[ETH_start]

The most impactful disinformation campaign, by far, is against nuclear power, which is far and away the most promising substitute for fossil fuels for base power.

The most outrageous part of this is that this campaign is dominated and spearheaded by environmental groups and green parties. By successfully stopping the expansion of nuclear power, these groups have done more than any other faction or movement to increase CO2 emissions.

[Schroedingersat]

Firstly, the PWR industry is zero carbon (for now), but otherwise is just as filthy, exploitative, corrupt, profitable, and domineering as the coal industry. Nothing any environmentalists do has any power to limit them in any way and the only interest capable of stopping them is the fossil fuel industry (whilst hiding behind a smokescreen of fake environmentalism) so you're not going to change anything by shooting the greens.

Secondly, it can't expand. There's not enough Uranium. Add 100GW a year of PWRs for ten years and you can't fuel them for more than a couple of decades (MOX is an expensive scam that saves 20% at best and releases more radiation than fukushima and tmi combined as a matter of course). Breeders might be viable, but they don't centralise power to Urenco and Rosatom so they were abandoned.

You're spreading a lie designed by the fossil fuel industry to delay renewables.

[ETH_start]

>>Nothing any environmentalists do has any power to limit them in any way and the only interest capable of stopping them is the fossil fuel industry (whilst hiding behind a smokescreen of fake environmentalism)

The largest environmental group, Greenpeace, has literally invaded a number of nuclear plants to protest government plans to permit new plants.

>>Secondly, it can't expand. There's not enough Uranium.

There's enough uranium and thorium for 2.3 million years of humanity's total global energy consumption x 1000.

Breeder reactors extract something on the order of 100X more energy from uranium than 2nd generation nuclear power plants, and that's the standard by which you have to judge the sustainability of fission feedstock resources.

[Schroedingersat]

> The largest environmental group, Greenpeace, has literally invaded a number of nuclear plants to protest government plans to permit new plants.

Have similar protests in coal mines or fracking or oil wells or on fuel tankers ever done anything to slow down the fossil fuel industry? Did they send state sponsored terrorists to bomb an EDF ship and get away with it completely other than throwing a couple of patsies under the bus?

Greenpeace's objections have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the permits go through and the very idea that they have more power than the French, Chinese, Russian, and US military and nuclear industries combined is utterly laughable. You cannot possibly think anyone would believe such a ludicrous lie.

It's actually kind of heart warming that you think environmentalists have so much power. Why do you think they chose not to use it to stop coal, plastic or beef?

> Breeder reactors extract something on the order of 100X more energy from uranium than 2nd generation nuclear power plants, and that's the standard by which you have to judge the sustainability of fission feedstock resources.

Not until one exists that actually runs in breeding mode on a commercial scale and that's what you're proposing building. Until then there's about 40 years with the current fleet and the suggestion of building enough PWRs to make a similar contribution to renewables means there would be 20 even after doubling the fuel economy.

Suggesting that you could scale uranium mining 5x to provide the first load for a couple of thousdand PWRs, complete them all by 2030, and then design and build five times as many breeders to keep them fueled in the 20 years you had left so as not to decomission all your freshly built reactors is a ridiculous farce. And that wouldn't even cover all electricity, let alone primary energy.

[ETH_start]

>>It's actually kind of heart warming that you think environmentalists have so much power. Why do you think they chose not to use it to stop coal, plastic or beef?

Your narrative doesn't line up with reality. In Germany, the primary political force behind the decision to shut down the country's nuclear plants was the national Green Party. A similar dynamic is seen across numerous countries in the EU.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups have significant influence on the leading left-leaning parties, and are the most responsible for so many governments stopping nuclear power expansion.

>>Not until one exists that actually runs in breeding mode on a commercial scale and that's what you're proposing building.

We'll have such reactors long before we run out of uranium. And once operational, they will be able to use the stored waste from the non breeder reactors as fuel.

The shunning of nuclear power at the behest of so-called green parties and environmental groups like Greenpeace is why it has not grown massively as an energy source. If permits for new plants were actually issued at the pace that the economy needs, and especially if that were combined with next gen nuclear tech got anywhere close to as much funding as solar/wind for deploying generation potential, the technology would have rapidly progressed, and today would dominate energy sources.

[Schroedingersat]

Again. If the greens are so powerful as to single handedly set the policy of a government whose leader was working for a russian gas company, why is beef, plastic, coal, and driving still a thing? Why did they make a massive investment in gas and cancel large portions of the renewable program? Why is a massive multi trillion dollar industry backed by the militaries of the most powerful countries in the world powerless in the face of a party that can barely hold a few seats?

The reality is the PWR industry is just a bunch of liars, grifters and scammers that came into a cash cow as part of a program to force tax payers to fund weapons programs, and now they're crying because they didn't get to have a turn raping and destroying the planet and forcing every government on the planet to be subservient to Framatome, Urenco and Rosatom. Fossil fuel interests are amplifying their voice because they know every dollar spent on PWRs is a watt of fossil fuels that won't be replaced.

> We'll have such reactors long before we run out of uranium. And once operational, they will be able to use the stored waste from the non breeder reactors as fuel.

The most optimistic programs have breeders just barely producing a surplus in an experimental reactor in the late 2030s. You can't produce 100t of fuel for a PWR in a reactor that produces 30t and needs 28t for itself. PWRs are completely irrelevant for power generation and if your goal is to promote nuclear power rather than grift more money you'd be pushing for completely defunding all of the reactors in construction and planning and putting the money into breeder development.

