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  1. Less than coal, probably. Not less than solar or wind when people use the correct safety equipment so they don't fall off roofs.

    Then you have a citation for this? Sure, anything can be safer if people use correct safety equipment. I could also say that Chernobyl would not have been more than a short lived power outage if people used the correct safety equipment.

    Here's the deal though, nuclear fission has a far higher safety record than any other energy source we have today. That includes the time vodka addled soviet bureaucrats decided it would be a good idea to bypass the safety systems to burn off some xenon that was poisoning the reactor core.

    Again, prove solar and wind are safer than nuclear. I tried to find a better source for the numbers but they all point back to the same studies where nuclear beats them all. Everything else was speculation on what MIGHT happen. Well, lots of things might happen. A nuclear reactor might melt down. It might experience an earthquake. There might be a terrorist attack. Monkeys might fly out of my ass. Deaths from nuclear power don't happen all that often though, and when the safety systems are in place then it happens far less often.

  2. Here's a couple more.

    https://www.withouthotair.com/

    http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co...

    They use the numbers given by the wind and solar advocates. The wind and solar industries are using numbers that don't add up to sell themselves. It only takes a bit of math to see this. It's science. If you deny the science, from the wind and solar industries themselves, then I'd like to see your "science" explain a future without nuclear power and without poverty.

  3. Re:It's done just fine everywhere it's been tried on Green New Deal Bill Aims To Move US To 100 Percent Renewable Energy, Net-Zero Emissions (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 2

    I'm getting real tired of having to say this on a bloody science forum, but here we go again:

    This is what AOC & Bernie are: Democratic Socialists.

    I know, they are calling for national socialism for the workers. There's been many such political parties and they never seem to end well for millions of people. If you think that a democratic socialist government is such a nice government to have then why stay in the USA? I like it here much as it is now, and there aren't many places like it left. Don't ruin this "terrible" place for me, go where it suits you.

    If America is such a terrible place then we need a wall on our borders. We don't want people wandering in and exposing themselves to this. Keep them out, for their own benefit. In fact, leave while you still can. I hear that there's a terrible man in government determined to see our borders walled up. Go, you might not have much time. Save yourself from this terrible government. Go, leave me behind, I'll hold off the thugs that might keep you here so you can escape. I will gladly sacrifice myself to spare you from this terrible nation.

    Please, go quickly. I BEG YOU!!

  4. The Constitution allows for funding the Army or the Navy - but says nothing about an Air Force, the FBI, or the ATF. But no Randian or "strict constitutionalist" ever complains about that. Ever. It's almost like you're partisan hacks looking for excuses to rag on things you don't like, and aren't arguing on any kind of principle.

    I believe you are arguing with a figment of your imagination and not me.

    I believe that the ATF should not exist. I believe the FBI has gone far beyond their mandate to uphold the laws as described in the constitution. The existence of the Air Force though is just an extension of the powers to raise an Army. If we rolled the USAF back into the Army as the Army Air Corps then would that mean it stays as it is? If so then you are just arguing about semantics and not standing on any principle. Fine, do away with the USAF if that makes you feel better. Roll it back into the US Army, or hand it over to the National Guard and let the state governments fly the planes. It don't bother me any.

    How do you hold those massively contradictory positions without snapping your spine in six different places? Nuclear energy wouldn't even exist as a concept without massive government investment. It would never have existed in practice without hundreds of billions in taxpayer backing. Backing that extends to dealing with the waste for millennia.

    Lots of things exist because of government investment in times of war. I'm not sure what you are even arguing about. I want the government out of regulating nuclear power and leaving that to the state governments. Lots of nations smaller than many US states have their own nuclear power program. Given the free trade among the states I'm sure many states could end up both cooperating and competing on making nuclear power the safest and cheapest it can be.

    Capitalists would happily see the whole world burn and every last human die if it meant continued quarterly profits. You talk about defense but don't think the government should do anything to defend people from catastrophic climate change.

