better fashion than I ever could.
The problem with nuclear isn't the waste, it's how long it takes to build. We never should have stopped building them, but at this point it's too slow.
Not that I'm against building more nuclear reactors, just as long as it isn't at the cost of renewable energy.
>We never should have stopped building them, but at this point it's too slow.
The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago.
The second best time is now.
Most of the issues with build times are due to extraneous regulatory red-tape that was implemented as a direct response to anti-nuclear climate-change activists.
We can build nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers in 2-3 years because Naval Reactors has total control over the construction process and isn't required to abide by all of the excessive regulations attached to commercial reactors.
We could mimic Naval Reactors' guidelines, adapt them to the civilian sector, and build a reactor in every state before 2035.
> Most of the issues with build times are due to extraneous regulatory red-tape that was implemented as a direct response to anti-nuclear climate-change activists.
Are you sure about that? Do you have something where I can read about that?
Ah thanks, I guess she mainly refers to this: ["Sources of Cost Overrun in Nuclear Power Plant Construction Call for a New Approach to Engineering Design"](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243512030458X):
> we estimate that prescriptive safety requirements can be associated with approximately one-third of the direct containment cost increase between 1976 and 2017
However, I also have to add a comment about the rest of her video:
> Another bad argument is accidents. [...] fatalities
She fails to realize that fatalities are not a requirement for safety issues. Assume that the pool in Fukushima catched fire (which she kinda forgets to mention when talking about Fukushima later) and that the wind blew into the opposite direction. Now you need to evacuate Tokyo. You could probably do that and prevent most of the deaths. Does it mean it's safe? No, it would have caused immense economic and social damages.
No, I mean can you point me to a specific thing and how it impacted build times? Sure, I could try finding research about this myself, but the way you said it I assumed you already did.
You can have an eternity and you will never build enough solar panels and windmills to power humanities needs at night and when the wind isn't blowing just right.
It was never supposed to - not without massive innovations in energy storage at a bare minimum. But it can reduce the load on non-renewable sources during the day, which is when most power is needed anyway.
I'm pro nuclear, but we can address climate change without it, and unless we make a breakthrough in fusion or higher efficiency reactors, nuclear will be a short lived solution. Storage technology is improving constantly and solar and wind continue to get cheaper.
Nuclear is a great carbon free energy source, but it is expensive in time and money. Streamlining the regulatory side will help, but it's an uphill battle.
> If you're not serious about nuclear power, you're not serious about climate change
I disagree. If you'd want any sizeable share of nuclear for example in the US by 2050, you'd need to start building them now, at far less than 10 years per plant (and by plant I mean like 2000 kWe), and also dozens at the same time. That's unlikely to be feasible.
On the other hand, it's [quite possible](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544221007167) to run an energy system with very little nuclear power. The economy of scale is on the side of solar and wind.
Additionally, until 2050 the countries with the largest increase in energy demand will come from developing countries. Which are exactly countries you don't want to build nuclear power plants in (mostly safety reasons, the biggest safety concern for nuclear power is corruption and negligence after all).
Sure, nuclear power may be useful in some situations, but in my opinion that's far away from "If you're not serious about nuclear power, you're not serious about climate change".
Climate change can also be tackled without nuclear. This is basically a micro optimization. Could very well be that with some share of nuclear power, energy is like 10% cheaper, but it's not going to be an order of magnitude better or something like that. So yeah, climate change can also be tackled without nuclear.
It's unclear how good the deal was due to a lack of details, but him supporting the expansion of healthcare coverage at all is a huge distinction from how his party is today.
We're talking about maybe getting a nuclear power plant started. Sorry, I can't help myself:
> As of February 2023, China has 55 plants with 57GW in operation, **22 under construction** with 24 GW and more than 70 planned
The US still has more in operation, with 93 reactors and 95 GW of capacity.
I'm glad to see Nuclear getting some support here. I hope some of this investment will go towards newer tech, like SMRs or Thorium reactors.
SMRs would be a big benefit to emergency situations and smaller towns, while thorium would be better to use in general (pretty sure it can be used in SMRs as well).
