They are only expensive because externalities of other solutions are not captures or are subsidised. Wind and solar are expensive if battery storage is included in most of the world.
Waste is mostly a solved problem. Much more solved that waste management for coal plants in any case (whom also produce a lot of radioactive waste in addition to producing tons and tons of co2)
We have more than enough uranium. Currently only a small fraction is economically mineable but we have played that game before with oil.
To say that they're _potentially_ safe by waving at the US Navy is a fallacy for several reasons.
1. It's p-hacking. E. g. with the same technology the Soviets destroyed five of their reactors.
2. The world of civilian operators is completely incomparable.
3. Civilian power plants use different technologies.
> Waste is mostly a solved problem.
Not as far as I know. In Germany, for example, the search for a final disposal site is still completely open-ended, and the first final disposal site will not open until 2074 at the earliest, while, at the same time, the already collapsed storage facilities consume an enormous amount of money. I personally think it is absurd to assume that an underground nuclear waste storage facility can be operated safely over geological time scales.
Needless to say there isn't even a single one worldwide for highly radioactive waste.
And to compare them with coal plants is classical whataboutism. "They can't be bad, because I found something other that's bad as well."
You're right about the minable uranium. That has changed over the last years, so the current estimate is 2080 in a high demand scenario.
But your criticism about the externalized costs falls short as well. Regarding the externalized costs, that is really hard to quantify and I don't know of reliable estimations. How do you want to come up with a number if you don't even know if humans still exist on the planet at that time?
What is clear is that for nuclear energy the majority of the costs is externalized. The bulk of the costs stem from the decommissioning of power plants, final disposal, and accident-related expenses. All three are typically passed on entirely to taxpayers.
The former German vice chancellor even said, he would agree [to build a new nuclear power plant] if <political opponent> found a private operator willing to build a nuclear power plant entirely without government guarantees, subsidies, or liability coverage.
High level waste disposal starts this year in Finland. The site is 400m underground in bedrock. It will not be really operated in geological timescales, but filled with sealing clay after the disposal is finished in 100 years or so. It is financed by the national nuclear waste management fund, which has been fully capitalised by the nuclear generation companies during plant operation.
I still don't understand, this is a list of accidents so what? How many people are injured/died? How does that compare to other sources of energy, other sectors? How many of these were due to human incompetence and how many where due to natural disasters that killed more than the resulting nuclear accident? How old are all these plants? If we would iterate on the design of these reactors how safe can we get them after 1000 plants?
> And to compare them with coal plants is classical whataboutism. "They can't be bad, because I found something other that's bad as well."
I disagree, I am saying we should replace coal with something that is orders of magnitude safer. Nation who will disregard nuclear will be stuck with coal/nat gas for a very long time. For most of the world there aren't even theoretical models for getting to 100% wind/solar if stable grid is required with CURRENT demand, let alone future demand.
I don't have a source handy but I disagree we only have supply until 2080. Maybe with current known reserves and without reprocessing.
Germany won't find a story site because they don't want to find one. They are looking for something perfect, that is guaranteed to last 1000s of years. Meanwhile, waste water from mining and refining is just dumped in old quarries, lakes, the ocean. PFAS just gets dumped everywhere. All kinds of toxic waste that lasts forever, just dumped no one cares. But when its about nuclear waste suddenly everything has to be secured against the apocalypse.
Look we can argue about this forever, meanwhile China is building more plants that whole west combined and in a few decades they will be energy independent using 100% clean energy.
"Model A wins on MMLU. Model B wins on ARC-Challenge. Model C wins on HellaSwag.
At some point you stop trusting any of them—not because benchmarks are meaningless, but because no two of them seem to tell the same story about which model is actually better.
I recommend translating the German version as it is much more detailed.
> "But far more important is the educational value that stems from the spiritual kinship between mathematics and the Third Reich. The fundamental disposition of both is the heroic. […] Both demand service: mathematics demands service to truth, integrity, and precision. […] Both are anti-materialistic. […] Both desire order and discipline; both combat chaos and arbitrariness."
I disagree. I limit the screen time of my kids to 20 min per day. I only allow them also to view certain content that is not too stimulating, just educational stuff. The kids do want to talk about the stuff they see and play out what they see afterwards. I see it as positive. Unlimited youtube kids, with weird slop content, absolutely harmful.
yep, my 3 year old gets a very limited amount of screen time and he only watches educational programs (not whatever cartoons his peers watch). There's is no way I want to make it _easier_ for him to watch TV, especially as he has very little interest in it already.
Looking back in time, the only benefit of watching anything on a screen as a kid is learning a foreign language. The content is always some form of a brain rot, or political, cultural, or religious propaganda.
As bearish as I am on AI, outside of the agent deciding it only wants to play "Semi Charmed Life" and nothing else, I fail to see how this is a nightmarish hellscape in and of itself.
I feel standard commercial radio is already that hellscape. I mostly listen to rock (classic or alternative radio stations) and it's the same ~20 things being rinsed and repeated every hour and every day. Has been this way for decades.
I am pretty sure 90% of playlists you hear when out and about are generated by spotify algorithms at this point. I would more be concerned because it seems like a weird use for LLM when recommendation engines are probably better than it? I suppose it has a ton of training data around music forums and people recommending songs, but it is hard to believe that would beat out billions of hours of tracked listening spotify has access too.
Did those plants suddenly became manageable? No.
Did those plants suddenly became cheap? No.
Do we suddenly have a solution for the waste? No.
Have new uranium deposits suddenly been discovered? No.
reply