15 ms·

You don’t have to be “pro-nuclear” or “anti-nuclear.”

62 points by curtis 7y ago

csours 7y ago
Interesting idea: you can opt out of identity politics.
- murftown 7y ago
  Right? As an aside, I was surprised by the repeated use of "climate hawk" throughout the article as an identity that we might be interested in taking on. Could they have said e.g. "people concerned about climate change"? I may just not know the term's history.
  - Roritharr 7y ago
    I find this focus on identity politics so toxic it's starting to make life miserable. I'm currently driving a VW SUV company car in a german suburb and the amount of hate I receive because of it is ramping up daily. Even from people driving similar polluting cars, like high-powered station wagons. The other day my wife was breastfeeding our child in our car while I was quickly grabbing something from a store when it was 36°C/96.8°F outside, so I naturally left the car running so the AC would keep them cool. I was barely a minute out of the car when a woman came knocking on the window, gesturing my wife to turn off the car, giving her the finger etc. I can't imagine similar things happening even 5 years ago.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      That's not based on identity, that's based on action. Running a stationary car is basically a form of littering.
      - all2 7y ago
        That's like saying "cooling a stationary house is littering". Operating a device for the comfort of the user is precisely why we make things like AC, whether it's in a car, a boat, or a house.
        rmrfrmrf 7y ago
        I'm guessing it's the VW part people are against since they cheat on their emissions tests.
        _ph_ 7y ago
        No, there is a huge difference. In a house, the AC is powered efficiently by electric power from the grid or even your solar cells. With the car, you keep a combustion engine , that could output 100kW or more running purely to power a 1kW AC unit. This is one of many advantages of electric or hybrid cars, that you can keep AC running.
        googlryas 7y ago
        In a house, you are cooling the entire volume of space enclosed so that wherever a human happens to go, they are comfortable. It is still littering, regardless of the scale.
        all2 7y ago
        Do you use AC? Or any mode of transportation other than walking? Or any convenience that relies on fossil fuels or grid electricity? Do you use any manufactured products? Eat any food that has been shipped a distance farther than your garden? I assume (perhaps I should not) that by "littering" you are referring to the production of greenhouse gases. If this is so, I'd like to point out that if you are breathing, by your definition, you are littering with every breath.
        googlryas 7y ago
        Yes, I do all of that. I was only continuing the parent's claim that idling a car for AC is littering. I don't actually believe it is - merely stating in that worldview that airconditioning a house is littering too.
      - googlryas 7y ago
        Would the woman been treated the same way if she was in a Skoda or Audi?
    - wutbrodo 7y ago
      Interesting, I often hear this described as a peculiarly (or at least mostly) American phenomenon, but that's well beyond the type of thing I'd imagine happening in even the hyper-sensitive US city I live in. I know I'm being a little reductive here, but your story is a pretty substantial outlier relative to what I'm used to.
      - nickik 7y ago
        I know in Switzerland there was a story about some of the young left party going around putting stickers on SUV saying "I also am a tank" and they got a lot of flack for this 'property destruction'.
      - belltaco 7y ago
        I think it's because large SUVs are much rarer in the Europe compared to the US.
        wutbrodo 7y ago
        Hm, that makes some sense, but taking SUVs out of the picture, I can't think of any analogue that would happen here.
    - blondin 7y ago
      omg wow, didn't know people would go to such extent...
    - belltaco 7y ago
      Interesting, on the other side of the coin, there has been outright vandalism against eco friendly cars. 15 hybrid cars' tires slashed including a Smart car. https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Vandal-Targets-Prius-Cars-in-Arlington-216513701.html https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Vandal-Targets-Priu... Similar story in California. https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/daily-news/080908-vandals-destroying-priuses-in-california https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/daily-news/080908-vandal... Also in Seattle. Things are decidedly weird.
    - maest 7y ago
      I wonder if it is fair to discount those people by calling what they're doing "identity politics". Perhaps there's a move in the Overton window: as environmental issues are brought to the forefront of people's minds, the average person is becoming more hostile to what is perceived as being non-eco behaviour - not because of "identity politics", but because they're more aware of negative externalities coming from such behaviour. That woman sounds like an outlier based on our experience so far, but perhaps that indicates that the window is moving and what is and isn't acceptable in our society is changing. I mean, not long ago, slavery was widely accepted in our society and it took some violent societal transitions (at least in some parts of the world), to move to a world where slavery is highly frowned upon.
- Whatarethese 7y ago
  People keep using this term. Is there a simplified no bullshit summary? I don’t want to drown in a ridiculous Wikipedia article.
  - jakeogh 7y ago
