Maybe molten-salt reactors have a lot of the features we would want? (smaller, increased safety, reduced waste, removal of existing waste and harder weapons proliferation). I canât speak to the accuracy of the article, but it definitely seems like the tech was put on the shelf prematurely in the 70âs.
https://www.knowablemagazine.org/article/technology/2019/nuclear-goes-retro-much-greener-outlook
Unfortunately, the late 1970s was not a good time for reviving any kind of nuclear program, molten salt or otherwise. Public mistrust of nuclear energy was escalating rapidly, thanks to rising concerns over safety, waste and weapons proliferation. The power companiesâ patience was wearing thin, thanks to the skyrocketing, multibillion-dollar cost of standard water-cooled reactors. And then in March 1979 came a partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, a conventional nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In April 1986, another catastrophe hit with the fire and meltdown at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine.
The resulting backlash against nuclear power was so strong that new plant construction effectively ceased â which is why most of the nuclear reactors operating today are at least three to four decades old. And nuclear power research stagnated, as well, with most of the money and effort going into ensuring the safety of those aging plants.
This is no good.
I hate ticks.
Jesus fucking christ thatâs horrifying. No quiero questing âstrandsâ of 1000 ticks hanging around waiting for someone to walk by, please. And those poor moose :(
Jesus Christ. Bled to death from ticks.
Iâve had the early symptoms of Lyme (the red bulls eye along with a pretty high fever) twice in the past five years. Ticks are such a problem now that if you find one on you and go to a Redicare (urgent walk-in medical places) they donât even bother giving you a test, they just prescribe the antibiotic for Lyme.
This sounds like a good positive step.
Al Jazeera English: US to build six nuclear power plants in India.
âIn my day, I used to go to school uphill, both ways in SNOWâ
âSnow? Haha grandpa believes in snow.â
Totally expecting that day to come, lol
An opportunity to test new (presumably safer but still taboo) reactor designs I guess.
Itâs so nice to see kids care about the environment. An example from Sydney, these protests are everywhere in Australia today and from what I understand the world as well.
A good argument for reducing the voting age to 16.
The Dutch government has proposed a carbon surcharge for the 300 largest (most emitting?) companies. The flip side is that, with elections looming, theyâve shied away from doing anything to (directly) increase costs for consumers.
This isnât a flip side. Their original plan was to tax business less and consumers moreâdespite the former being responsible for the majority of carbon emissions. There was a massive backlash against that (and rightfully so) so we ended up with the current plan.
But that cost just goes to the consumers anyway.
Kinda depends on whatâs being taxed ( i.e.elasticity of demand.)
Also any price controls
Also, incentives for business to do it better. Why should a coal plant care about reducing waste if I pay the taxes? But they might care more if they had to pay the taxes and had competition that didnât have to pay the taxes.
Hereâs a twist.
At a conference in Houston earlier this week, Gretchen Watkins, president of Shellâs U.S. division, told Reuters that methane leaks are âa big part of the climate problemâ and that she wants the EPA to establish more aggressive regulations that plug leaks. Methane, the primary component in natural gas, packs more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. (And leaks mean Shell âhas less product to sell,â Watkins wrote in a LinkedIn post).
âWe donât usually tell governments how to do their job,â Watkins reportedly said, âbut weâre ready to break with that and say, âActually, we want to tell you how to do your job.ââ