New ICE Vehicles Banned in California by 2035

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

Driver monitoring is already happening, so emergency calling and/or taking them to the hospital is easy tech. Most systems just have the car pull over to the side of the road.

Eventually this argument is going to be obvious that the Autopilot tech is vastly superior. It already is. It just isn’t obvious.

It's software. Anything is possible, nothing is easy.

Let's just say that I find this argument amusing in the same way you might find it amusing if I told you all about new ER procedures and regulations and how that's going to change everything.

[mrg666]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

Saw this pop up in the news. I was kind of bummed two cities pulled out. I hope more don't pull out. I think we need to push nuclear more, and this looks promising, and if it pans out, it could revive positive perception and interest in nuclear.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/sci...ar-revolution/

Two Cities Just Pulled Out of the Tiny Reactor Nuclear Revolution

https://www.nuscalepower.com/technol...ology-overview

There are places where nuclear energy has important advantages, like a submarine, aircraft carrier, spaceship, a base on Mars or the Moon, a military base on a remote place, etc. But initial cost is very expensive for civilian/everyday use and nuclear waste is a very big problem. Plus, although safety record is not bad, dealing with an accident is horrible. Unless I live in a remote place without any other possibility, nuclear energy is the last energy source I would want to deal with.

[Sasquachulator]

Originally Posted by mrg666

There are places where nuclear energy has important advantages, like a submarine, aircraft carrier, spaceship, a base on Mars or the Moon, a military base on a remote place, etc. But initial cost is very expensive for civilian/everyday use and nuclear waste is a very big problem. Plus, although safety record is not bad, dealing with an accident is horrible. Unless I live in a remote place without any other possibility, nuclear energy is the last energy source I would want to deal with.

Japan has been using nuclear power for awhile, i think it covers over half the populations energy (not sure how much is powered by nuclear) However like you said dealing with an accident when it does happen really sucks. Its amazing that nothing serious actually happened there prior to the Fukushima incident considering the whole island is basically on an earthquake zone and they get typhoons regularly.

Nuclear seems nice and reliable, but when things go south they go south in a BAD way.

[mrg666]

Originally Posted by Sasquachulator

Japan has been using nuclear power for awhile, i think it covers over half the populations energy (not sure how much is powered by nuclear) However like you said dealing with an accident when it does happen really sucks. Its amazing that nothing serious actually happened there prior to the Fukushima incident considering the whole island is basically on an earthquake zone and they get typhoons regularly.

Nuclear seems nice and reliable, but when things go south they go south in a BAD way.

Yeah it was a horrible accident. But Japan is a prime country for nuclear energy application with very limited resources, high demand for energy, and very limited land area. Their options are limited and they need nuclear energy.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by mrg666

There are places where nuclear energy has important advantages, like a submarine, aircraft carrier, spaceship, a base on Mars or the Moon, a military base on a remote place, etc. But initial cost is very expensive for civilian/everyday use and nuclear waste is a very big problem. Plus, although safety record is not bad, dealing with an accident is horrible. Unless I live in a remote place without any other possibility, nuclear energy is the last energy source I would want to deal with.

These mini reactors essentially can’t melt down. If they lost a power source then the water would boil and evaporate, but the reaction would cool before a meltdown was possible. Disposing of nuclear waste isn’t easy, but there is so much less of it that it can be stored, where CO2 is not. We are dumping millions of tons of CO2 in the air.

https://www.nuscalepower.com/benefits/safety-features

Watch these. Nuclear fusion would obviously solve this problem, but we don’t have that yet, and I don’t know if we should be eliminating nuclear fission. There is a large investment, but it would be worth it. I would like to see a not-for-profit government utility from nuclear that provides cheap, clean energy.

[mrg666]

I didn't discount fission. And I agree that CO2 emissions need to be controlled. I think between solar, wind, geothermal, and hydrogen, fission has a place. Just that nuclear waste management and acquisition/operation costs need to be justified.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by mrg666

I didn't discount fission. And I agree that CO2 emissions need to be controlled. I think between solar, wind, geothermal, and hydrogen, fission has a place. Just that nuclear waste management and acquisition/operation costs need to be justified.