    Conventional media promotes strong opinions in the consumer about stuff they havent checked themselves. Those dogmas are then factionalized along and pre-judged with.
  - nickik 7y ago
    It simply means the process of politicians or normal people identifying with a specific group (other then the nation as a whole) and making that groups interest its primary concern rather then the nation or humanity as whole. Or even simple the process of making policy turns into what are you and what are you not, rather then what are your actions or lack their off. I the simply fact that you are born gay, straight, polish or any other identifiable group is what defines you and therefore defines your life.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    I think that most people mean "my (or whoever's) identity drives my politics. For example, the idea that I must vote Democrat because I'm black. If you're black and want to vote Democrat, that's not identity politics. I don't even think that it's identity politics if you vote Democrat because you think everyone on the Republican side is a racist who hates you. It becomes identity politics when you vote Democrat because of course you're going to vote Democrat, because you're black. When it's unthinkable for a black to do anything else, then it's identity politics. That, I think, is most peoples' definition. I have a different one. To me, identity politics is when politics becomes your identity. It's essentially tribalism. Instead of "I think this is the better policy" or "I like this better", you decide that your identity is Democrat/Republican/liberal/conserative. That's who you are.
AstralStorm 7y ago
Carbon neutral is a fancy way of saying "let's pollute the same as we do now". Generally achieved via fake offsets, as we do not have the technology to offset something like US pollution. Even EU ETS (the most developed offset system) is much too slow to cause major dent in the problem. Where most climate predictions require us to stop altogether to avoid most painful results of climate change.
- hollerith 7y ago
  >Carbon neutral is a fancy way of saying "let's pollute the same as we do now". "Carbon neutral" has a precise definition, and that's definitely not it.
- PeterStuer 7y ago
  Context: very small western EU country. Over here we are: - cutting down the very few square kilometers of forest we have because the EU declared that everyone has to be carbon neutral or pay fines, and 'wood pellets' are considered 'renewable' energy sources by the administration. The cabinet minister in charge has admitted to the absurdity but stated he is not going to stop the practice as this would lead to being fined. - keeping open severely damaged aging nuclear plants even when under the protest of several neighboring countries recognizing the dangers. The person in charge of this matter at the energy minister's cabinet just moved through he revolving door and got a very cozy 'job' at the company that owns and operates the plants. The energy minister was not amused as it is customary to await the next elections before cashing in and this person moved in a potential election preamble period. - The nuclear test facility operated by the government has once more run out of storage space for nuclear waste. In the 'good old days' they just dumped all the waste in the North Sea (it's still there), but now they have to store it. The cement vats they have been using were leaking in the past, and now they have ran out of space for storing them as the piles keep on growing. Nuclear might be sound in theory, but humans just can't handle the responsibility in practice. And the one answer a neoliberal market economy based socio-economic system is incapable of providing is abstinence, as it is systemically antithetical to it and outside of its potential solution space.
  - 7y ago
SubiculumCode 7y ago
I have met with quite unreasonable (to my mind) fears about nuclear waste's supposed deleterious effects on people and nature, even if stored in a remote underground facility. Whenever people have gut reactions without evidence, the conversation quickly becomes non-productive.
- Jill_the_Pill 7y ago
  Someone's "remote" is always someone else's backyard.
  - lstodd 7y ago
    Just dump it on the South Pole. It'll get frozen under hundreds of meters of ice (very good radiation absorber, plus a natural heat sink) and begin a hundred million year voyage to the sea. At which point it won't be radioactive any more and will get transported and dumped into deep ocean by the icebergs.
    - petschge 7y ago
      Water is a very good neutron reflector and moderator so it is exactly what you do NOT want around your nuclear waste. Also metal containers tend to rust when there is water around. The low temperature in the ice will slow that down a bit, but will not prevent it. Remember: while there are problems that are solve after smart people have stared at the problem for decades, there are many more occasions where all you can come up with is ideas that have been considered and found impracticable all long time ago and you just don't know enough about the problem to see why your idea wont work.
      - SubiculumCode 7y ago
        From my understanding, clay containers are preferred for nuclear waste.
      - lstodd 7y ago
        You sound like it's now forbidden to joke on the internets. Besides, when one buries some mildly radioactive materials in 20 meters of ice with a median temperature of 230K or something like that, it just doesn't matter what neutron flux they release. And if they heat up, they would just sink deeper. What matters is that that the neutron flux is adequately dissipated. Which it would be.
viburnum 7y ago
