Arcturus

That’s actually shrinking now, it used to be a larger share a decade, two decades ago. Being replaced by renewables.

The Chinese built ones that supply Asia and Australasia are almost faultless as well. My one is an earlier model, US-built, and you can definitely tell the quality difference even with the early models that came from China.

Nice pick. I went from my dying LG V60 to the S23 Plus. It was inevitable…

Because it’s not enough.
She wasn’t enough.
She doesn’t fit the box perfectly.
And she was too popular to ignore.

She was always keeping a moderate tone, always leaning towards supporting China and the Chinese state as well. I thought she’d skip around the censors because of it.

In theory, when it’s working, yes it will. Only after being over a decade late and being everal times over budget. They’ll probably keep it going for as long as humanly possible, until the cost of maintaining it is no longer economically feasible. They’ll try to claw back as much of that investment as possible. But as we know with nuclear projects, they never will. It’s why China is betting big on renewables.

You think nuclear powerplants don’t require parts replacements, maintenance, or shut down over the weather either? France, US, and Finland had to delay the opening of their latest plants because they already had to replace parts before they even started. This isn’t Finland’s first nuclear reactor. Their next one has been cancelled because of the war in Ukraine (Rosatom) The others are being throttled down for maintenance, and it won’t be long until this new one also requires it. As it is, they’re already understaffed.

This one? In what universe would, planning to build nuclear, and then later finding out how impractical it is, or eventually building a plant, only for it to take nearly two decades, be cheaper, quicker, or less polluting?

It’s not profitable. For example, in Sweden, the companies involved aren’t interested. There was talk of EDF being restructured a couple of years back separating the unprofitable nuclear away from their other businesses (until state bailout and investment). Their CFO resigned over their decision to carry on building UK’s latest nuclear powerplant. The Conservatives only pushed through the UK’s next nuclear powerplant only after giving EDF assurances and ability to start taking in profits before the completion of the project.

This is what it takes to build nuclear. A lot of state money… Whereas renewables are cheaper, easier, and faster to decarbonise.

Overall, probably cheaper, as it requires less tax to help pay for the cost of nuclear infrastructure.

But it’s not the general public who is averse to nuclear, they’re as a whole, probably more in favour of it. The current Swedish governmrnt campaigned on it. It’s nuclear companies themselves who don’t want it. Which is partially why Sweden suddenly and quietly scrapped their plans.

It’s still overall, a small part of their grid. They don’t have plans to expand their nuclear fleet all too much. A good chunk are experimental, and for military research.

Renewables?

I have two family subscriptions. I find it worth it. It’s quite cheap on Stacksocial (even cheaper if you have a discount code).

On top of that, I have one of these routers at home. It comes in-built with Adguard Home. There is a newer, better model coming out soon as well.

Sweden’s approach is over.

They have no targets, the industry isn’t interested, and the government’s analysis has been based on nothing.

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/Q70mzQ/regeringen-svanger-om-karnkraftsreaktorerna

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-01/uniper-dents-swedish-nuclear-hopes-with-firm-no-to-new-plants

So, you’re going to build a powerplant, that people don’t want to fund, that governments are reluctant to build? You’ll need to create a government agency responsible for the design and planning, another responsible for training new powerplant workers, another one for the decommissioning process, and another for insurance, and another as a safety watchdog, which might come online in a decade if you’re lucky, or closer to two decades if you’re not, only for it to not be as effective as renewables, be a constant drain on taxpayers, not be entirely reliable, and be more expensive as an energy source than renewables. Sure, good luck with that plan. I wish you well garnering political and academic support with that. In the meantime, universities, companies, and governments will generally avoid it like the plague. Unless or course, there’s a nuclear industry that already exists and needs to be subsidised, or a military nuclear requirement to keep the talent and designs ongoing.

You’re deliberately going to build nuclear, ignore studies telling you that renewables decarbonise faster. Because you want to decarbonise. Only for your personal opinions, backed by the fossils and mining industry? You’re going to give the fossil industry a lot of money over the first 10 years of absolutely nothing happening.

I will add, the election promises the conservative Swedes have made seem to have disappeared. How convenient.

I’m sure that played a part of the early response. But then we were also lucky that, it didn’t initially spread on our shores early on. So the initial first lockdown, and a few subsequent ones, were short and sweet. But then the later ones, we got a bit complacent. It was also when the conspiracies and anti-vax movement was taking off…

Sweden was a bit of an outlier though. Most younger Swedes live alone. And they tend to follow government advisories. New Zealand’s strategy was stellar, particularly early on in the pandemic. You could do what you want. I remember we were out having concerts as if there was no pandemic, thanks to the zero COVID strategy. But by late-Delta, early-Omicron, zero COVID could not longer be sustained, and it was clear only mitigations would stick. The government hoped to eliminate it like they did the other times, but it was just impossible then, people had become complacent. But yes, on the healthcare-side and economic-side, NZ fared better than Sweden.

Let me pose you another question. Why do you think, the British Conservatives have invested in making HPC happen (finally agreeing to the demand to allow investing companies to turn a profit even before any energy is produced)? Why have conservatives in South Korea planned to restart a new nuclear industry despite accusations of corruption? Why is it the conservatives in Australia love the idea of nuclear? Is it because they can do the good old-fashioned trope of using the state to make their private company chums some money? Or is it because it’s for the goodness of their hearts, and concern for their citizens, while they dismantle the NHS and privatise it, for example?

The point of making a profit, is so that you can re-invest and allow private industries into the market.

If I made you a loaf of bread, which took 15 mins, and you could sell it for $2 profit. You would be able to sell more pieces of bread correct?

If another person made you a loaf of bread, which took three days to complete, and you make a loss of $10 with each one sold, how many more pieces of bread are you willing to sell?

One feeds your population, the other has to be bailed out by the government, and everyone loses money and investment and time.

This is why China prioritises renewables, renewables are considered superior to nuclear when decarbonising the grid, and the best case scenario for nuclear, according to scientists in academia (as opposed to pro-nuke Youtube videos), requires nuclear to be a minor player in a majority renewables grid (and also be 25% cheaper). Unfortunately making nuclear cheaper, is not ideal.

The pro-nuke argument is literally funded by the mining lobby and the fossil fuels industry. Which is why most of their resources are from lobby groups, YouTube videos, public books, and TED talks… Because they know it’s going to be ineffective, and they only need to convince the public. Much like how the whole hydrogen-powered cars narrative is going, or environmentally friendly fuels. It’s an expensive distraction.

See the RAB that the UK has for the HPC nuke plant build. Companies are allowed to make a profit even before the powerplant is completed. The government will handle insurance, and decommissioning. Which, happens over a century, at taxpayers expense, and it produces no energy. There’s also the storage of radioactive material. All of this, uses money and resources that could otherwise be used for constructing renewables (and the fossil fuels industry loves this plan, because every moneypit nuke plant that is constructed, less renewables are built, and fossils gets to remain in the game because they then become only just one of the underperformers, rather than all), decarbonising the grid (faster, see study), and on top of that, everybody makes money.

But don’t worry, renewables are also cheaper and more profitable than fossils in most applications as well, so they’ll lose out on future energy projects, besides, like in Germany’s case, being used as a backup.