    I believe that capitalists are humans too. They cannot make money if the people that buy their products die. I also believe that global warming is too important to leave for the government to solve. They can't even keep their own budget straight, and you think that they can fix the climate? The federal government is the last stopping place for people too ugly for movies, too stupid for private industry, but yet driven with enough desire for a camera and money to put up with the humiliation and insults inherent to the office. We need a government of people that know what real life is like, not people that enter public office from college and leave only when they die.

    I want term limits. One term only from dog catcher to POTUS. If there's a bright bulb in the pack then they can run for a higher office after their one term. If they start at the local school board and move up one step at a time to US Senate then that's still 40 years in public office. Even longer if they get to be an ambassador, cabinet member, or what not.

  5. If the goal is to reduce CO2 then we need nuclear power, as it has a lower carbon footprint than wind, solar, or geothermal.

    Cite: http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...

    What you will also find there is that nuclear costs less in materials consumed, and lives lost, than anything else available to us.

    Nuclear is the best choice we have for the future. Maybe some new technology will come along to change that but until then this "green new deal" is a bunch of nonsense from an ignorant bartender that happened to get elected to office. People tell me that "the science is settled". I agree, science tells us that without nuclear power we can look forward to poverty.

  6. The top 1% earn 20% of the wealth and pay 40% of the taxes.

    Cite:
    https://taxfoundation.org/summ...

    They already pay double their "fair share". The people in the top 5% to 10% pay their "fair share" being about 10% of the wages earned and taxes paid, these are people that earn between about $130,000 to $190,000 per year.

    The bottom 90% are enjoying the returns on other people's money in government services.

    Based on the whole of the world anyone in the USA is likely in the top 1% of wage earners. If any American wants to complain about the top 1% of the wealthy then look in a mirror while you scream. If you have a computer to see this internet forum then you are most very likely in the global 1%.

  7. What you describe is socialism. That never ended well for anyone. Socialism only works until you run out of other people's money.

    It boggles the mind when people complain about the rich people being so greedy and then saying to correct this we need to take their money, through taxes, and give it to "other people". Well "other people" just means themselves, always. So, who's "greedy" here? I'm thinking it's the people that want to raise taxes on others.

    If you want the government to have your money that bad then sign a check and mail it to them. I'm quite certain that they will cash it. If you want the government to have more of my money then I have two words for you, and they aren't "happy birthday". Spending other people's money to fund your idea of a utopia will end like all the other tyrants dreams of imposing their utopia on others, with poverty and suffering.

    If you were as smart as you claim to be then why are you posting on Slashdot? Go make it happen in the private sector, you don't need government to make it happen, just lead the way and others will follow. If you need the force of government to create utopia then this is, by definition, dystopian.

  8. Funding the military is a constitutionally mandated function of the federal government, energy policy is not. The federal government should not be funding windmills and solar collectors. It's also not the job of the federal government to create jobs.

    I'm thinking that when someone says "there should be a law" this means "I can't be bothered to convince people I'm right so I'm going to convince the idiots in Congress to put guns to people's heads to make it happen". If what you say is such a good idea then it should not take the force of the government to make happen. If solar and wind are such money makers and job creators then start your own business.

    I want to see more nuclear power but the problem is that the federal government placed itself in the position that they are the one and only place where anyone in the USA can go to get a license. I want the federal government out of my business. You should too. Again, if what you say is true then you don't want the government involved. When has a government project ever been on time and under budget? You want the government running the energy business? That won't end well. What happens to the energy supply the next time the federal government shuts down because it couldn't pass a budget? The lights go out?

    Nope. Get the government out of our energy. We would be far better off in the long run for it.

  9. Re:I don't care about the problem, give me solutio on 2018 Was Earth's Fourth-Hottest Year on Record: NOAA and NASA Report (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    If you reject all solutions by claiming without any credible evidence that they "don't work", what's the point?

    My credible evidence:
    http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...