Placing some bets on nuclear make sense (France gets 80% of electric generation from nuclear) but counting on nuclear is risky because nobody can make nuclear plants cost efficiently anymore. America should probably keep trying on a small scale and if they can figure it, then ramp up. The big problem is that nuclear is essentially a big government project, and America is very bad at those.
- jhayward 7y ago
  France is in the process of phasing out 35% of their nuclear fleet, and the remaining fleet will need to be retired within a few decades. With one exception (Flammanville, 11 years over schedule and 400% over budget) no new plants are planned.
  - littlestymaar 7y ago
    > France is in the process of phasing out 35% of their nuclear fleet No we aren't. The only plant expected to close soon is Fessenheim, but every others are planned to work for at least twenty more years. EDF just started «le grand carénage»[1] which is a big investment plan to make the plants work 10 more years, up to 60. (Which is in twenty years) Source: my wife works at Dampierre en Burly's plant, which is one of the oldest running plant in France, and is part of this program (starting next year there). A law («loi TECV») was voted in this direction a few years ago, stating that 35% of the reactors should be closed by 2025, but none of the four leading political parties in France have any will to respect it (including the current government, which is here to stay until 2022…). This law was 100% communication and nobody really believed it when it was passed. [1]: https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_car%C3%A9nage https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_car%C3%A9nage (in French only though)
    - jhayward 7y ago
      I'm aware of the refit effort, as well as safety improvements required and under-funded decommissioning costs, which as I understand it requires on the order of 100 billion euros in new financing. My understanding has been that it (the refit) applies to the remainder of the fleet after drawdown. Has it been funded? Where is EDF obtaining the funds? Isn't EDF itself in need of a bailout from France? As to the 35% target, this is the first time I've read anyone state categorically that none of the plants will be shut down. It seems strange to have a law passed that everyone agrees to disregard, but maybe that's how things happen. Can you point us toward anything firm on which to base a belief that no plants other than fessenheim will be closed?
jay_kyburz 7y ago
This is bad writing for a lot of reason. First the author tells us that if we consider ourselves pro or anti nuclear we can't possibly have thought through the pros and cons of nuclear power. It must be because we identify ourselves as left or right. Or green or not. Then he tells us that if we _do_ have a policy position, we are probably wrong because "its complicated". All of which I find mildly insulting. Then he proceeds to look at nuclear "purely though the lens of climate change", which as far as I'm concerned is not useful because many of the reasons one might choose to be anti-nuclear are not climate change related.
- DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
  The Onion got Vox down to a T: https://youtu.be/RpkQEq75y18 https://youtu.be/RpkQEq75y18
- rmrfrmrf 7y ago
  The point of every Vox article is to justify the existence of Matthew Yglesias-style centrist neoliberal wonks. "All problems are too complicated for the average American to understand! The answer is always somewhere in the middle! Go to sleep and let the adults in the room handle this!"
  - The_rationalist 7y ago
    While I can't agree with all of your strawman, yes indeed many problems are too complex/needs too much knowledge for most people to understand them. Humans brains are buggy by default and without cognitive debiasing one is likely to fall in mental trap,especially if we talk about nuclear which evoke fear in most brains and emotions destroy reason.
    - jay_kyburz 7y ago
      It's difficult to evaluate nuclear using reason alone, because a large part of the equation is a moral issue, and we all have different morals. Many of us believe it's immoral to leave behind nuclear waste for future generation to care for. Not only do you have to store it somewhere, you have to secure it so that it can't be misused, for thousands of years.
rmrfrmrf 7y ago
If it's really the case that the only way to make nuclear viable is to deregulate the industry, then Bernie is absolutely right that we need to end reliance on nuclear power.
- m0zg 7y ago
  You can't have the real, workable New Green Deal without nuclear power. Anyone who says we're heading towards a climate catastrophe and is against 4th gen nuclear (thorium) at the same time is a hypocrite. Here we have something both sides of the aisle will support, irrespective even of their views on climate change, let's get to work and if there are safety concerns, let's mount an effort to address those. Once those are conclusively addressed, it will be easier to deregulate the industry and make it cheaper to build nuclear power plants. Thorium is abundant. There are now reactors that can utilize "nuclear waste" as well, so that problem could be solved too, I'm pretty sure. I would be willing to bet that it will be dramatically cheaper than $10T "deals" floated so far. Shit, getting fusion to work with net energy gain will likely cost less than $1T all in all (although it'll take time). If done properly, we could finally end up with electricity that's "too cheap to meter", and massively reduce the need for coal, oil, and gas, all without having to hobble the entire domestic industries and force them to burn coal in China instead.
  - rmrfrmrf 7y ago
    Deregulation of nuclear cannot and will not ever happen.
  - skrause 7y ago