As this .gov article mentions, molten salt reactors are being considered that are not only safer, but are capable of producing less waste, and the waste from they reactors don’t last as long like a thousand years versus a hundred thousand to a million years or something. Still not great, but the shear difference in volume compared to CO2 from fossil fuels is dramatic; it is not even comparable. Solar panels don’t last forever, and I don’t know what the plan if for recycling them, so they will produce waste too as material waste.

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/s...n-salt-reactor

This article mentions one company is backed by Bill Gates, so there is some credibility by association.

https://www.terrapower.com/

The great thing is that solar and wind have dramatically come down in price, which is great. The price makes them cheaper than coal per MWh. The problem with solar and wind that is often lamented is the inconsistency with their output because when it isn’t sunny and when it isn’t windy they aren’t generating anything, which means it can take a lot more units to meet the needs of the grid. Moreover, fossil fuels can be turned up or down easy, but excess solar and wind can’t, which is one reason why we need batteries. Burning natural gas is cleaner than coal, but all of this is avoidable.

Nuclear is just a much more dependable energy source. We could store excess energy from nuclear in batteries and hydrogen fuel. This is an inconvenient truth:

A 1,000-MW solar photovoltaic (PV) facility would require about 8,900 acres (approximately 14 square miles). Accounting for a range of capacity factors (17-28 percent), between 3,300 MW and 5,400 MW of solar PV capacity is required to produce the same amount of electricity as a 1,000-MW nuclear plant in a year.

The nuclear plant might be a few acres.

I think nuclear needs to be apart of the green solution.

[Impureclient]

Originally Posted by funwheeldrive

California leads the rest of the country

LOL....in government debt, poops on sidewalk per person, income inequality, housing unaffordability, homelessness, high taxes, power problems...could go on but it's just embarrassing.

[mrg666]

Originally Posted by Impureclient

LOL....in government debt, poops on sidewalk per person, income inequality, housing unaffordability, homelessness, high taxes, power problems...could go on but it's just embarrassing.

What the nonsense are you talking about?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...orld/39295197/

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by Impureclient

LOL....in government debt, poops on sidewalk per person, income inequality, housing unaffordability, homelessness, high taxes, power problems...could go on but it's just embarrassing.

Wrong thread. There's a more appropriate thread for proclaiming CA to be the best:
https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142579

[AnalogMan]

Originally Posted by Sasquachulator

Japan has been using nuclear power for awhile, i think it covers over half the populations energy (not sure how much is powered by nuclear) However like you said dealing with an accident when it does happen really sucks. Its amazing that nothing serious actually happened there prior to the Fukushima incident considering the whole island is basically on an earthquake zone and they get typhoons regularly.

Nuclear seems nice and reliable, but when things go south they go south in a BAD way.

Even Japan is turning away from nuclear power. After the Fukushima disaster, they're closing their nuclear power plants - and replacing them with new coal fired plants:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...r-power-plants

There's no free lunch. Any and every form of energy has a cost, and consequences. Pick your poison.

[StraightOuttaCanadaEh]

IIRC people in Fukushima didn't die cause of the plant, they died cause of the earthquake and the tsunami it caused

[Sasquachulator]

Originally Posted by StraightOuttaCanadaEh

IIRC people in Fukushima didn't die cause of the plant, they died cause of the earthquake and the tsunami it caused

yeah the plant itself didnt kill the population.

nuclear is probably one of the safest and one of the most deadly plants to have. All it takes is one disaster to happen and things go REAL bad. And unlike other plants you cant just clean it up and fix it, its pretty much containment, then a slow controlled cleanup in order not to kill anyone, assuming you can actually get close enough to get it under control without the radiation killing you.

I think the Fukushima plant was made to withstand huge tsunamis already, but the one that hit it was even bigger than it was designed to withstand. One of those 1 in a thousand situations that no one can really see coming. I mean they could have designed for such a scenario from the start but based on how old the plant is and when it was designed they likely thought the current criteria was already on the high side of things.

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by StraightOuttaCanadaEh

IIRC people in Fukushima didn't die cause of the plant, they died cause of the earthquake and the tsunami it caused

The nuclear-related problem is that nobody can live there anymore, and all those people had to leave literally all of their property behind. One minute you are at work or school, the next you are a homeless refugee with nothing. Better than killed by a tsunami, but still pretty shitty and makes for a bad public image of the cause.