    I'm taking Dr. Ripu Malhotra as far more credible evidence than most. Same for Dr. Patrick Moore. There's many others I follow on this topic, all very educated in energy and/or the environment. All far more credible on finding workable solutions than repeating the same mistakes with solar and wind hoping for a different result. Stop the insanity. We've had the solution for our power needs decades ago but it seems many are willfully blind to it. Civilization cannot continue without nuclear power, I'm quite certain of that as are many people smarter than you or I.

  10. I disagree.

    That's fine if you disagree with generals and admirals but I'm going to agree with the men and women with stars on their shoulders. I'm guessing that they know better than you or I.

  11. Re:Net zero emissions? on Green New Deal Bill Aims To Move US To 100 Percent Renewable Energy, Net-Zero Emissions (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    here's no logical reason we cannot get to 100% renewable energy

    Sure there is, material demands.

    http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...

    For the same energy output nuclear takes far less materials than wind, hydro, geothermal, and especially solar. There is not enough mining in the world to meet the kind of material needs to switch to 100% renewable energy. We aren't going to get there any time soon either as we are talking not about a doubling or tripling of output but orders of magnitude difference. Nuclear takes no more materials than coal for the same energy. We can switch to nuclear without any kind of "green deal", we only need a government willing to issue licenses for their construction and put an end to the subsidies on wind and solar that drive them out of the market.

  12. Actually, converting military bases to renewable energy is a great way to build resiliency from attack

    No, it doesn't. I heard such from an Army general.

    The Army wants diesel generators for power because those they can put in an underground bunker to protect from attack. They might use solar panels on some tents or something but that's a last ditch, all else lost, kind of power. The US Navy is working on making jet fuel from nuclear power, using seawater as the raw material. Sounds like they've been quite successful too. Get that working on a ship at sea and it can work along any coast, or river bank, as well. Nuclear power is nice too because we've proven it can work without being out in the open, in fact they work quite well under several hundred feet of water and sealed inside a steel armored vessel.

    The military might be playing around a bit with solar power but wind power is not even on the table. They tried wind power and they found the spinning blades messed with the radar they need to track threats. Solar power needs to be out in the open and takes a lot of man power to protect and maintain for the little energy they produce. This brings me back to this...

    and this reduces the actual operating cost of the military at the same time.

    Nope. Solar panels took so much man power that existing projects were abandoned. Oh, and the panels reflected sunlight into the eyes of aircraft pilots, can't have that near any base.

    While in the Army I recall the trucks on base ran some mix of petro-diesel and bio-diesel. That's fine when there is a supply line but no base is going to be growing their own soybeans to make that fuel.

    There are a number of mil programs in action doing just this. Just accelerate it.

    With the exception of the Navy program to make jet fuel from nuclear power these programs were imposed on the DoD from above. The military isn't all that interested in bio-diesel or windmills. They might have some interest in small scale solar but that's again a last ditch kind of power for being small and quiet for long periods, not to power a base.

    The military is quite vocal on what they want but few seem to listen. They want nuclear powered ships, such as icebreakers and cruisers, but Congress won't fund them. They want nuclear power on bases, but again Congress is not listening. What Congress wants is, apparently, a navy that is powered by sails and an army on horseback.

    The US Navy used to have nuclear powered cruisers before but they were retired in the 1990s. This is not something new the Navy is asking for, just restoring capability that was lost decades ago. Nuclear powered icebreakers aren't a new idea either, the Russians have been building them since 1975.

  13. (There's also water, but that varies wildly and self-regulates through evaporation and precipitaion)

    Waitaminute. How does water self regulate? If a temperature rise causes evaporation and a temperature decrease causes precipitation then would not this process overwhelm any warming effect from CO2 given the far higher quantity of water on Earth by comparison?

    The heat that Earth gets comes from the sun, with minor additions from things like radioactive decay, cosmic radiation, and so on. This heat is dissipated into space by the rotation of the Earth in relation to the sun, and the movement of a powerful greenhouse gas we know as H2O in the atmosphere. The claim that the incredibly minuscule levels of CO2 is the cause of any kind of global warming seems quite implausible if one were to claim that H2O regulates it's content in the atmosphere based on temperature through phase changes from vapor to liquid.