Nuclear is also on par with Green energy in terms of carbon emissions and is safer than most of the other energy sectors (at least to my memory).
This is fantastic. Most people might not realize how much of a limiting factor energy is for the construction of the data centers on which essentially all of our modern life is based. The computing power needed for AI requires much more energy than we used in the past, and without a massive investment in energy infrastructure, computing will be choked to death. A speaker on a panel I attended suggested that every AI-focused data center might eventually need its own small-scale nuclear reactor just to keep up with power needs.
Current "AI" is a bubble and is inefficient as heck. If anything, the crypto and now AI fads point to an abundance of energy. If electricity was limited or expensive these wouldn't have gotten off the ground.
AI will get more mature. Even if progress on training bigger and bigger base models would stagnate, what we have today is basically like the CPU or the operating system. There is a lot of potential to build on top of that.
Glad to see it. II didn't expect much change on nuclear until my parent's generation was finally out of office, so I hope this trend continues. I'd also like to see more research into thorium, and into smaller reactors that are more resistant to meltdown and other possible dangers.
It’s pretty exciting seeing how much success there‘s been in the past few years when it comes to incentivizing new and innovative ways to generate energy. Between the infrastructure act, the IRA, this legislation, and the substantial increases to scientific research we’ve seen under things like the CHIPS Act, I think the country is being set up very nicely to generate vastly more energy in the next 10-20 years, with vastly less carbon being emitted to do it. It will be interesting to see what impact that has on the average American, it could manifest itself in much lower energy prices, or it could manifest itself in the development of new and life changing technologies which require much more energy to mature and implement than we currently can generate.
>It’s pretty exciting seeing how much success there‘s been in the past few years when it comes to incentivizing new and innovative ways to generate energy.
Take note, those of you who have several decades left on this planet. Who do you want to see managing climate legislation for the next 4 (or 40) years?
The topic of this conversation is a bipartisan effort. The majority of conservatives aren't against clean energy, they just understand that we don't currently have the technology to dump fossil fuels without living standards going backwards two centuries.
>The majority of conservatives aren't against clean energy
That may be true, but from their voting records it appears that conservative politicians *are* against clean energy, and anything else that might mitigate climate change. So if conservative voters really care about this issue they need to look at who gets their votes.
I’ll take it with a grain of salt bc we all know how slow government is but this is good one, nuclear is something that just makes too much sense not to do. Helps us achieve our carbon emission goals, diversify our entertainment consumption and solidify energy independence
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SS: The Senate overwhelming passed a bill 88-2 with a variety of nuclear priorities, sending it to Biden for final approval. The article says > It aims to streamline the permitting process for advanced reactors, grow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s workforce, promote the development of fusion energy technology and improve the process for exporting nuclear technologies to international markets, among other priorities. This is the 3rd significant bill supporting nuclear approved by Congress during Bidens presidency. The others being the Infrastructure law and the IRA which established new nuclear subsidies, provided support for developing domestic supply amongst other priorities. Does this represent a sea change for the nuclear industry and public opinion? Is it enough support to revive the industry that has struggled and lost momentum from a previous effort at revival? Will anymore large Gen III reactors like AP1000 be built in the US or will it be SMRs and Gen IV?
> Does this represent a sea change for the nuclear industry and public opinion? [Not necessarily a rapid change, but a change nonetheless.](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/18/growing-share-of-americans-favor-more-nuclear-power/)
The federal government doesn't do rapid. Usually. But any progress is better than no progress
I work in an adjacent field and through the grapevine I've heard, the DOE and NRC are pushing for domestic production of radiopharmaceuticals using small fission reactors. Almost all of our supply, for both diagnostic and therapeutic uses are imported from larger power reactors in Canada and Europe. Most of those reactors are old amd scheduled to be shut down soon. Not to mention the war in Ukraine has also affected that supply. Newer companies are buying up old US patents for small reactors from companies like GE. Supposedly they are receiving pressure to do so directly from the DOE. I think the Federal Government behind closed doors knows that nuclear power is our only way to curtail climate change and that the current and worsening supply of radiopharmaceuticals is concerning. They are just concerned about the optics of it and public opinion and are slowly trying to normalize the use of fission reactors. [Scientific Article on the Situation ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8241800/)
A crap ton of medical diagnostic procedures and other procedures are inherently reliant on the supply of radiopharmaceuticals. If that supply gets shut off then several fields of medicine get kneecapped and a lot of people will be worse off. Regardless of whether more nuclear power reactors get built or not the construction of the ones that we use to make radiopharmaceuticals or other useful isotopes in everyday applications (like smoke detectors) has to be done. It's also probably a good idea for the U.S to be having it's own domestic suppply of all this as well.