> and especially if that were combined with next gen nuclear tech got anywhere close to as much funding as solar/wind for deploying generation potential, the technology would have rapidly progressed, and today would dominate energy sources.

It did. It's had trillions of dollars poured into it. Nothing happened. Noone in the nuclear industry wants it to happen because it would end the grift, and no-one in the military or government wants it to happen because any country with one can build bombs. China's probably the only exception because they mostly use their small minority of nuclear reactors for power (with a little bit of geopolitical domination on the side). The similar trillions poured into renewables created working power infrastructure the whole time, and now the cost is approaching the cost of just the steam generator portion.

[ETH_start]

>>If the greens are so powerful as to single handedly set the policy of a government whose leader was working for a russian gas company, why is beef, plastic, coal, and driving still a thing

Because greens don't have the political capital to institute a zero tolerance policy toward fossil fuels, and probably don't want to implement such a policy as it would mean their standard of living would regress 80 years.

Freezing nuclear power expansion and phasing out existing plants on the other can be done without an immediate economic cataclysmic that would make it both politically infeasible, and perhaps for the greens themselves, undesirable.

If the greens weren't powerful, how do you explain Germany's Green Party successfully pushing to get the country's nuclear power plants decommissioned?

>>The most optimistic programs have breeders just barely producing a surplus in an experimental reactor in the late 2030s.

My understanding was that breeder reactors are already producing surpluses and the only issue being that they're not economical because they have higher capital costs and it's cheaper to just enrich or use more uranium.

What's your source suggesting otherwise?

>>It did. It's had trillions of dollars poured into it. Nothing happened.

I know this is not true but I'm open to seeing any credible source that proves me otherwise.

[ZeroGravitas]

Greenpeace was founded to protest nuclear weapons tests. That's why their name has peace in it.

You can disagree with them if you want, people are free to have their own priorities, but they correctly think that nuclear power is a hidden subsidy for nuclear weapons.

[ZeroGravitas]

I quite like nuclear power, advocacy of it has however mostly devolved into bashing environmentalists and green parties which raises many red flags for me.

I don't know if the people still banging that drum are being disengenious, or they've just been taken in by the misinformation campaign I mentioned, but generally the more of the items I listed you hate or are suspicious of, then the more suspicious of you I am, as it lends evidence of you being someone who has been duped, so for example:

If someone likes (or at least doesn't hate in a weirdly political way) carbon fees, carbon credit, heat pumps, EVs, renewables, induction stoves, green parties and environmentalists, recycling, efficiency then yeah sure I believe you like nuclear power because it's a low carbon power source, see James Hansen for example.

On the other hand, if you hate carbon fees, and carbon credits, and EV subsidies, and green parties and environmentalists but love nuclear power because it's such a great low carbon source. That doesn't add up to me. You might be sincere but confused, but either way you're not really helping so motivations don't really matter. See Michael Shellenberger for example of someone who is obviously lying, or Bill Gates for someone who's just partially confused.

[ETH_start]

I personally love carbon credits and while I wouldn't go as far as saying I love EV subsidies - due to the graft that often accompanies subsidies - I am positively inclined toward them.

If you study the history of nuclear power, you will see that environmental groups and green parties have been the singular force stopping its expansion. This criticism is not an exaggeration and justifies my harsh judgment of them.

>>See Michael Shellenberger for example of someone who is obviously lying

What makes it obvious that he's lying?

[ZeroGravitas]

The consistent pattern of everything he's ever said on the topic:

https://www.desmog.com/michael-shellenberger/

Like you he claims to be pro-nuclear but is also scathing about government subsidies and expensive power. Which doesn't add up, not for two decades if you're paying attention, and certainly not for the last five years even if you haven't. Renewables are cheap power.

It's like his audience is a couple of decades behind the facts if they can accept this as a logical argument.

His very pro natural gas stance is also a weird anomaly.

[ETH_start]

>>Renewables are cheap power.

Renewables are not cheap power.

"True cost of using wind and solar to meet demand was $272 and $472 per MWh"

https://web.archive.org/web/20220916003958/https://files.ame...

>>His very pro natural gas stance is also a weird anomaly

Natural gas is cheap and cleaner than coal.

[Schroedingersat]

Your 'study' by fossil fuel interest using flawed statistics and outdated data that triple and quadruple counts costs that don't even show up until renewable penetration is 3x the current amounts and are already being internalised by hybrid and internal storage programs means nothing.

It does make for a pretty good demonstration of the type of shilling Shellenberger does though, so props on that part.

[ETH_start]

Plenty of studies look at renewables through rose colored glasses and are funded by groups with ideological agendas and financial conflicts of interest. This study is quite sober compared to them.

The study projects out the costs of going 100% renewable in Minnesota as the current plan calls for, so the assumption of 3x penetration is appropriate. I also don't see the basis for your claim that it triples/quadruples costs.

>>by fossil fuel interest

Which fossil fuel interests?

The study says that Minnesota could achieve the 100% zero carbon goal without unduly burdering the state's residents if it depends on hydroelectric and nuclear, neither of which is fossil fuel.

[ZeroGravitas]

That's a really bad report.

"We don't need Californian solutions in Minnesota" is not the kind of argument you want to be making if you want to be taken seriously as an objective source.

Why isn't renewables a Texas solution? They got help from someone in Texas to write this and Texas has lots of renewables.