But it's too a podcast with no transcripts, so nothing I'm interested in.
But I want to say concerning nukes and climate change; nukes may be the greatest thing ever but no new energy is the key to climate change. Solar and wind are already super-cheap and sufficient-with-adjustments for the world's energy needs. But fossil fuels are always going to be better than solar, wind, fission, fusion, antimatter or whatever at SOME things. And so only solution to carbon pollution is forcing an end to fossil fuels through regulation. Though I have little hope for that (or the planet given current trends).
PaulHoule · 18h ago
The real link is to a video which is hosted on YouTube and probably needs Javascript to work.
It's a long story but renewables are coming on strong, storage is also coming on stronger but there are questions about how reliable you can get the grid with them at reasonable cost, nuclear can be part of the problem but has awful economics with current LWRs, I'm skeptical that small LWRs will really be better though GE is making a stab at it with BWRX, Gen 4 reactors might be better but they're 15-20 years out from serious commercialization.
Certainly "no nukes" and "red tape" are not the main thing holding us back, nobody in the west wants to put up $10B to build a reactor, really spend $20-$30B and wait 10-20 years for it to come online. Maybe red tape and opposition are responsible for 20% of the delay but good old fashioned bungling seems part of it and if you want to say "next time will be better" the burden is on you is to convince the money people.
joe_the_user · 17h ago
Yeah,
One factor is that a lot of nuke proponents think that past meltdown were only a problem for environmentalists. But the thing with a meltdown is that since a plant can't really be repaired after meltdown, these events do is burn up a vast, vast investment in a puff of smoke.
The most pressing answer is “fewer people” if we
aspire to maintain the ecosystem as we know it today (or in recent history, perhaps), but that’s unpopular in key circles. So sure, reactors.
ZeroGravitas · 17h ago
A model married to a billionaire with links to the Trump government pushing nuclear on Tik Tok? How very 2025.
From the Times writeup that apparently is part of this PR push:
> And last fall, Ms. Boemeke donated $5 million, and pledged an additional $5 million, to nuclear causes with her husband, Joe Gebbia, one of the most prominent members of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency and the billionaire co-founder of Airbnb. A friend and confidant of Elon Musk’s, Mr. Gebbia now sits on the board of Tesla.
"Our website does not work well without JavaScript. Please consider re-enabling it for a fully functional browsing experience."
In another window I'm developing Javascript code!
That said, having javascript redirects are a strong indication your site is garbage.
After figuring that out, the article is here: https://www.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show/is-nuclear-ener...
But it's too a podcast with no transcripts, so nothing I'm interested in.
But I want to say concerning nukes and climate change; nukes may be the greatest thing ever but no new energy is the key to climate change. Solar and wind are already super-cheap and sufficient-with-adjustments for the world's energy needs. But fossil fuels are always going to be better than solar, wind, fission, fusion, antimatter or whatever at SOME things. And so only solution to carbon pollution is forcing an end to fossil fuels through regulation. Though I have little hope for that (or the planet given current trends).
It's a long story but renewables are coming on strong, storage is also coming on stronger but there are questions about how reliable you can get the grid with them at reasonable cost, nuclear can be part of the problem but has awful economics with current LWRs, I'm skeptical that small LWRs will really be better though GE is making a stab at it with BWRX, Gen 4 reactors might be better but they're 15-20 years out from serious commercialization.
Certainly "no nukes" and "red tape" are not the main thing holding us back, nobody in the west wants to put up $10B to build a reactor, really spend $20-$30B and wait 10-20 years for it to come online. Maybe red tape and opposition are responsible for 20% of the delay but good old fashioned bungling seems part of it and if you want to say "next time will be better" the burden is on you is to convince the money people.
One factor is that a lot of nuke proponents think that past meltdown were only a problem for environmentalists. But the thing with a meltdown is that since a plant can't really be repaired after meltdown, these events do is burn up a vast, vast investment in a puff of smoke.
https://www.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show/is-nuclear-ener...
From the Times writeup that apparently is part of this PR push:
> And last fall, Ms. Boemeke donated $5 million, and pledged an additional $5 million, to nuclear causes with her husband, Joe Gebbia, one of the most prominent members of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency and the billionaire co-founder of Airbnb. A friend and confidant of Elon Musk’s, Mr. Gebbia now sits on the board of Tesla.