    The climate changes, we always knew that. What seems to be the debate is the cause. If we can show human activity is participating then there is debate on how much. Then we must debate on if this is good or bad. Seems quite possible that the change in CO2 could be not from human activity but a result of natural warming. It's also possible that the increase in CO2, and the warming that caused it or resulted from it, is beneficial to human life. Humans are a tropical species and a bit of warming might be helpful. Plants are currently starving for CO2 since they evolved through periods with far higher CO2 than we have now, more CO2 means more plant life. More plant life means more food, cheaper food, healthier food, and therefore an improvement in human lives.

    Yes, the sun heats the Earth, but CO2 slows the rate at which that heat escapes.

    Sure, I'll buy that. What I have a problem with is the teeny tiny contribution that CO2 has on the rate of heat loss compared to the huge self regulating effect H2O has on the atmosphere. Don't take my word for it because I'm a nobody. Listen to far more educated people than myself like Dr. Patrick Moore. There is no global warming gas like H2O. The CO2 will not acidify the oceans because there are far too many natural buffering agents for that to matter. Sea levels rise and sea levels fall, CO2 has next to nothing to do with it.

    With that said I will go along with the theory of human CO2 caused catastrophic global warming so long as there are meaningful, logical, and practical solutions. You want to tell me that my daily commute in a gasoline burner truck is killing the planet? Fine, give me a practical alternative and I'll take it. I've seen practical solutions proposed but we don't seem motivated enough, yet, to make it happen.

  14. I don't care about the problem, give me solutions. on 2018 Was Earth's Fourth-Hottest Year on Record: NOAA and NASA Report (cnbc.com) · · Score: 2

    Whatever, another article about how we are all doomed.

    Here's what I want to see, solutions that work. Wind and solar don't work because without massive levels of storage to even out the varying load to the varying demand then it simply cannot keep the lights on. Also, add up all the resources needed to build all these windmills, solar panels, and batteries, and you will find yourself a situation that will destroy the economy and/or the environment in trying to dig up all the materials needed.

    You think wind and solar don't have any environmental impact? Where do you think all that steel, aluminum, copper, concrete, rare earth elements, and so on come from? We dig it out of the ground, that's where it comes from. Same for the batteries, that stuff has to be dug up, refined, machined, molded, and transported to the construction site. This takes energy and materials. Energy and materials we cannot produce in any meaningful time frame.

    We need solutions, not another restatement of the problem. Seems no one wants to speak of what that solution might be.

    Oh, and I give citations on why the solutions brought up so often will not work.
    http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co...
    http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...
    https://www.withouthotair.com/

  15. Re:www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/cost-nuclear-power on Rising Temperatures Could Melt Most Himalayan Glaciers By 2100 (nationalgeographic.com) · · Score: 1

    We build nuclear power plants that fit on naval vessels that displace 6000 tons, therefore the power plant itself must be far smaller as much of that mass is weapons, armor, crew quarters and the life support systems. Oh, and we already build one or two of these every year. These are 26 MW or so power plants, not all that large compared to many coal plants but that just means we need to make more of them.

    This is not theoretical. We know how to build and operate these power plants, and do so with a very high safety record. All it takes for a "special place" to build is some water deep enough to float. Last I checked about 3/4 of the world is covered in such kinds of water.

  16. So the Powerpack system can be charged/discharged at an average of 0.6 C (Full to empty or vice versa in 1 hour 40 minutes.) Not too shabby.

    Anything over 15 minutes to recharge is terrible.

    Get that recharge rate to where it can compete with internal combustion engines then you will see people buy electric cars for more than conspicuous consumption.

  17. Re:Nations will do anything to stop global warming on Rising Temperatures Could Melt Most Himalayan Glaciers By 2100 (nationalgeographic.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Long-term storage of nuclear waste is a problem that other technologies do not face.

    No, long term storage is not a problem. That is a problem that has been solved. What we have are people that fear the non-problem of nuclear waste over that of global warming. If it's the waste problem holding it up then they aren't trying hard enough.

    Let's keep an open mind. But open to other alternatives besides nuclear energy.