    "4th gen nuclear" that could utilize current waste is years or even decades away from commercial availability. If you want to bet everything on a potential future technology that doesn't currently exist why not choose nuclear fusion? That will really solve all your waste and fuel problems...
    - m0zg 7y ago
      >> "4th gen nuclear" that could utilize current waste is years or even decades away from commercial availability It's not: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Russias-BN-800-unit-enters-commercial-operation-01111602.html http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Russias-BN-800-unit-ent... I agree with you on fusion. But as a stop gap, thorium and 4th gen nuclear sound awesome to me.
wazoox 7y ago
The main argument against nuclear is that it absolutely requires a highly educated, well organized society and workforce. If something really serious disrupts our elaborated, complex societies, then nuclear plants will become really dangerous. With looming climate change, energy crisis, overpopulation and other problems, you can't be sure that we'll be in a stable enough world long enough to be completely safe.
- mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
  Yup. Plus, with nuclear, even if we do everything as safely as possible, there's always a tail risk of a VERY negative event due to causes outside our control. I'm yet to understand why this part of the argument is often so readily dismissed.
  - smileysteve 7y ago
    That very negative event is less than the expected externalities of coal and in many types of gas exploration
    - icebraining 7y ago
      "It's better than coal" is damning with faint praise. Is there anyone who is openly anti-nuclear and pro-coal?
- blub 7y ago
  I'm amazed we've had so few accidents, considering how many nuclear plants are located all around Europe. Recently I was reading about an incident in Ukraine, where workers from a nuclear power plant connected the internal network to the internet to mine bitcoin. It's a shame there's no avherald for nuclear power, I bet it would be an interesting read. C. Perrow had access to industry journals when documenting the chapter on nuclear in his "Normal accidents" book. The incidents described there were mind-boggling.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
elchief 7y ago
How do plants deal with rising water from floods, or falling water from drying out, or overly hot cooling water from high temperatures? These are all in our future. I'm genuinely curious and not trying to troll
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
gnusty_gnurc 7y ago
When Bernie/AOC lead with rhetoric like "climate change requires WWII levels of mobilization", it strikes me odd that they think that level of change is feasible, but that the unprecedented mobilization and centralization of efforts can't be applied to nuclear technology. It's bizarre and makes me think that it's a blatant political agenda much more than sensible application of technology to solve problems in the world.
- The_rationalist 7y ago
  Aka double standard
- bjourne 7y ago
  What is bizarre about it? Not all options are equally good investments - some are clearly preferable over others. Why insist on new nuclear power when so much evidence shows it is not needed?
  - gnusty_gnurc 7y ago
    One of the main objections to nuclear is that “we can’t properly regulate it.” But the whole argument of Bernie/AOC/progressives centers around massive centralization and mobilization. It just seems to me that the super idealistic, unprecedentedly large plans they’re proposing would imply we could do the same thing with nuclear.
  - realusername 7y ago
    > Why insist on new nuclear power when so much evidence shows it is not needed? Which evidence? IPCC reports nuclear as being highly needed.
    - bjourne 7y ago
      Which IPCC report recommends building new nuclear power plants in the US?
      - 7y ago
monieseee 7y ago
> One thing I hope to convey is that “pro-nuclear” and “anti-nuclear” are not considered policy positions. They are identities, ways of signaling membership in a tribe. You sign up for one team and then scold the other team on social media (you will have lots of company). Funny to read this in Vox, which is as tribal as it gets.
fnord77 7y ago
50 years ago they said we would have fusion power plants in 50 years.
kjar 7y ago
Sorry folks give up the ghost nuclear was dead at least 3 decades ago. Solar and wind are the future. We don’t have a decade to build a new nuclear plant, in that plan we’d need a time machine going backa decade to abate climate change that’s now locked in. I’ll spare you all the risks and externalities, it’s just dumb. Again sorry.
- aeternum 7y ago
  You don't think we will need more power than solar and wind can provide in 10 years? Our energy consumption has historically only increased, even with strong conversation campaigns, we should assume this trend will continue.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    > Our energy consumption has historically only increased From what I can tell, energy consumption per capita is lower today than 30 years ago in many developed countries, including the US. While the rest of the world is far from reaching those levels of use, it may point to a cap in the need for more power.
- realusername 7y ago
  > Solar and wind are the future There's not a single country in the world which manages to run on solar and wind only or which could in a realistic future.
delinka 7y ago
> You don't have to be "pro-X"or "anti-X" But don't we? We have to be completely polarized on every topic. How else will the binary political system survive? OK, onward without the sarcasm ... This same kind of critical thinking must be applied to every issue, or we'll just end up in the dark ages again.