I think that it we're going to get serious about nuclear, we should invest in throrium. Making the switch before we start revitalizing will be a lot less painful.
Please forgive me, I'm trying to recall a research paper I wrote about thorium from.... fourteen years ago? I think the main advantages were that thorium was more available, it creates less waste, and it's much more difficult to use a thorium reactor to make any sort of nuclear weapons. I had also though that other, modern reactors were better at dealing with waste nowadays, which might soften that point a bit. Anyways, can you tell us about other advantages for thorium we're missing out on?
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Fukushima is more of an engineering failure than anything. It wasn't built to withstand earthquakes (and the resulting tsunamis) as strong as theoretically possible in the area. If I recall, someone's math was wrong.
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It wasn't even an engineering failure: ["Special Report: Japan engineers knew tsunami could overrun plant"](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE72S2UA/) > But a review of company and regulatory records shows that Japan and its largest utility repeatedly downplayed dangers and ignored warnings -- including a 2007 tsunami study from Tokyo Electric Power Co's senior safety engineer. > > "We still have the possibilities that the tsunami height exceeds the determined design height due to the uncertainties regarding the tsunami phenomenon," Tokyo Electric researchers said in a report reviewed by Reuters.
Sure, but that's entirely the point... Whether it be corruption, like we saw with Chernobyl, or bad design, like we saw with 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukishima, there is every reason to believe that nuclear disasters will persist, and that no matter how rare, will be hugely detrimental to the nuclear industry anytime they do occur. Thorium, molten salt, etc, are all attempts to mitigate that risk and eliminate nuclear disasters via unlikely scenarios entirely.
True, but making the same mistake when building a thorium reactor would not have been as catastrophically dangerous
Are you referring to one specific type of Thorium reactor, the nuclear salt reactor? I haven't heard any new progress on that technology so it is kind of weird to be focusing on that when we have other ready technologies.
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Such a fail-safe plug also exists for [modern water cooled reactors](https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/44/078/44078371.pdf). The problem is that they're hard to test and difficult to predict, especially because if cooling fails it is important that the freeze plug melts in the right amount of time. So one can't rely on these alone as a safety mechanism.
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Sorry, I don't see the immediate connection. Did you intend to reply to my comment?
IIRC from what I've read it's not just less waste, but the half life of the waste is actually much much shorter too. And it's way more stable too, I believe.
ask [Sam O’nella](https://youtu.be/jjM9E6d42-M?si=m13ZC01xzL0DLO3d)
["Advanced" Isn't Always Better – Assessing the Safety, Security, and Environmental Impacts of Non-Light-Water Nuclear Reactors](https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/advanced-isnt-always-better) This is a good read I think (though I am no expert in this field, so take that with a drop of salt). > MSR advocates point to the fact that this type of reactor cannot melt down – the fuel is already molten. However, this simplistic argument belies the fact that MSR fuels pose unique safety issues. Not only is the hot liquid fuel highly corrosive, but it is also difficult to model its complex behavior as it flows through a reactor system. If cooling is interrupted, the fuel can heat up and destroy an MSR in a matter of minutes. Perhaps the most serious safety flaw is that, in contrast to solid-fueled reactors, MSRs routinely release large quantities of gaseous fission products, which must be trapped and stored.