    Why? We have a long history of nuclear being inexpensive, reliable, safe, low carbon, and plentiful. Nearly a century of a history to prove this.

    You speak of needing an open mind but you've closed your mind to nuclear power. Hypocrite.

    Oh, and I made no call to abandon all but nuclear, only that nuclear must be part of the solution or we may be doomed to fail.

  18. Nations will do anything to stop global warming... on Rising Temperatures Could Melt Most Himalayan Glaciers By 2100 (nationalgeographic.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... but they won't do nuclear power.

    I find it difficult to believe that global warming is any real threat if the governments of the world cannot open a book just once and do some basic research on the solutions.

    What is the lowest CO2 energy source available today? Nuclear power.
    What is the safest energy source available today? Nuclear power.
    What energy source requires the least materials for the most energy produced? Nuclear power.

    So... Where's all the nuclear power plants being built to stop global warming?

    Any complaints on the cost of nuclear power is nonsense. If global warming is the threat they claim it to be then the governments of the world should not find the expense of nuclear power as any kind of hurdle. I've seen nuclear engineers talk on the costs of building a nuclear power plant any where in the world and the major cost that they run into is regulatory. So, fix the regulations. Do something like France did and decide on one design and spread out the regulatory costs among many of the same design.

    The global warming alarmists scream at everyone about how "the science is settled". Yep, I'll go with that, so long as they agree that the science is settled on nuclear power being part of the solution. If these people conclude that nuclear power is a greater threat to humanity than global warming then I conclude that global warming is such a minor threat that I have no reason to believe that I or anyone else need to change anything to avoid it. If there is no nuclear power in our future then I must conclude that there will be no global warming.

    Which is it? Do we get nuclear power? Or, is global warming just a hoax? If we can't have nuclear power then I call global warming all a big fat lie. It's just a means to an end to get people to do things that they normally would not agree to do. Well, people would not normally agree to nuclear power. We get nuclear power then the threat goes away and it cannot ever be used as a threat again. I guess they will just have to create another false threat to push people to agreeing to the disagreeable.

  19. Re:Wouldn't this be first amendment territory? on Teenagers Charged With 'Intimidation' After Sharing Siri's Helpful Response For A School Shooting (nwitimes.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I doubt the ACLU would touch this. As much as people think the ACLU is all about protecting the civil rights of American citizens they've been very anti-gun in the past. They eventually had to admit that the Second Amendment protects the rights of the individual, and is not in fact a "collective right" as they stated prior to the SCOTUS opinions on Heller and McDonald. They've been silent on the Second Amendment since Heller in 2008, at least as far as I can tell, and have not in any recent memory lifted a finger on any case that touches the rights to keep arms.

    This should be about a person's right to speak freely, be free from unwarranted search and seizure, right to due process, etc. What muddies the waters though is the kid had guns in the pictures. This tells me that the ACLU will not be interested. They've been unwilling to speak up on the Second Amendment, likely out of fear that this would drive out donors from either side on that debate. So long as they keep quiet they can claim some kind of neutral ground. This has worked for a decade now but eventually, I would think, they will have to choose a lane.

    Oh, and before anyone thinks the NRA will stand up on this I will remind people that the NRA is not a lobbying group or in any way connected to supporting court cases. These are instead fought by Gun Owners of America and/or Second Amendment Foundation, and in some cases by the separate but highly linked organization National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action. The NRA likes to jump in after the hard work is done and send someone from the affiliated NRA-ILA so they can claim a victory. The NRA mostly does hunter education, firearm safety courses and certification, and sell a bunch of crap with their logo on it.

  20. Kids need to wise up

    No, I'm pretty sure the police need to wise up. This does not sound like something that required action by the police.

  21. Re:USA also uninvited China for 5G and such on China Is Restarting Its Reactor Pipeline, Westinghouse Isn't Invited (technologyreview.com) · · Score: 1

    I have a couple replies here...

