She was always keeping a moderate tone, always leaning towards supporting China and the Chinese state as well. I thought she’d skip around the censors because of it.
Arcturus
- 0 Posts
- 10 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: July 2nd, 2023
You are not logged in. If you use a Fediverse account that is able to follow users, you can follow this user.
It’s not profitable. For example, in Sweden, the companies involved aren’t interested. There was talk of EDF being restructured a couple of years back separating the unprofitable nuclear away from their other businesses (until state bailout and investment). Their CFO resigned over their decision to carry on building UK’s latest nuclear powerplant. The Conservatives only pushed through the UK’s next nuclear powerplant only after giving EDF assurances and ability to start taking in profits before the completion of the project.
This is what it takes to build nuclear. A lot of state money… Whereas renewables are cheaper, easier, and faster to decarbonise.
But it’s not the general public who is averse to nuclear, they’re as a whole, probably more in favour of it. The current Swedish governmrnt campaigned on it. It’s nuclear companies themselves who don’t want it. Which is partially why Sweden suddenly and quietly scrapped their plans.
Sweden’s approach is over.
They have no targets, the industry isn’t interested, and the government’s analysis has been based on nothing.
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/Q70mzQ/regeringen-svanger-om-karnkraftsreaktorerna
So, you’re going to build a powerplant, that people don’t want to fund, that governments are reluctant to build? You’ll need to create a government agency responsible for the design and planning, another responsible for training new powerplant workers, another one for the decommissioning process, and another for insurance, and another as a safety watchdog, which might come online in a decade if you’re lucky, or closer to two decades if you’re not, only for it to not be as effective as renewables, be a constant drain on taxpayers, not be entirely reliable, and be more expensive as an energy source than renewables. Sure, good luck with that plan. I wish you well garnering political and academic support with that. In the meantime, universities, companies, and governments will generally avoid it like the plague. Unless or course, there’s a nuclear industry that already exists and needs to be subsidised, or a military nuclear requirement to keep the talent and designs ongoing.
You’re deliberately going to build nuclear, ignore studies telling you that renewables decarbonise faster. Because you want to decarbonise. Only for your personal opinions, backed by the fossils and mining industry? You’re going to give the fossil industry a lot of money over the first 10 years of absolutely nothing happening.
I will add, the election promises the conservative Swedes have made seem to have disappeared. How convenient.
The point of making a profit, is so that you can re-invest and allow private industries into the market.
If I made you a loaf of bread, which took 15 mins, and you could sell it for $2 profit. You would be able to sell more pieces of bread correct?
If another person made you a loaf of bread, which took three days to complete, and you make a loss of $10 with each one sold, how many more pieces of bread are you willing to sell?
One feeds your population, the other has to be bailed out by the government, and everyone loses money and investment and time.
This is why China prioritises renewables, renewables are considered superior to nuclear when decarbonising the grid, and the best case scenario for nuclear, according to scientists in academia (as opposed to pro-nuke Youtube videos), requires nuclear to be a minor player in a majority renewables grid (and also be 25% cheaper). Unfortunately making nuclear cheaper, is not ideal.
The pro-nuke argument is literally funded by the mining lobby and the fossil fuels industry. Which is why most of their resources are from lobby groups, YouTube videos, public books, and TED talks… Because they know it’s going to be ineffective, and they only need to convince the public. Much like how the whole hydrogen-powered cars narrative is going, or environmentally friendly fuels. It’s an expensive distraction.
See the RAB that the UK has for the HPC nuke plant build. Companies are allowed to make a profit even before the powerplant is completed. The government will handle insurance, and decommissioning. Which, happens over a century, at taxpayers expense, and it produces no energy. There’s also the storage of radioactive material. All of this, uses money and resources that could otherwise be used for constructing renewables (and the fossil fuels industry loves this plan, because every moneypit nuke plant that is constructed, less renewables are built, and fossils gets to remain in the game because they then become only just one of the underperformers, rather than all), decarbonising the grid (faster, see study), and on top of that, everybody makes money.
But don’t worry, renewables are also cheaper and more profitable than fossils in most applications as well, so they’ll lose out on future energy projects, besides, like in Germany’s case, being used as a backup.
If you’re constantly pouring money into a loss-making industry, it means you’re not efficiently managing your resources to build more projects. Profits from renewables can be reinvested before a single plant can’t be constructed. And that nuclear plant, will never make enough profit to build another.
So, you’re going to spend, billions, to build a nuclear powerplant, that will decarbonise at a slower rate, never turn a profit, be an economic sinkhole megaproject, or, you could just build a solar panel or wind turbine in like, a year, where it’ll be functional and working. Profits allow you to reinvest into more projects. Losses, mean you’re putting endless amounts of money into less.
Poor track record with safety (not talking about the big issues such as meltdowns, but smaller issues such as minor leaks, and workplace incidents). Nobody’s interested in building them unless they’ve got profit guarantees and subsidies from the government. Nobody’s interested in insuring them in full (unless it’s the government). Nobody’s interested in the eventual decommissioning process, which can take a century, and again, still costs. Renewables will be up and running, and profitable, long before nuclear is constructed.
Because it’s not enough.
She wasn’t enough.
She doesn’t fit the box perfectly.
And she was too popular to ignore.