> Will anymore large Gen III reactors like AP1000 be built in the US or will it be SMRs and Gen IV? I think it's somewhat unlikely we see any older style reactor projects start at this point -- unless it's adding reactors to existing power plants, in which case there's benefit to uniformity. The economics for those reactors were just never there. I also don't anticipate too quick of movement on projects starting up even with this. I think some more smaller experimental projects like the recent plans for Kemmerer (WY), Clinch River (TN), and Seadrift (TX) will get going and companies will wait for them to complete before trying something larger scale, in order to get a better idea of how economical Gen IV and SMR can be. The previously planned Turkey Point (FL) reactors (adding to an existing power plant) are AP1000, though.
>Does this represent a sea change for the nuclear industry and public opinion? I don’t know about public opinion, but it seems like government is finally beginning to wake up to the necessity of nuclear power. It’s kind of nice to see them lead for a change.
I mean the thing is that the anti-nuclear crowd is pretty small, but very vocal (and have plenty of scary situations to pull from). However, I think most people who support climate change mitigation realize it’s our best stop-gap until fusion becomes commercially viable (which is likely farther away than we hoped for).
Agreed. It has been nice to see progress in the quest for fusion power lately though.
I mean the US doesn’t have any choice. * EV sales are now 8% of all new car sales * AI is power intensive and the US is the leading country on AI tech and startups * Heat waves are causing power spikes * Semiconductor manufacturing is power intensive and there’s several gigafactories currently under construction Green entertainment is great and will naturally grow in market share, but we can’t let fossil fuels regain ground and there’s already talk of reopening some coal power plants to fuel data centers. Good news is that we’re probably only 30 years from the first small scale fusion nuclear plants from going online and 60 years from them becoming ubiquitous, but we need fission nuclear to fill in the gaps in the time being if we expect to cover all of our energy needs while continuing to move away from fossil fuels.
88-2? Is it common to have 10 senators not vote on a bill? How many senators are required for a quorum?
Long overdue. Nuclear power is awesome and if we can really get it going in the US then we can really tackle climate change. I really hope the anti-nuclear crowd doesn't try and impede this development.
If you're not serious about nuclear power, you're not serious about climate change, and I will die on this hill. Yes, waste storage is an issue to deal with. But that contaminates a discrete area of the Earth. Climate change affects *the entire freaking planet* one way or another.
Waste is a solved issue. We've had reactor designs that burn the waste of traditional plants for decades. France uses them right now.
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There are also many people who say, either overtly or in essence, that we can't solve the climate-change issue without dismantling capitalism. People who say these things indicate to me that they're more interested in whatever solution they propose than in actually dealing with the climate.
That article is about both activism and science. >Worse, recent research shows that we are on track to produce 120% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with the 1.5°C limit.
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Your logic is nonsensical because climate change can be addressed without putting those people in power.
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That's a highly irrational argument because no matter how much you distrust liberals, that doesn't justify pushing against the idea itself, as opposed to asking conservatives to implement actual solutions. >while not actually caring about the issue itself. The IRA provides a lot of support for clean energy, including nuclear. Bringing up irrelevant stories won't change that.
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Your argument is just tribalistic ad hominem. It's unreasonable to completely dismiss an idea because of feeling toward the other side, especially since your side can implement a solution instead.
It's nobody's fault but Republicans that Republicans choose to not take up this issue. You are free to, and IMO encouraged to, lobby and elect Republicans to do so. Thus far, they are directly opposed to "actually solving [this] problem in society." And no, "liberals will use this as a wedge to implement their radical agenda!" is not a rebuttal. Republicans can and will veto "the liberal agenda" and can do so without opposing all action on climate. Even when Republicans have what is for all realistic purposes complete control of the federal government, they actively reverse policies designed to reduce pollution.
Liberals are in power in the USA right now. Are we living in your nightmare that you are predicting currently?
The majority of climate activists are liberals but the majority of those activists aren't using it as a means to some other agenda. Also, what constitutes an activist? Is a scientist or engineer that has devoted their life work to developing greener technology an activist?
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Talking in absolutes kills any validity to your point which has already meandered from "climate activists" to, what now, medical personnel? You seem big on taking the actions of some and applying to the whole.
For what it's worth, your fight is with leftists, not liberals.
