Viral marketing for the up-coming Godzilla movie.
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Nope, capital cost and catastrophic risk still mean nuclear generation of electricity is the same public/private investment scam itâs always been.
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Building new ones? Absolutely true.
But the ones that are already running might as well stay running for their scheduled operating life. The costs have been sunk; theyâre low-carbon-footprint energy sources. Not using that capacity would amount to pouring more carbon into the air for no good reason.
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Wasnât there a sea cucumber at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? Doesnât that mean familiar life can exist in the depths?
Well⌠as familiar as anything in the crawling chaos of the sea.
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Youâd enjoy it. Itâs basically this:
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Sunk cost is usually considered a fallacy. The financial cost to the public is the most likely to blow up anyway, as it is a byproduct of the highly developed nature of the technology. As the things age and operations get cut further to the bone, other risks might do some things, but the financial risk of past and future misdeeds on these projects is a certainty. Just think of the timeline of operations, the accruing future cost of the waste, the concentration of financial and policy-making power. Itâs classic fail-cycling of elites.
âwe canât afford to put this widget into production at this time, Letâs melt all the tooling down and sell it for scrap value.â
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The decision rarely hinges so dramatically.
Itâs the remaining cost that matters. If these canât be retro-fitted with adequate safety systems, thatâs too high. If they can, it might not, and may be wiser to keep these in operation.
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⌠When used to deflect from the future costs, sure.
If youâre eight billion dollars into a program, itâs going to cost four billion more, and you can get the same thing functional for two, then yes, itâs a sunk cost fallacy to insist that you should get something for the money already spent.
When something is already operational, then, unless the operating costs are higher than the total cost of ownership for a new solution, itâs not a sunk cost fallacy to wonder why we shouldnât use this thing we poured so much money into.
Especially when you need to factor that, until we have full renewable options built out, any kWh that we donât generate using a currently-functional nuclear plant will have to be made up with coal, or natural gas, and thus you have to add the future cost of the CO2 youâre pumping into the air to that TCO.
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Nuclear fuel is not a fixed cost set at construction, for example, and creates a focus for financial risk given that so many costs are low-balled for the sake of greed and political expediency, and nuclear fuel processing, as a business, is known to be a shitshow of opportunities to get it wrong.
Other oddities of nuclear technology include⌠the metallurgy of the systems is estimated to be one thing, but because the system creates chemistry as it goes, the reality ends up being something else. There is really no such thing as a corrosion-proof system when all of the dynamics of inorganic chemistry are in play.
And then thereâs just regular old fraud, waste, mismanagement and skimming to mix with that.
Donât get me wrong, submarine reactors and space-exploration RTGs are great, good applications that can also go wrong. They arenât really something that can take down a regional economy.
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Pumping CO2 into the atmosphere is an existential risk which is currently on course to destroy human civilization as we know it.
Come back to me when âkeeping a nuclear plant open for its originally anticipated lifespanâ reaches that level of existential risk.
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Thatâs a disingenuous restatement of the original bullshit attack on Sanders and Warren. Decommissioning before âplannedâ lifetime is likely to happen for many plants, probably for financial/technological reasons. Are you going to repeat every single disingenuous talking point from the coal, oil, gas, and nuclear industries about the cost of nonnuclear renewables? Are we going to have to go through the risks inherent in centralized power production, regardless of the method? I expect better.
Youâre going to have to be more specific. What attack are you talking about, what is bullshit about it, how am I restating it, and why do you think that my restatement is disingenuous?
Huh? I am totally fine with nuclear being decommissioned as soon as there are renewables to replace them; I think the priority should be decommissioning coal, followed by natural gas, and then nuclear.
Also, what bizarro world are you living in that âPumping CO2 into the atmosphere is an existential risk which is currently on course to destroy human civilization as we know itâ is a âdisingenuous talking point from the coal, oil, gas, and nuclear industries?â
Once again, I am all for renewables, and for a less centralized power grid. However. Once again. Until we can achieve that, nuclear is a preferable option to carbon-burning.
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However. Once again. Until we can achieve that, nuclear is a preferable option to carbon-burning.
That is a perfect epigram for extension and expansion of nuclear in preference to renewables. You may think itâs a logical statement, but itâs only applicable for wedging open the scam yet again.
Have I said one word in favour of building new nuclear plants?
I am arguing that the ones that are currently running should not be shut down until they are either unsafe or uneconomical to maintain, or they can be displaced with green power. That is all.
Your slippery slope is much more fallacious than my sunk costs ever were.
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Extension and expansion are the marketing terms that you may be unfamiliar with.
By all means, enlighten me. I thought the words referred to keeping existing reactors open past a safe retirement date (extension) and building new plants, or new reactors at existing plants (expansion), all of which I have already expressed opposition to, but if thereâs something else you mean by those terms, please, let me know so that I can respond appropriately.
Edit to add: I am also going to insist that you either back up your accusation that I am arguing disingenuously, or else retract that claim and apologize for it.