62 points by curtis 7y ago

csours 7y ago

Interesting idea: you can opt out of identity politics.

murftown 7y ago
Right? As an aside, I was surprised by the repeated use of "climate hawk" throughout the article as an identity that we might be interested in taking on. Could they have said e.g. "people concerned about climate change"? I may just not know the term's history.
- Roritharr 7y ago
  I find this focus on identity politics so toxic it's starting to make life miserable. I'm currently driving a VW SUV company car in a german suburb and the amount of hate I receive because of it is ramping up daily. Even from people driving similar polluting cars, like high-powered station wagons. The other day my wife was breastfeeding our child in our car while I was quickly grabbing something from a store when it was 36°C/96.8°F outside, so I naturally left the car running so the AC would keep them cool. I was barely a minute out of the car when a woman came knocking on the window, gesturing my wife to turn off the car, giving her the finger etc. I can't imagine similar things happening even 5 years ago.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    That's not based on identity, that's based on action. Running a stationary car is basically a form of littering.
    - all2 7y ago
      That's like saying "cooling a stationary house is littering". Operating a device for the comfort of the user is precisely why we make things like AC, whether it's in a car, a boat, or a house.
      - rmrfrmrf 7y ago
        I'm guessing it's the VW part people are against since they cheat on their emissions tests.
      - _ph_ 7y ago
        No, there is a huge difference. In a house, the AC is powered efficiently by electric power from the grid or even your solar cells. With the car, you keep a combustion engine , that could output 100kW or more running purely to power a 1kW AC unit. This is one of many advantages of electric or hybrid cars, that you can keep AC running.
        googlryas 7y ago
        In a house, you are cooling the entire volume of space enclosed so that wherever a human happens to go, they are comfortable. It is still littering, regardless of the scale.
        all2 7y ago
        Do you use AC? Or any mode of transportation other than walking? Or any convenience that relies on fossil fuels or grid electricity? Do you use any manufactured products? Eat any food that has been shipped a distance farther than your garden? I assume (perhaps I should not) that by "littering" you are referring to the production of greenhouse gases. If this is so, I'd like to point out that if you are breathing, by your definition, you are littering with every breath.
        googlryas 7y ago
        Yes, I do all of that. I was only continuing the parent's claim that idling a car for AC is littering. I don't actually believe it is - merely stating in that worldview that airconditioning a house is littering too.
    - googlryas 7y ago
      Would the woman been treated the same way if she was in a Skoda or Audi?
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    Interesting, I often hear this described as a peculiarly (or at least mostly) American phenomenon, but that's well beyond the type of thing I'd imagine happening in even the hyper-sensitive US city I live in. I know I'm being a little reductive here, but your story is a pretty substantial outlier relative to what I'm used to.
    - nickik 7y ago
      I know in Switzerland there was a story about some of the young left party going around putting stickers on SUV saying "I also am a tank" and they got a lot of flack for this 'property destruction'.
    - belltaco 7y ago
      I think it's because large SUVs are much rarer in the Europe compared to the US.
      - wutbrodo 7y ago
        Hm, that makes some sense, but taking SUVs out of the picture, I can't think of any analogue that would happen here.
  - blondin 7y ago
    omg wow, didn't know people would go to such extent...
  - belltaco 7y ago
    Interesting, on the other side of the coin, there has been outright vandalism against eco friendly cars. 15 hybrid cars' tires slashed including a Smart car. https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Vandal-Targets-Prius-Cars-in-Arlington-216513701.html https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Vandal-Targets-Priu... Similar story in California. https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/daily-news/080908-vandals-destroying-priuses-in-california https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/daily-news/080908-vandal... Also in Seattle. Things are decidedly weird.
  - maest 7y ago
    I wonder if it is fair to discount those people by calling what they're doing "identity politics". Perhaps there's a move in the Overton window: as environmental issues are brought to the forefront of people's minds, the average person is becoming more hostile to what is perceived as being non-eco behaviour - not because of "identity politics", but because they're more aware of negative externalities coming from such behaviour. That woman sounds like an outlier based on our experience so far, but perhaps that indicates that the window is moving and what is and isn't acceptable in our society is changing. I mean, not long ago, slavery was widely accepted in our society and it took some violent societal transitions (at least in some parts of the world), to move to a world where slavery is highly frowned upon.
Whatarethese 7y ago
People keep using this term. Is there a simplified no bullshit summary? I don’t want to drown in a ridiculous Wikipedia article.
- jakeogh 7y ago
  Conventional media promotes strong opinions in the consumer about stuff they havent checked themselves. Those dogmas are then factionalized along and pre-judged with.
- nickik 7y ago
  It simply means the process of politicians or normal people identifying with a specific group (other then the nation as a whole) and making that groups interest its primary concern rather then the nation or humanity as whole. Or even simple the process of making policy turns into what are you and what are you not, rather then what are your actions or lack their off. I the simply fact that you are born gay, straight, polish or any other identifiable group is what defines you and therefore defines your life.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  I think that most people mean "my (or whoever's) identity drives my politics. For example, the idea that I must vote Democrat because I'm black. If you're black and want to vote Democrat, that's not identity politics. I don't even think that it's identity politics if you vote Democrat because you think everyone on the Republican side is a racist who hates you. It becomes identity politics when you vote Democrat because of course you're going to vote Democrat, because you're black. When it's unthinkable for a black to do anything else, then it's identity politics. That, I think, is most peoples' definition. I have a different one. To me, identity politics is when politics becomes your identity. It's essentially tribalism. Instead of "I think this is the better policy" or "I like this better", you decide that your identity is Democrat/Republican/liberal/conserative. That's who you are.

