Nuclear is socially and therefore politically non-viable because
(1) When nuclear accidents happen, they suddenly overturn the lives of a LOT of commoners all at once as opposed to slow and creeping and often "statistically determined" impact of other energy tech
(2) technocrats have consistently failed to demonstrate the ability to create organisations that over the long term prioritize safety and the ability to prevent accidents over all else (maybe with the exception of US Naval Reactors org - but who knows given the secracy)
People instinctively get this now. Fukushima was especially a bad shakeup because "if even the Japanese can't do safety right, why would we trust the dumb nerds we went to school with to be able to do so".
We should move on and focus on other clean energy tech, scaling up storage tech and stop wasting time and energy debating fission. And Maybe figure out a rebranding for "nuclear fusion" whenever it works (hopefully within my lifetime) assuming it's safety profile is better.
> (1) When nuclear accidents happen, they suddenly overturn the lives of a LOT of commoners all at once as opposed to slow and creeping and often "statistically determined" impact of other energy tech
Hydroelectric dams have the same issue. I also bet, that if one of those gigawatt lithium battery storage facilities had a fire, it would be a very bad day for people around them.
Does France not exist? Also Japan is already restarting its nuclear reactors because their projected emissions targets are impossible to hit without restarting the plants.
Japan: in the past they invested in nuclear power, now they don't want it anymore BUT need gridpower and have no other way to obtain it than to (reluctantly) restart some reactors.
Planes are socially and therefore politically non-viable because
(1) When flight accidents happen, they suddenly overturn the lives of a LOT of commoners all at once as opposed to slow and creeping and often "statistically determined" impact of cars
(2) technocrats have consistently failed to demonstrate the ability to create organisations that over the long term prioritize safety and the ability to prevent accidents over all else
Except plane casualties happen to the people actively opting into air travel; an individual choice can mitigate one's exposure to air travel risk. Not so nuclear accidents.
It is absolutely comical you can claim that and cite a paragraph that concludes, “in January 2015, the number of Fukushima evacuees was around 119,000, compared with a peak of around 164,000 in June 2012.[174]”
Or maybe not. It was Navy training that destroyed TMI-2.
Instead of worrying about the loss off coolant, the operators worried about the reactor "going solid", which is slang for "no steam bubble is left in the primary coolant circuit". This made sense on the small Navy reactors they were trained on, but on the large land based ones. Arguably, it never made sense to take a submarine engine and turn it into a power plant.
Yes in retrospect this was definitely a missed opportunity to not put Rickover's org in charge of civillian reactors. But then the problwm outside US would persist. However trust is now lost, will be very difficult ro regain
Rickover was in charge of developing Shippingport, the USA's first terrestrial nuclear power plant. After that, it was largely necessary to pass things over to the private sector because of capitalism.
(1) When nuclear accidents happen, they suddenly overturn the lives of a LOT of commoners all at once as opposed to slow and creeping and often "statistically determined" impact of other energy tech
(2) technocrats have consistently failed to demonstrate the ability to create organisations that over the long term prioritize safety and the ability to prevent accidents over all else (maybe with the exception of US Naval Reactors org - but who knows given the secracy)
People instinctively get this now. Fukushima was especially a bad shakeup because "if even the Japanese can't do safety right, why would we trust the dumb nerds we went to school with to be able to do so".
We should move on and focus on other clean energy tech, scaling up storage tech and stop wasting time and energy debating fission. And Maybe figure out a rebranding for "nuclear fusion" whenever it works (hopefully within my lifetime) assuming it's safety profile is better.