This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The job this individual was assigned to do was oversee the management of spent nuclear energy fuel. I'm totally confident that even the biggest idiot couldn't make that much worse than it already is.
The US was supposed to develop a permanent waste storage site by the 1990s. Yucca mountain was investigated for a waste storage site in 1978. Work continued for decades, into the 2010s because of ridiculous requests that waste be safely stored for millions of years. Local politicians just didn't want it at all, no matter how safe it was. The project has basically been abandoned by now after billions of dollars worth of research and engineering. The US paid and is paying tens of billions more to nuclear power plants who have to store the waste onsite because the govt couldn't be bothered to fulfill its contract supplying a permanent waste dump.
Nuclear waste management is already very dysfunctional. The policy is effectively just to squander money achieving nothing. This is a great post to put mentally ill people. Insane people, insane policy - it works out very nicely.
Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just shoot the stuff into deep space?
It's very expensive getting stuff out of Earth's orbit. Nuclear waste is very dense but also extremely heavy by space standards. It's extremely light by industrial waste standards.
My solution is - build a medium-large sized warehouse in a geologically stable desert. Put the nuclear waste into big lead boxes. Put the boxes in the warehouse. Have some guards outside watching the warehouse, cameras, barbed wire... Simple as that!
Why not just store the concrete casks outside like they are now?
Well they still need to be guarded since they could be used as radiological weapons. One central storage facility is better than 120 small facilities next to reactors, all needing guards. Concrete or lead doesn't really matter.
In fairness there's no extra overhead to storing them at active reactors because they're all required to be ridiculously well guarded anyway. It's the ones that shut down and force you to move the fuel that cause trouble, but so far they seem to just be foisting it off on still-active plants.
(Tangent, but that's something that always annoyed me about the Small Modular Reactor hype this guy was involved in. Are they going to reduce security requirements down to "if the alarm goes off my cousin Bob will drive round with his shotgun" to make them cost-effective for, like, heating steam in paper mills? Good luck pushing that one through.)
Well the USG was paying enormous sums to nuclear power plants because they breached a contract saying that they'd have the permanent waste dump ready decades ago. Apparently they charged a fee on nuclear electricity to pay for a waste dump, then didn't make it, so they have to compensate the power companies...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Policy_Act
I suppose they have to pump up those nuclear costs, can't risk nuclear energy being too affordable!
As for small modular reactors, I don't see any reason for them aside from mobility. Let's just grow up as a civilization and make large nuclear reactors properly.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
rocket blows up and you irradiate a massive area.
what we're doing now - burying it hundreds of meters deep in a salt deposit - is as future proof as you can get.
More options
Context Copy link
Anti-nuclear activists don't want to get rid of it, because they like the problem too much.
More options
Context Copy link
It costs ~$1000/kg to launch into orbit and a similar ballpark cost to launch out of orbit. So how much was being spent to not do anything about it while we argued?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link