AstralStorm 7y ago

Carbon neutral is a fancy way of saying "let's pollute the same as we do now". Generally achieved via fake offsets, as we do not have the technology to offset something like US pollution. Even EU ETS (the most developed offset system) is much too slow to cause major dent in the problem. Where most climate predictions require us to stop altogether to avoid most painful results of climate change.

hollerith 7y ago
>Carbon neutral is a fancy way of saying "let's pollute the same as we do now". "Carbon neutral" has a precise definition, and that's definitely not it.
PeterStuer 7y ago
Context: very small western EU country. Over here we are: - cutting down the very few square kilometers of forest we have because the EU declared that everyone has to be carbon neutral or pay fines, and 'wood pellets' are considered 'renewable' energy sources by the administration. The cabinet minister in charge has admitted to the absurdity but stated he is not going to stop the practice as this would lead to being fined. - keeping open severely damaged aging nuclear plants even when under the protest of several neighboring countries recognizing the dangers. The person in charge of this matter at the energy minister's cabinet just moved through he revolving door and got a very cozy 'job' at the company that owns and operates the plants. The energy minister was not amused as it is customary to await the next elections before cashing in and this person moved in a potential election preamble period. - The nuclear test facility operated by the government has once more run out of storage space for nuclear waste. In the 'good old days' they just dumped all the waste in the North Sea (it's still there), but now they have to store it. The cement vats they have been using were leaking in the past, and now they have ran out of space for storing them as the piles keep on growing. Nuclear might be sound in theory, but humans just can't handle the responsibility in practice. And the one answer a neoliberal market economy based socio-economic system is incapable of providing is abstinence, as it is systemically antithetical to it and outside of its potential solution space.
- 7y ago

SubiculumCode 7y ago

I have met with quite unreasonable (to my mind) fears about nuclear waste's supposed deleterious effects on people and nature, even if stored in a remote underground facility. Whenever people have gut reactions without evidence, the conversation quickly becomes non-productive.

Jill_the_Pill 7y ago
Someone's "remote" is always someone else's backyard.
- lstodd 7y ago
  Just dump it on the South Pole. It'll get frozen under hundreds of meters of ice (very good radiation absorber, plus a natural heat sink) and begin a hundred million year voyage to the sea. At which point it won't be radioactive any more and will get transported and dumped into deep ocean by the icebergs.
  - petschge 7y ago
    Water is a very good neutron reflector and moderator so it is exactly what you do NOT want around your nuclear waste. Also metal containers tend to rust when there is water around. The low temperature in the ice will slow that down a bit, but will not prevent it. Remember: while there are problems that are solve after smart people have stared at the problem for decades, there are many more occasions where all you can come up with is ideas that have been considered and found impracticable all long time ago and you just don't know enough about the problem to see why your idea wont work.
    - SubiculumCode 7y ago
      From my understanding, clay containers are preferred for nuclear waste.
    - lstodd 7y ago
      You sound like it's now forbidden to joke on the internets. Besides, when one buries some mildly radioactive materials in 20 meters of ice with a median temperature of 230K or something like that, it just doesn't matter what neutron flux they release. And if they heat up, they would just sink deeper. What matters is that that the neutron flux is adequately dissipated. Which it would be.

viburnum 7y ago

Placing some bets on nuclear make sense (France gets 80% of electric generation from nuclear) but counting on nuclear is risky because nobody can make nuclear plants cost efficiently anymore. America should probably keep trying on a small scale and if they can figure it, then ramp up. The big problem is that nuclear is essentially a big government project, and America is very bad at those.

