Dems 2019: Dem Hard With A Vengeance

Maybe, and as I said I think sprawl is a problem, but if you ask me which of these we can more easily achieve:

  1. all transportation vehicles are electric and all power generation is renewable
  2. all people have relocated to well-designed urban centers with great renewable-energy infrastructure

…I would not say that 2 was more achievable.

Even though I think that would be great, I don’t think anyone actually believes that’s possible .Change “all” for “significantly more” or “enough to make a difference.” (As an aside I understand the desire to have a house vs an apartment. I saw some show recently on China’s mega cities and some architect there designed a high rise where each floor was an actual house - and it got built too.How much something like that might cost to own though I’ve not a clue.)

Also note that the GND does include investment in public transportation. And apart from that, I don’t think there is much the federal government can/should do about sprawl. The solutions will come from the local level.

The federal government already incents sprawl. Probably there is something they can and should to to disincent it.

Does the GND involve accelerated deployment of nuclear power in the US?

Because if it doesn’t, then it’s not a real plan.

It does not, there is no mention of nuclear power at all.

Though I don’t really think arguments of the form if plan X doesn’t include preferred solution Y then it isn’t really a plan are very convincing. Rather, they’re arguments for doing nothing. Since no plan will ever meet with everyone’s satisfaction.

If you’re referring to federal highway investment then that’s something that I think Congress could, but shouldn’t, change. Otherwise you’ll need to be more specific.

The actual argument is that nuclear power offers a concrete solution to baseline power generation with zero carbon footprint, that mainstream renewables can’t match currently.

If your plan is trying to address a supposed emergency surrounding carbon emissions, and doesn’t include nuclear, then your plan is ideologically based, rather than scientifically.

Why not? If Congress shouldn’t discourage sprawl, why should Congress encourage sprawl?

Note: I am not against nuclear power.

It might have something to do with just how expensive they are to build. I don’t know if European regs are tighter than in the US (probably?) but costs would be comparable here I imagine. At any rate, even if nuclear isn’t in the GND doesn’t mean it can’t be added since it’ll probably be required as you say for baseline power.
(Frustrating the article doesn’t go into more detail.)

So why is Hinkley C so expensive?

“Nuclear power plants are the most complicated piece of equipment we make,” says Steve Thomas, emeritus professor of energy policy at Greenwich University.

“Cost of nuclear power plants has tended to go up throughout history as accidents happen and we design measures to deal with the risk.”

In comparison, the UK’s newest nuclear power station, Sizewell B, which was completed in 1995, only cost £2.3bn ($3.4bn), or £4.1bn ($6bn) at today’s prices.

No nuclear power plants have been completed in Europe this century - those that have been built in recent years are in countries such as China or India, and Thomas believes figures for these, where they exist, are not reliable.

Because I think the main problem caused by sprawl is to increase commute times. Discouraging sprawl by reducing highway funds is like discouraging smoking by not treating cancer.

This is accurate. One of the reason research for nuclear power has dried up. The costs are so high up front for building a new plant. Astronomical when compared to other power types.

I think that companies would be hesitant to invest in such a costly power solution if there isn’t some sort of government support toward nuclear power initiatives. Even if it isn’t subsidy (fucking just move coal/oil subsidies to nuclear) at a minimum some governmental guarantee that regulations won’t increase in the future, or make things even more expensive in the future.

With the costs this high, there is too much of a gamble to build a nuclear power plant right now.

But it’s over regulated, and those regulations and fear of liability issues discourage development.

But we already know that we can do it far cheaper. How do we know? Because we already did it once. Decades ago we built a ton of nuclear plants. We have a bunch in my state currently. They weren’t prohibitively expensive.

And modern reactors like the AP1000 are easier to build, and even safer.

Nuclear power offers a solution to carbon problems, and could actually achieve a zero carbon footprint in 10 years. If we agree on the problem, then nuclear has to be a big part of the solution.

(I might be misconstruing your post but interesting factoid nonetheless)

Lol yeah why would we regulate something like nuclear power plants, nanny state socialism smh

Well, I agree that building roads doesn’t always improve traffic.

But to me the root problem is traffic. Discouraging sprawl by encouraging (or not addressing) traffic is the wrong answer.

Dude, we built a ton of nuclear plants, and the only accident that ever happened after decades of operation across the entire country, was a minor incident that had zero measurable impact on anything.

The same goes for Western Europe.

The idea that it’s unsafe or too expensive flies in the face of the industry’s history.

At this point the actual plan is a plan-for-a-plan. It establishes a House Committee and a timeline for the Committee to draft legislation. It establishes broad goals for that legislation:

1. Dramatically expand existing renewable power sources and deploy new production capacity with the goal of meeting 100% of national power demand through renewable sources;
2. building a national, energy-efficient, “smart” grid;
3. upgrading every residential and industrial building for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety;
4. eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing, agricultural and other industries, including by investing in local-scale agriculture in communities across the country;
5. eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from, repairing and improving transportation and other infrastructure, and upgrading water infrastructure to ensure universal access to clean water;
6. funding massive investment in the drawdown of greenhouse gases;
7. making “green” technology, industry, expertise, products and services a major export of the United States, with the aim of becoming the undisputed international leader in helping other countries transition to completely greenhouse gas neutral economies and bringing about a global Green New Deal.

In that sense, nuclear is neither in nor out. I imagine that whatever a Committee ended up putting into legislation would depend on a lot of factors, those being effectiveness, cost, feasibility, political viability. For example, I don’t expect legislation which outlaws raising livestock and eating meat (thought that would surely be one of the most effective measures they could propose) because it would not be politically viable.

Are you opposed to a Committee to draft legislation on a particular aggressive timeline? What’s the better alternative to that?