throw0101c

That’s an extremely rosy picture not aligned with reality.

"Chart 1- History of Residual Stranded Debt & Unfunded Liability of OEFC" seems to show a decreasing number:

* https://www.breckenhill.com/blogg.php

There is of course a lot of political history (OPC, LPC, etc) that makes the whole situation messy.

A new framework was created where this stranded debt was paid off as a forced separate line item on everyone’s bills.

The Debt Retirement Charge was $0.007 or 0.7¢ per kWh.

Can you provide a citation for the $500B? Because Carney has mentioned federal money in that amount for projects Canada-wide that include "energy" generally, but not nuclear specifically.

I did find this (potential?) $100B number on Ontario nuclear energy:

* https://archive.is/https://www.thestar.com/politics/provinci...

but if you take that number and 'ammortize' it over the average 40-year life span of reactors, it comes to $2.5B/year (in capex), which is about ~1% of the provincial budget. I'm not sure how much raw GW capacity that would add, or how many GWh would be generated annually, to do the math on the per-kWh (capex?) cost.

The article goes over the pros and cons of various points in the energy mix debate.

But its finances were completely underwater with no way out due to the debt from nuclear construction.

The debt from nuclear construction was being paid off then, just like it is being paid off right now: OEFC holds the debt and has revenue to pay it off. An article from someone who is not a fan of nuclear, but is also not a fan of Harris's non-sense:

Harris claimed Hydro was so badly in debt as to be bankrupt. This claim was proven false by the final Ontario Hydro financial report in March of 1999 which showed that $1 billion of Hydro’s debt had been paid down and was on track to be paid off in 20 years. At the time critics said: “wouldn’t we all like to have a 20-year mortgage on our home because then you have an asset that serves you well!”

* https://rabble.ca/environment/the-nuclear-power-lie/

We should be arguing that cars should not have any speakers if that’s the case.

Even speaking with passengers has been shown to increase traffic incidents:

* https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13698...

* https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3141/1899-15

* https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

It's a debate spectrum / sliding scale on how society wants to go, but at the very least one should be aware of the risk factors and be mindful of where your attention is.

Also Tim O'Neill of the History for Atheists weblog/channel:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq1ksVVeRWI

* https://historyforatheists.com/2025/04/interview-dr-ada-palm...

Other interesting interviews: the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth with Bart Ehrman and also Thomas Schmidt (using Josephus' Testimonium), the date of Christmas with Philipp Nothaft, 'pagan origins' of Easter with Andrew Henry (Religion for Breakfast channel), Tom Holland. Good weblog posts too.

Also on the Toldinstone channel:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ws87TCojyc

While most folks are aware of "the" Renaissance, there were others earlier, e.g.:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_renaissances

Ontario nuclear is cheaper than Ontario solar and wind (Table 2):

* https://fao-on.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Nuclear-Refurb...

Until a few years ago it was cheaper than methane/natural gas:

* https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-2023...

At least when it comes to refurbishment, the independent (reports to provincial parliament) FAO found:

Overall, despite near-term Nuclear Price increases, the Plan is projected to provide ratepayers with a long-term supply of relatively low-cost, low emissions electricity.

* https://fao-on.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Nuclear-Refurb...

Their projections go to 2064.

New-nuclear is worthy of discussion, but given we have stood up supply chains via the refurbishment process, there's a lot of knowledge out there. My current largest complaint with the new-nuclear plans is the SMRs.

Ontario Hydro did not go bankrupt.

It was broken up into "constituent" components in 1998, and the a lot of the nuclear plant construction financing debt didn't fit neatly into any one of them, so a separate legal entity was created: Ontario Electricity Financial Corporation (OEFC).

Ratepayers pay their electrical bills, the money goes to local utilities and entities like OPG and Hydro One, which in turn pay OEFC.

The claim that it was bankrupt was a line used by Mike Harris et co to justify privatization.

That's because the utility went bankrupt and its construction costs were absorbed onto the public debt.

Ontario Hydro did not go bankrupt.

It was broken up into "constituent" components in 1998, and the a lot of the nuclear plant construction financing debt didn't fit neatly into any one of them, so a separate legal entity was created: Ontario Electricity Financial Corporation (OEFC).

Ratepayers pay their electrical bills, the money goes to local utilities and entities like OPG and Hydro One, which in turn pay OEFC.

The claim that it was bankrupt was a line used by Mike Harris et co to justify privatization.

If you have a site that's approved for a nuclear power, there is overhead in getting that approval, but once you have a site you can roll through multiple reactors.

It's similar to the housing crisis: all this talk about pre-built components to make building homes/mid-rises/etc faster ignores all the planning approval and NIMBY objections that need to be ploughed through first.

I ride with a comm system that I play media over and trying to be reflective of my past and I don’t see it.

One risk is your focus going from what's on the road to what's coming into your ears.

This may have some useful mental aspects if you're doing a long-distance drudgery ride down Route 66 with nothing much happening in between pitstops, but it's another thing on I-5 or I-95 with all sorts of chaotic lane changes going on.