jhayward 7y ago
France is in the process of phasing out 35% of their nuclear fleet, and the remaining fleet will need to be retired within a few decades. With one exception (Flammanville, 11 years over schedule and 400% over budget) no new plants are planned.
- littlestymaar 7y ago
  > France is in the process of phasing out 35% of their nuclear fleet No we aren't. The only plant expected to close soon is Fessenheim, but every others are planned to work for at least twenty more years. EDF just started «le grand carénage»[1] which is a big investment plan to make the plants work 10 more years, up to 60. (Which is in twenty years) Source: my wife works at Dampierre en Burly's plant, which is one of the oldest running plant in France, and is part of this program (starting next year there). A law («loi TECV») was voted in this direction a few years ago, stating that 35% of the reactors should be closed by 2025, but none of the four leading political parties in France have any will to respect it (including the current government, which is here to stay until 2022…). This law was 100% communication and nobody really believed it when it was passed. [1]: https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_car%C3%A9nage https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_car%C3%A9nage (in French only though)
  - jhayward 7y ago
    I'm aware of the refit effort, as well as safety improvements required and under-funded decommissioning costs, which as I understand it requires on the order of 100 billion euros in new financing. My understanding has been that it (the refit) applies to the remainder of the fleet after drawdown. Has it been funded? Where is EDF obtaining the funds? Isn't EDF itself in need of a bailout from France? As to the 35% target, this is the first time I've read anyone state categorically that none of the plants will be shut down. It seems strange to have a law passed that everyone agrees to disregard, but maybe that's how things happen. Can you point us toward anything firm on which to base a belief that no plants other than fessenheim will be closed?

jay_kyburz 7y ago

This is bad writing for a lot of reason. First the author tells us that if we consider ourselves pro or anti nuclear we can't possibly have thought through the pros and cons of nuclear power. It must be because we identify ourselves as left or right. Or green or not. Then he tells us that if we _do_ have a policy position, we are probably wrong because "its complicated". All of which I find mildly insulting. Then he proceeds to look at nuclear "purely though the lens of climate change", which as far as I'm concerned is not useful because many of the reasons one might choose to be anti-nuclear are not climate change related.

DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
The Onion got Vox down to a T: https://youtu.be/RpkQEq75y18 https://youtu.be/RpkQEq75y18
rmrfrmrf 7y ago
The point of every Vox article is to justify the existence of Matthew Yglesias-style centrist neoliberal wonks. "All problems are too complicated for the average American to understand! The answer is always somewhere in the middle! Go to sleep and let the adults in the room handle this!"
- The_rationalist 7y ago
  While I can't agree with all of your strawman, yes indeed many problems are too complex/needs too much knowledge for most people to understand them. Humans brains are buggy by default and without cognitive debiasing one is likely to fall in mental trap,especially if we talk about nuclear which evoke fear in most brains and emotions destroy reason.
  - jay_kyburz 7y ago
    It's difficult to evaluate nuclear using reason alone, because a large part of the equation is a moral issue, and we all have different morals. Many of us believe it's immoral to leave behind nuclear waste for future generation to care for. Not only do you have to store it somewhere, you have to secure it so that it can't be misused, for thousands of years.

rmrfrmrf 7y ago

If it's really the case that the only way to make nuclear viable is to deregulate the industry, then Bernie is absolutely right that we need to end reliance on nuclear power.

m0zg 7y ago
You can't have the real, workable New Green Deal without nuclear power. Anyone who says we're heading towards a climate catastrophe and is against 4th gen nuclear (thorium) at the same time is a hypocrite. Here we have something both sides of the aisle will support, irrespective even of their views on climate change, let's get to work and if there are safety concerns, let's mount an effort to address those. Once those are conclusively addressed, it will be easier to deregulate the industry and make it cheaper to build nuclear power plants. Thorium is abundant. There are now reactors that can utilize "nuclear waste" as well, so that problem could be solved too, I'm pretty sure. I would be willing to bet that it will be dramatically cheaper than $10T "deals" floated so far. Shit, getting fusion to work with net energy gain will likely cost less than $1T all in all (although it'll take time). If done properly, we could finally end up with electricity that's "too cheap to meter", and massively reduce the need for coal, oil, and gas, all without having to hobble the entire domestic industries and force them to burn coal in China instead.
- rmrfrmrf 7y ago
  Deregulation of nuclear cannot and will not ever happen.
- skrause 7y ago
  "4th gen nuclear" that could utilize current waste is years or even decades away from commercial availability. If you want to bet everything on a potential future technology that doesn't currently exist why not choose nuclear fusion? That will really solve all your waste and fuel problems...
  - m0zg 7y ago
    >> "4th gen nuclear" that could utilize current waste is years or even decades away from commercial availability It's not: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Russias-BN-800-unit-enters-commercial-operation-01111602.html http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Russias-BN-800-unit-ent... I agree with you on fusion. But as a stop gap, thorium and 4th gen nuclear sound awesome to me.