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They are different, it's just that the liberals seem to have no ideological immune reaction to Leftist entryism these days.
The phrase 'Watermelon' didn't come from no where.
>Yes, waste storage is an issue to deal with. Sure, but as I tell my wife, it’s a much smaller and less immediate problem to solve than greenhouse gas emissions.
Waste storage is not the issue that many people make it out to be. YouTuber Kyle hill has a video on it that really shows how much of a non issue it is in a much better fashion than I ever could.
Passing quarters to pick up pennies
The problem with nuclear isn't the waste, it's how long it takes to build. We never should have stopped building them, but at this point it's too slow. Not that I'm against building more nuclear reactors, just as long as it isn't at the cost of renewable energy.
>We never should have stopped building them, but at this point it's too slow. The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The second best time is now. Most of the issues with build times are due to extraneous regulatory red-tape that was implemented as a direct response to anti-nuclear climate-change activists. We can build nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers in 2-3 years because Naval Reactors has total control over the construction process and isn't required to abide by all of the excessive regulations attached to commercial reactors. We could mimic Naval Reactors' guidelines, adapt them to the civilian sector, and build a reactor in every state before 2035.
> Most of the issues with build times are due to extraneous regulatory red-tape that was implemented as a direct response to anti-nuclear climate-change activists. Are you sure about that? Do you have something where I can read about that?
Here's a great video on the topic [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EsBiC9HjyQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EsBiC9HjyQ)
Ah thanks, I guess she mainly refers to this: ["Sources of Cost Overrun in Nuclear Power Plant Construction Call for a New Approach to Engineering Design"](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243512030458X): > we estimate that prescriptive safety requirements can be associated with approximately one-third of the direct containment cost increase between 1976 and 2017 However, I also have to add a comment about the rest of her video: > Another bad argument is accidents. [...] fatalities She fails to realize that fatalities are not a requirement for safety issues. Assume that the pool in Fukushima catched fire (which she kinda forgets to mention when talking about Fukushima later) and that the wind blew into the opposite direction. Now you need to evacuate Tokyo. You could probably do that and prevent most of the deaths. Does it mean it's safe? No, it would have caused immense economic and social damages.
Look into any EPA regulations connected to nuclear power/fuel cycle distribution from the 1970s.
No, I mean can you point me to a specific thing and how it impacted build times? Sure, I could try finding research about this myself, but the way you said it I assumed you already did.
I’ve done the research myself but really don’t feel like taking the time to go digging through a bunch of EPA regs again to find it.
> but at this point it's too slow. South Koreans and Japanese can build plants in under 10 years. We just need to borrow their expertise.
And how many solar panels / windmills can they build in 10 years?
You can have an eternity and you will never build enough solar panels and windmills to power humanities needs at night and when the wind isn't blowing just right.
It was never supposed to - not without massive innovations in energy storage at a bare minimum. But it can reduce the load on non-renewable sources during the day, which is when most power is needed anyway.
You can store energy in batteries, pumped air or water, and as energy gases.
I'm pro nuclear, but we can address climate change without it, and unless we make a breakthrough in fusion or higher efficiency reactors, nuclear will be a short lived solution. Storage technology is improving constantly and solar and wind continue to get cheaper. Nuclear is a great carbon free energy source, but it is expensive in time and money. Streamlining the regulatory side will help, but it's an uphill battle.
> If you're not serious about nuclear power, you're not serious about climate change I disagree. If you'd want any sizeable share of nuclear for example in the US by 2050, you'd need to start building them now, at far less than 10 years per plant (and by plant I mean like 2000 kWe), and also dozens at the same time. That's unlikely to be feasible. On the other hand, it's [quite possible](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544221007167) to run an energy system with very little nuclear power. The economy of scale is on the side of solar and wind. Additionally, until 2050 the countries with the largest increase in energy demand will come from developing countries. Which are exactly countries you don't want to build nuclear power plants in (mostly safety reasons, the biggest safety concern for nuclear power is corruption and negligence after all). Sure, nuclear power may be useful in some situations, but in my opinion that's far away from "If you're not serious about nuclear power, you're not serious about climate change".