I am a bit stunned reading this.. Is this a common perspective of motorcyclists?

No.

For example, every beginner-advice thread in /r/motorcycle has a highly-upvoted comment(s) recommending ear protection, including many folks stating they wish they had started using it earlier.

And even if it is conceded that sound may not save you from other vehicles, ear pro(tection) reduces the health risk of hearing loss that would effect other aspects of your life.

Agreed. Unrelated pro-tip: wearing them while riding a motorcycle. Reduces fatigue and transforms a rough experience into almost luxurious. Highly recommended.

What kind of NRR rating, active or passive, do they have?

I wear disposable foam plugs when riding, and haven't ever considered using the AirPods I have. I find the sound of the machine part of the experience of riding and wouldn't really want to get rid of it; I treat the moto sound as a kind of white noise that's different that everything else in my life (though this is with a short-ish commute, and not long-distance drudgery).

If I wanted music or comms I would probably lean more towards ear plugs plus a Cardo/Sena unit. Or perhaps something with an official ANSI/CSA NRR rating, like Isotunes.

My point is that we are designing solutions for time scales we haven't actually been able to test over and while we have every reason to believe our solutions will work - they might not.

The design life spans of bridges are 50-75, with some going towards 75-150. But once a bridge is EOL, the need for it doesn't just go away: it needs to be replaced. And in the intervening years it needs to be maintained.

So we have finite-but-overlapping life spans of infrastructure with the implicit assumption that society/civilization will continue on existing to deal with repair, renewal, and updating said infrastructure. Used-fuel storage is no different.

And if you want to reduce the total volume, spend money on reprocessing (which is currently more expensive than digging new fuel out of the ground; only France makes an effort to do this).

Any video surveillance system is foiled by a simple mask.

Do not under-estimate the number of thieves on the left-hand side of the bell curve: if you can deal with those that's half the population that's less of a problem.

(The thieves on the right-hand side of the bell curve generally work on Wall Street and generally don't do break-and-enters.)

Ontario's Financial Accountability Office, which reports to provincial parliament and is independent of the government, concluded that at least for the refurbs:

* The FAO estimates that the Plan will result in nuclear generation supplying a significant proportion of Ontario electricity demand from 2016 to 2064 at an average price of $80.7/MWh in 2017 dollars. (For reference, the 2017 Nuclear Price is $69/MWh and the current price of electricity for most residential and small business ratepayers is $114.9/MWh.)

* The Nuclear Price will be higher than the average price of $80.7/MWh during the majority of the time that the reactors are being refurbished from 2016 to 2033. Post refurbishment, ratepayers will benefit from a lower than average Nuclear Price.

* Overall, despite near-term Nuclear Price increases, the Plan is projected to provide ratepayers with a long-term supply of relatively low-cost, low emissions electricity.

* OPG will realize a financial return from the operation of the DNGS and PNGS. OPG is owned by the Province and any return would improve the Province’s fiscal position. There is no significant fiscal impact to the Province from the refurbishment of reactors at the BNGS as it is operated by Bruce Power, a private sector organization.

* https://fao-on.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Nuclear-Refurb...

I was not able to find a similar report (pro or con) for new build, though I think the current plan with some SMRs in Ontario is dumb: if we decide on more nuclear, we should stick with big(ger) CANDU, as there's little point in small reactors in a large grid like Ontario.

Renewable programs have also cost Ontario ratepayers quite a bit of money, for not a lot of electricity generated:

* https://ospe.on.ca/advocacy/green-energy-contracts-fao-repor...

I think you mean unbelievably expensive and takes an eternity to build outside of China and Korea.

Japan was able to start construction on a new nuclear reactor and have its construction (and start commercial service) with-in five years, and did so every year from the mid-1980s to the early-2000s:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_rea...

The first unit you build will be expensive, the second less so, the third even less. Economies of scale work just as well for nuclear plants as they do for widgets: Vogtle Unit 3 was expensive AF, Unit 4 cost 30% less.

Turns out if you don't know what you're doing, things can get be expensive because you're learning lessons along the way, but if/once you do know what you're doing costs drop.

No reactor has yet even reached the operating age of 60 years. That 80 years number is wholly speculative.

Ontario's Bruce A site (Units 1-4) have an age of ~45 years, and has just finished refurbishment (ahead of schedule and under budget) to run for another few decades:

* https://www.ctvnews.ca/london/article/refurbishment-of-bruce...

Ontario's Pickering B nuclear site (Units 5-8) have an age of ~40 years, and are about to be refurbished to run another 30+ years:

* https://archive.is/https://www.thestar.com/politics/provinci...

So while the 60-80 years has not been hit, it is probably less on the "speculative" side of spectrum and more on the "probable" side.

"Cheap nuclear" is a pipe dream that has never been realized. Not even Chinese nuclear (no environmentalists there) is anywhere near as cheap as solar.

