Didnt know until this thread that bernie opposes nuclear. Ugh. That’s one of my biggest issues.
1 Like
We will still be burning fossil fuels for electricity in ten years because of the attitudes people like you – environmentally-concerned opponents of nuclear power – have held for these past few decades. France stopped burning fossil fuels for electricity in the eighties. We could have too.
1 Like
There is no serious argument for a transition from fossil fuel that doesn’t involve nuclear expansion.
2 Likes
If you can’t tell me off the top of your head the wholesale price of electricity from various sources it’s absurd that you would have any confidence in your opinion on this.
That is the past. And I supported nuclear power in the past. Renewable energy cost about one-tenth of what it did 10 years ago.
Why?
I disagree with his stance on it, but I don’t think it cracks the top 40 issues that I care about.
1 Like
Getting off of reliance fossil fuels is something I care deeply about. Discarding nuclear for the reasons typically stated is foolish and usually driven nearly completely by fearmongering.
Yeah I feel like people who are opposed to nuclear aren’t aware of the realities of the situation. Getting off fossil fuels is going to require using EVERY power option that doesn’t generate carbon, and at huge scale. Nuclear fills one particular niche very well and makes a lot of places that would have to burn natural gas to work not have to burn natural gas.
Micro I get you’re a solar guy, and you really shouldn’t feel threatened. Solar is easily the cheapest source of power with or without subsidies not even taking carbon emissions into account. It’s going to be the main source of power for centuries to come probably. The issue is, as it always has been, what to do when the sun isn’t shining.
Batteries are part of the picture, particularly for places that are too remote to make nuclear make any sense, but they are environmentally expensive, and the resources to make them are not infinite. As a result batteries are a suboptimal solution for places with super dense power needs, and that’s where nuclear fits in.
The current cost of nuclear and the current safety of nuclear aren’t actually relevant to the conversation. There needs to be a huge amount of R&D done at government expense ASAP to do something about both.
Lefties in general need to get with reality on this. It’s part of the mix. No one type of power is going to get us where we need to go over the next couple of decades.
1 Like
Oh fun this should be an unemotional good-faith argument between two people with nothing personal at stake. In case there are lurkers are out there who don’t appreciate the possible biases in play, well, microbet works in the solar industry, and 94% of senior keed’s fullest and most memorable erections are caused by somebody else’s meltdown
7 Likes
good article on nuclear
1 Like
Is the worry that if people don’t have to cough up $30 every time they go to the doctor we’ll have hypochondriacs clogging up doctors offices or something?
The only reason it would take that long is because we lack the political will to construct them in 5-7 years. There are many nuclear plants still operating today that were built in four or five years back in the sixties and seventies. Then this NIMBY mindset set in and it’s impossible. But if we take up AOC’s advice and treat this as the moral equivalent of WWII then of course we could build dozens of new reactors in the next decade. France did it ffs. We just don’t want to.
1 Like
Sure, that’s part of it. And the whole reason why universal health care is so compelling is that every other country does it and it works and people are happy with it. And as far as I can tell, pretty much every country has copays or something similar. So let’s do that?
I do some boostering for solar, but I didn’t become a solar supporter because I work in solar. It’s the other way around. I was a software developer before some other stuff as well as poker and I never made less money at anything than I do installing solar.
But, the reactionary support for nuclear is baffling. If solar were free and solar panels and batteries literally grew on trees I don’t think that would change your opinions. If your information is 3 years old you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you can’t follow trends in pricing you’re not that bright. If you think nuclear power can be developed without massive cost overruns, massive resistance, and massive failures in waste handling you live in a fantasy world.
Fair enough, I’ve never really looked into any specific programs besides the NHS which as far as I can tell only makes you pay for prescriptions, dental, vision, and wigs.
1 Like
Solar panels literally do grow on trees.
2 Likes
If batteries were available at the scale necessary at a low price point I’d forget about nuclear instantly… but even after massive cost decreases they still are nowhere near cheap enough, and the production capacity isn’t there.
And I’m almost as big a solar booster as you are. Solar is amazing. Solar + wind are most of the answer.
It’s so frustrating that every single discussion has to instantly bifurcate into two extremes.
Nobody is saying nuclear is the only solution or a silver bullet.
Obviously solar, geo, wave and wind are the future.
We are simply saying nuclear will be a part of that in the short term and medium term (next 100 years).
And if it’s costs/risk go down it might be part of the long term… but that’s so far in the future we’ll all be dead so who cares?
Solar Plus Storage is $0.04 a kilowatt hour and dropping. If your information is a couple years old, you are out of date.