wazoox 7y ago

The main argument against nuclear is that it absolutely requires a highly educated, well organized society and workforce. If something really serious disrupts our elaborated, complex societies, then nuclear plants will become really dangerous. With looming climate change, energy crisis, overpopulation and other problems, you can't be sure that we'll be in a stable enough world long enough to be completely safe.

mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
Yup. Plus, with nuclear, even if we do everything as safely as possible, there's always a tail risk of a VERY negative event due to causes outside our control. I'm yet to understand why this part of the argument is often so readily dismissed.
- smileysteve 7y ago
  That very negative event is less than the expected externalities of coal and in many types of gas exploration
  - icebraining 7y ago
    "It's better than coal" is damning with faint praise. Is there anyone who is openly anti-nuclear and pro-coal?
blub 7y ago
I'm amazed we've had so few accidents, considering how many nuclear plants are located all around Europe. Recently I was reading about an incident in Ukraine, where workers from a nuclear power plant connected the internal network to the internet to mine bitcoin. It's a shame there's no avherald for nuclear power, I bet it would be an interesting read. C. Perrow had access to industry journals when documenting the chapter on nuclear in his "Normal accidents" book. The incidents described there were mind-boggling.
- deleted 7y ago
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elchief 7y ago

How do plants deal with rising water from floods, or falling water from drying out, or overly hot cooling water from high temperatures? These are all in our future. I'm genuinely curious and not trying to troll

deleted 7y ago

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gnusty_gnurc 7y ago

When Bernie/AOC lead with rhetoric like "climate change requires WWII levels of mobilization", it strikes me odd that they think that level of change is feasible, but that the unprecedented mobilization and centralization of efforts can't be applied to nuclear technology. It's bizarre and makes me think that it's a blatant political agenda much more than sensible application of technology to solve problems in the world.

The_rationalist 7y ago
Aka double standard
bjourne 7y ago
What is bizarre about it? Not all options are equally good investments - some are clearly preferable over others. Why insist on new nuclear power when so much evidence shows it is not needed?
- gnusty_gnurc 7y ago
  One of the main objections to nuclear is that “we can’t properly regulate it.” But the whole argument of Bernie/AOC/progressives centers around massive centralization and mobilization. It just seems to me that the super idealistic, unprecedentedly large plans they’re proposing would imply we could do the same thing with nuclear.
- realusername 7y ago
  > Why insist on new nuclear power when so much evidence shows it is not needed? Which evidence? IPCC reports nuclear as being highly needed.
  - bjourne 7y ago
    Which IPCC report recommends building new nuclear power plants in the US?
    - 7y ago

monieseee 7y ago

> One thing I hope to convey is that “pro-nuclear” and “anti-nuclear” are not considered policy positions. They are identities, ways of signaling membership in a tribe. You sign up for one team and then scold the other team on social media (you will have lots of company). Funny to read this in Vox, which is as tribal as it gets.

fnord77 7y ago

50 years ago they said we would have fusion power plants in 50 years.

kjar 7y ago

Sorry folks give up the ghost nuclear was dead at least 3 decades ago. Solar and wind are the future. We don’t have a decade to build a new nuclear plant, in that plan we’d need a time machine going backa decade to abate climate change that’s now locked in. I’ll spare you all the risks and externalities, it’s just dumb. Again sorry.

aeternum 7y ago
You don't think we will need more power than solar and wind can provide in 10 years? Our energy consumption has historically only increased, even with strong conversation campaigns, we should assume this trend will continue.
- icebraining 7y ago
  > Our energy consumption has historically only increased From what I can tell, energy consumption per capita is lower today than 30 years ago in many developed countries, including the US. While the rest of the world is far from reaching those levels of use, it may point to a cap in the need for more power.
realusername 7y ago
> Solar and wind are the future There's not a single country in the world which manages to run on solar and wind only or which could in a realistic future.

delinka 7y ago

> You don't have to be "pro-X"or "anti-X" But don't we? We have to be completely polarized on every topic. How else will the binary political system survive? OK, onward without the sarcasm ... This same kind of critical thinking must be applied to every issue, or we'll just end up in the dark ages again.