    First, I enjoy knowing that for once we have a POTUS that is willing to tell the rest of the world that they can't keep slacking off and expect the USA to pick it up. NATO nations have not been keeping up with their military spending and training and it's making Russia and other threats to the world very bold. So bold that things can turn into a shooting war very quickly. Germany can't keep their military pilots certified because few of their helicopters are fit to fly. Their Navy is a bunch of barely afloat wrecks, and their tank crews are getting "trained" in mini-vans because they can't keep their tanks running either. The rest of NATO is barely any better. If they want peace then they must prepare for war.

    Second, I also enjoy that Trump is living rent free in the minds of those posting here. Throw all the fits you like, my grin only gets bigger.

    Oh, so much winning I can hardly stand it!

  22. Eventually assault weapons will be banned in the US, sooner or later, and the US can join Europe and the rest of the world in being a civilized country.

    Like I said, we can pass laws that ban them but that will not make them disappear.

    Let's assume what you say is true, that the cause of these deaths is the lax gun control laws. How does banning them prevent criminals from fashioning them at home in a time when a 3D printer can create them at home? When they are sold at Staples, Best Buy, or wherever, over the counter and for cash and carry? Cost no more than some people pay for a TV set? And the plans for making weapons are available for download all over the internet?

    These bans will not stop the murders.

    What will stop the murders? Armed men.

    We will not think twice about putting armed guards around our money. We put money in armored trucks and have armed men guarding them. What we won't tolerate is armed men to guard our children. You want to scream at me? "Won't someone think of the children?!?!?" I am thinking of the children. We should guard our children more than we guard our money. Money is just pieces of cloth with ink on them to state their value. The next generation is priceless.

    You can claim the USA is "uncivilized" for having so many weapons. That's fine. The day will come where gun control will become meaningless and the thugs will be far better armed than you in your "civilized" country. I want a fighting chance when that comes. You can toss bricks and insults if you like but that will not be nearly as effective as shooting back.

  23. So, we have a technology that an 3D print most any shape that people can build at home? There goes any plan of controlling the production of weapons. You can call for bans, registrations, confiscations, but they will do no good if people can print any kind of durable item that is smaller than a breadbox.

    Maybe, possibly, at some point, these gun grabbers will realize that there can no longer be any effective gun control. At least we can't have it without dumping the rest of the Bill of Rights down the toilet.

    I'm just giggling to myself over recent attempts by Democrat petty tyrants trying to ban "assault weapons". They think they can just ban these things and therefore they go away? That's not how the world works. For people to respect the law requires that the law be deserving of respect. People won't respect a law that requires them to be disarmed while the criminals engage in black market trade of the weapons these petty tyrants fear.

    Here's what the petty tyrants need to fear, a public that no longer respects the rule of law. If you want to control crime then control the criminals. That means having police, prisons, courts, and (most importantly IMHO) a public that sees the government as being effective in punishing crimes.

    What has happened is the government cracks down on otherwise innocent people for violating some obscure weapons law and they find themselves in the difficult situation of locking up parents and homeowners for defending themselves against rapists and thieves. Well, punish the raping and thieving instead of possessing the tools of self defense.

    I realize I may have stepped over the line into NPC territory with my comment but this is where 3D printing will bring us, the means to produce most anything we desire in the privacy of our homes. That includes those "assault weapons" the petty tyrants of the world wish to bar from private ownership. Well, if we aren't already at a time where all gun control laws are impossible to enforce then we will be there very soon.

    I would not be so upset of the "assault weapon" bans if the term did not simply translate into "what we want to ban today". Define "assault weapon" first, stop moving the goal posts on what it means, and then we might be able to have a meaningful discussion. Until then I will keep laughing on how technology is yet again speeding along while legislation moves at glacial rates.

  24. What is safe by design? There are no Gen IV reactors on the market at present.

    And there will not be any Gen IV designs, at least in the USA, until the US NRC decides that they want them. They've been stuck in the 1970s on nuclear reactor regulation for so long that they don't even have a process to license anything other than a water cooled and solid fuel reactor. I've been told that the pages on the books for regulating anything else are simply left blank. They know these reactors exist, at least on paper, but they have nothing to go on to issue a license and while Democrats were in the White House they had no incentive to construct those rules.

