HN user
Do we really have to engage in this level of mental gymnastics before we just genuinely look at the banking system consolidating and producing money out of thin air? Does the explanation really need to get this complex?
Your figures for China's mix are meaningless because you don't bother to mention when you think "saturation" occurs. They are on track to build far more Nuclear than 2-3% of their current mix in the next 20 years - and this is as the world's top manufacturer of solar and wind products.
It's too costly to build high speed rail in many parts of the world (California for instance). It's not because high speed rail isn't a viable solution, it's regulation.
The article you posted from sciencedirect supports this. The study points primarily to a changing complex regulation landscape as a primary driver of costs. Meanwhile, France is in an excellent position in the EU in terms of energy in large part because it stuck with nuclear instead of attempting unsuccessfully to transfer to wind and solar like some of it's neighbors (who now burn lignite to meet energy demands).
Solar panels, for instance, are mostly made in places where actual costs of construction are externalized to the environment and workers with depressed wages. Nuclear plants need to be built and decommissioned in the same place - places that are often actively hostile with complex regulation meant to curtail nuclear specifically for the sake of non-proliferation. SMRs help sidestep a portion of this hostile regulation but there are countless reactor designs that are possible that we can't even begin to explore until regulation is made reasonable.
This is under current assumptions which hinge primarily on political will and regulation - not on physics or true construction time.
The cost of nuclear is primarily from regulation/human decision making that prevents it from externalizing its costs onto the environment (decom costs, waste handling) not physics. Wind and solar are limited severely by physics and they are much more vulnerable to a changing climate. China eating its own dogfood with heavy investments in renewables is meaningful but only illuminates some of what is happening. A significant amount of this stuff is going into the ground in 25 years and it won't be handled with nearly the safety and care as waste streams from nuclear power.
You are being purposefully aggravating here because your argument is weak but it's been socially supported for some time now. Nuclear power lagged behind renewables due primarily to proliferation fears and subsequent over-regulation in most of the world, not technical flaws, missing out on innovations like modular reactors. China’s pushing ahead with 150 GW by 2030, leveraging nuclear’s advantages: it’s compact (1-4 sq mi/GW vs. solar’s 10-20), reliable, and resilient to extreme (and simply changing) weather, without reliance on rare earths or massive storage (with their own host externalizations and supply risks). Costs can drop to $50-100/MWh with new tech and long lifespans, rivaling renewables when accounting for their hidden expenses (storage, grid upgrades). Proliferation risks exist but can be managed with oversight. Nuclear remains the best bet for scalable, clean energy.
We were originally discussing offshore wind. These things have to function in some of the harshest conditions imaginable. We don't really fully understand how weather patterns will change over time with climate change. The idea that these factors won't represent serious risks to output over 50-year lifespans is delusional. We should be building modern nuclear reactors. Small scale distributed solar in sunny environments is fine - the rest of this stuff is just a massive waste.
I am suggesting it as a way to do a back of the envelope calculation that can be thoroughly checked manually. It's very easy to check the numbers yourself.
Grid scale power is being discussed here, not your house project (which is totally great)
You distribute pv and wind over large areas and they get destroyed by weather, get dirty, require significant maintenance. If individuals want to have wind turbines or pv installations that's great - but these things are a giant mess at grid scale - absolutely awful.
does hackernews sell "grassroots support" the same way reddit does? almost seems like it
the denial of capacity factor makes me want to tear my hair out
What has actually disappeared? pubmed went down for a little bit - but it's back now. What is all this about?
I did read. I think the fraction you are mentioning is quite small if it exists at all. Elon was the reason for a vast majority of the people I know voting for him - it's not even close
We aren't even in the same dimension as perfection here. It's a historically obvious phenomenon. Basically all human organizations tend toward inefficiency and waste eventually. The US government is the largest employer in the world. The reasoning would be no different if it was a corporation.
you both can't be serious
The UK seems to be actively covering up the mass rape of little girls and throwing dissidents in prison. They've sustained mass immigration for decades against their own peoples' will. The US just shook off, at least in part, the same mass immigration and the same clamping down of free speech in the US. It's not the only bar, but I would definitely consider it a resounding success. I can't help but think the 1st and 2nd amendment play a part because the 1st is obviously implicated and the 2nd is required to maintain the 1st.
Who do you know that's been arrested for posting on social media? I don't know of anyone.
it's working really well, we don't get arrested for social media posts as far as I can tell
I feel like it's working pretty great
The people advocating the "approach of surrender absolutely everything to Putin preemptively" and "people saying helping Ukraine should be avoided" are very different - and are both still pretty strong interpretations. Instead of looking at cartoonish arguments people have - what's the best argument you've come across for not supplying Ukraine with weapons? Have you heard any that seem reasonable at all to you? Which is the most reasonable?
Not sure it has to make sense. It just has to convince people long enough for people who are driving for war to get their war. Hardly any of it seems to make any sense at all.
Which people?
Seems like a great idea. What can people in the US do to facilitate this you think?
What's the best thing that can be done to reduce the risk of conflict?
In the sentence you wrote "they are not legitimately questioning the science" who decides what is legitimate questioning? You?
"I think the big thing here is not ketosis"
It is ketosis though, the benefits have proposed mechanisms of action that are directly downstream of the entirely separate ketone-based metabolic pathway.
Fast into a ketogenic diet. It greatly reduces cravings and allows you to reset to healthier foods.
They're probably close to being able to do pretty advanced real-time visualization using wifi. Several articles describing the techniques have been posted numerous times on hn. This could be the first step necessary to having basically a wallhack from counter-strike.
...until your platform becomes important enough for it to matter to people more powerful than you