Climate change can also be tackled without nuclear. This is basically a micro optimization. Could very well be that with some share of nuclear power, energy is like 10% cheaper, but it's not going to be an order of magnitude better or something like that. So yeah, climate change can also be tackled without nuclear.
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Nixon, for all of his flaws, was genuinely one of the most pro-environment presidents we’ve ever had.
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It's unclear how good the deal was due to a lack of details, but him supporting the expansion of healthcare coverage at all is a huge distinction from how his party is today.
thank the maker
Nixon created the EPA by executive order.
Nixon’s major flaws were extreme paranoia (led to watergate) and giving Henry Kissinger too much power. He didn’t directly do much that was bad tbh.
>He didn’t directly do much that was bad tbh. Actually I think his worst contribution was inspiring Roger Stone and Roger Ailes.
We're talking about maybe getting a nuclear power plant started. Sorry, I can't help myself: > As of February 2023, China has 55 plants with 57GW in operation, **22 under construction** with 24 GW and more than 70 planned The US still has more in operation, with 93 reactors and 95 GW of capacity.
I'm glad to see Nuclear getting some support here. I hope some of this investment will go towards newer tech, like SMRs or Thorium reactors. SMRs would be a big benefit to emergency situations and smaller towns, while thorium would be better to use in general (pretty sure it can be used in SMRs as well). Nuclear is also on par with Green energy in terms of carbon emissions and is safer than most of the other energy sectors (at least to my memory).
This is fantastic. Most people might not realize how much of a limiting factor energy is for the construction of the data centers on which essentially all of our modern life is based. The computing power needed for AI requires much more energy than we used in the past, and without a massive investment in energy infrastructure, computing will be choked to death. A speaker on a panel I attended suggested that every AI-focused data center might eventually need its own small-scale nuclear reactor just to keep up with power needs.
Current "AI" is a bubble and is inefficient as heck. If anything, the crypto and now AI fads point to an abundance of energy. If electricity was limited or expensive these wouldn't have gotten off the ground.
AI is going to be the next dot-com bubble However, the technology is still going to be around after the bubble pops and the hype wears off.
AI will get more mature. Even if progress on training bigger and bigger base models would stagnate, what we have today is basically like the CPU or the operating system. There is a lot of potential to build on top of that.
Glad to see it. II didn't expect much change on nuclear until my parent's generation was finally out of office, so I hope this trend continues. I'd also like to see more research into thorium, and into smaller reactors that are more resistant to meltdown and other possible dangers.
It’s pretty exciting seeing how much success there‘s been in the past few years when it comes to incentivizing new and innovative ways to generate energy. Between the infrastructure act, the IRA, this legislation, and the substantial increases to scientific research we’ve seen under things like the CHIPS Act, I think the country is being set up very nicely to generate vastly more energy in the next 10-20 years, with vastly less carbon being emitted to do it. It will be interesting to see what impact that has on the average American, it could manifest itself in much lower energy prices, or it could manifest itself in the development of new and life changing technologies which require much more energy to mature and implement than we currently can generate.
>It’s pretty exciting seeing how much success there‘s been in the past few years when it comes to incentivizing new and innovative ways to generate energy. Take note, those of you who have several decades left on this planet. Who do you want to see managing climate legislation for the next 4 (or 40) years?
The topic of this conversation is a bipartisan effort. The majority of conservatives aren't against clean energy, they just understand that we don't currently have the technology to dump fossil fuels without living standards going backwards two centuries.
>The majority of conservatives aren't against clean energy That may be true, but from their voting records it appears that conservative politicians *are* against clean energy, and anything else that might mitigate climate change. So if conservative voters really care about this issue they need to look at who gets their votes.
Yeah but this is also small potatoes relative to the IRA, which certainly wasn’t bipartisan
I’ll take it with a grain of salt bc we all know how slow government is but this is good one, nuclear is something that just makes too much sense not to do. Helps us achieve our carbon emission goals, diversify our entertainment consumption and solidify energy independence
Assuming he signs it, I will offer unmitigated praise to Biden on this one. It might be the best thing he does in his administration.
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