    All of these inherently safe reactors are still in the R&D phase.

    Yes they are, and we are finally seeing prototypes getting built at federal nuclear facilities so that the powers that be can write the rules on how to license them. The Democrats have been holding up nuclear power since Nixon was President. Only with Trump as POTUS and Perry as head of the Department of Energy are we now seeing nuclear power see any real R&D.

    In the meanwhile Gen III reactors feature plenty of passive safety systems and inherently safer design than earlier versions, and that include's Westinghouse's baby the AP1000 which would have been Westinghouse's bid should they have been allowed to play.

    Gen III+ designs are exceedingly safe. These are Gen III water cooled designs with many additions for safety that would have made accidents like those at Chernobyl and Fukushima impossible, far less dangerous, or at least restricted to the grounds of the power plant itself. Gen IV leaves out the high pressures, exposure to water, and other inherent hazards, that all previous generations operate under.

    This is also ignoring that with the hundreds of nuclear power plants of Gen II, Gen III, and Gen III+ designs operating quite safely now in the world. We could certainly use Gen IV to increase our margins of safety but the Gen III+ designs are already exceedingly safe. Not deploying nuclear power now means more people die while we wait for something better to come along.

    Nuclear power is right now very safe, clean, abundant, and reliable. Waiting for something better is waiting for a ship that may never come to port.

  25. There is no zero-carbon economy without nuclear... on China Is Restarting Its Reactor Pipeline, Westinghouse Isn't Invited (technologyreview.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We can achieve a "zero carbon" economy in one of two ways. The first is to revert to near stone age technology. Given the discoveries in science and technology I'm sure that our lives would not be nearly as poverty stricken, brutal, nasty, and short but we'd lose access to many luxuries we have today. Airplanes would be right out. People would need to resort to travel long distances by water, rail, or maybe lighter than air vessels.

    If you want a modern economy that is "zero carbon" then the only solution must include nuclear power. That does not mean we cannot also include sun, wind, and hydro power, in fact ruling them out is not anything I have seen nuclear power advocates call for. What we need to do though is not shoehorn these technologies into places where they do not make economic sense. Doing that leads to poverty, and the brutal and short lives that come with it.

    China could leapfrog the rest of the world on achieving a modern and "zero carbon" economy because they are investing in nuclear power while the rest of the world is not. Right now the USA gets 20% of it's electricity from nuclear power and powers many vessels in its navy by nuclear power. To remove nuclear power means replacing those nuclear reactors with something that, barring some leap in technology, will be less safe, higher CO2 emissions, and less reliable.

    We cannot have both a modern economy and a "zero carbon" economy without nuclear power. I put "zero carbon" in scare quotes because I know someone will point out that nuclear power is not truly zero carbon, and they'd be right. What they ignore, or chose to remain ignorant of, is that nuclear power produces less carbon per energy produced that wind, solar, and perhaps even hydroelectric energy. What these anti-nuclear types also ignore, or chose to remain willfully ignorant of, is the long safety record of nuclear power. Even though many died from Chernobyl, and dozens died in the poorly managed (and likely unnecessary) evacuations from Fukushima, nuclear power is still far safer than any other energy source we have. Don't believe me? Look it up!

    Here's one source to prove my point: http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2...

    If you dispute my source then I'm happy to provide others so long as there is a source cited that shows otherwise. Best I've seen so far is speculation on how many could die if we deployed the same 1950s technology that was used at Chernobyl or an explanation of the dangers of nuclear power with no comparisons to what might replace it. Yes, nuclear power is dangerous. Much like a republican form of government is the worst except all the others we tried we know that nuclear power is the worst except all the others we tried.

    Our choices are nuclear power, keep burning coal, or reverting to near stone age in living standards. You can claim that future technology will bring another option and I can agree but for now, as of today, we have only those three choices. Until technology advances to give another option we must choose from those three. I suggest we choose nuclear power, just as China has.