In Ontario, Canada, 50% of all power comes from nuclear and costs CAD 0.12/kWh (USD 0.08/kWh); see Table 2:

* https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-2025...

On the spectrum from "cheap" to expensive, where would that fall?

For many years it was actually cheaper than (methane/natural) gas:

* https://www.oeb.ca/sites/default/files/rpp-price-report-2023...

Do you trust that any of today's politicians will not be poor at nuclear reactor design and management?

As someone who lives in Ontario, Canada, where 50% of all electricity currently comes from nuclear power:

* https://www.ieso.ca/power-data?type=supply

I have no problem with getting more CANDU reactors (which is the current plan).

I find this to be the most frustrating aspect of the nuclear discourse. The "waste problem" is technically solved (we believe, gotta wait ~10k years to know)

It's not a 10k year problem, it's a ~300 year problem, after which most of it is at the same level as natural uranium ore; and the stuff that isn't can be blocked via aluminium foil (to stop beta particles).

The first 10-20 years post-removal are the most dangerous, and why the fuel is kept in cooling ponds. From 10-300 you still have danger, but that is manageable with concrete casts:

* https://xcancel.com/MadiHilly/status/1671491294831493120

* https://xcancel.com/ParisOrtizWines/status/11951849706139361...

Once you're past the ~300 year mark, all the most dangerous isotopes have burned away, and you're at point where the main ways of getting ill from what remains is by either eating the pellets or grinding them up and snorting the powder like cocaine.

Did waste management become a solved problem?

Yes? Just have them sit in concrete casks? It's safe enough to do a 'maternity photoshoot' with:

* https://xcancel.com/MadiHilly/status/1671491294831493120

The volumes of "waste" that is generated, given the electricity produced, is not a lot. The entirety of the US' waste created, over the course of multiple decades, can fit on single football field/pitch, ten yards/metres high (that's the actual fuel bundles: the dry casks they're stored in would increase the volume).

France is just across the border, so Orano can do reprocessing with the "waste" to reduce its volume even further if desired, and extract the unused fuel from the waste.

Then-still-independent Sun sold storage appliances, and during their development and debugging it was noticed that vibrations effected performance… by yelling at the drives:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4

Oracle and NetApp 'mutually dismissed' in 2010:

* https://www.theregister.com/off-prem/2010/09/09/oracle-and-n...

* https://www.computerworld.com/article/1585889/opinion-patent...

NetApp originally sued then-independent Sun in 2007, and Sun counter-sued.

Free/TrueNAS/iXsystems has been offering ZFS-based solutions for many years now, and I haven't heard NetApp going after them:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueNAS

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IXsystems

Maybe worth noting that TrueNAS added FIPS in 2024:

* https://www.truenas.com/blog/truenas-security-in-2024/

From a few years ago:

Five guys moving a server to a new datacenter without shutting it down. Without cutting it off from the internet. And as using a car would have been too easy, they used public transport.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ5MA685ApE (DE audio, EN subs)

See also perhaps:

The HotPlug allows hot seizure and removal of computers from the field to anywhere else. The HotPlug's patented technology keeps power flowing to the computer while transferring the computer's power input from one A/C source (such as a wall outlet or power strip) to another (a portable UPS) and back again.

* https://shop.digistor.com/products/hotplug-field-kit

* 2007 potato-quality demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erq4TO_a3z8&

It's been decades since he was in a policy position and these days he's more of a commentator, opinionator who is often wrong.

He was never in a policy position (perhaps one year under Feldstein in Reagan's CEA?).

In a 2011 paper examining talking head / pundit prediction accuracies, Krugman came out on as most accurate:

* https://www.hamilton.edu/documents/an-analysis-of-the-accura...

The Snopes article has him saying, about the article, "I was clearly trying to be provocative…". I would interpret that as being humorously contrarian.

He actually revisited the 1998 article in a 2023 NYT column:

* https://archive.ph/3fidX

* https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/opinion/internet-economy....

The productivity numbers show he wasn't as wrong, economically, as folks try to make him out to be, which point (4) goes into. The research on computers and productivity goes back decades:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox

* https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-solow-productivity-pa...

To add to this, a 2011 paper looked at the predictions of the various talking heads, and Krugman was found that he got the most right (15/17=88%):

* https://www.hamilton.edu/documents/an-analysis-of-the-accura...

Second place was 82% correct, third was 75%.

guy who predicted that the internet would be a flop

1. If you actually read the Snopes article, you'll see that his 1998 "prediction" was actually a humorous take on the Information Superhighway hoopla what was going on at the time.

2. Something else he wrote in 1998, in more serious matter, has been widely cited and was very important in the post-GFC world: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/1998/06/1998b_b...

3. If you do want to take his "prediction" seriously, he was of course wrong about the social impact of the Internet (which he has himself admitted, IIRC).

4. But if you look at the economic numbers of the productivity Internet, he was actually correct:

* https://archive.ph/DUDEw

* https://archive.ph/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2...

There are a few chapters on the growth (and lack thereof) of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_American_...