• Secretary of Energy Rick Perry Wants to Make Nuclear Cool Again
    47 replies, posted
[QUOTE=RIPBILLYMAYS;52408113]Can you take your anti-Trump glasses off for a minute and try to recognize that Perry's nuclear goals for the DOE are a good thing? [B]no, because I'll take everything any republican says about progressive things with a tablespoon of salt. This is just posturing, and in four years you'll either be lamenting how nuclear hasn't been made great again, or deluding yourself into believing it has when literally nothing has changed.[/B] What does the Secretary of Energy have to do at all with the education system? The reason I am able to study nuclear engineering in the first place is specifically because this field pays so well that I can afford taking on debt to go to college. [B]Broadened the scope of the post. If you're just gonna take what Rick 'the guy before me had a phd in theoretical physics from stanford while I hate gay people' Perry says at face value you're more naive than I thought[/B] The desire to build more than just a few plants in the South means that we might be able to stabilize our existing nuclear capacity when the old plants start going down in 10-15 years (or sooner). This is great for the industry itself but it also prevents future coal/natural gas plants from being needed to replace the old nuclear plants. [B]And you think this is gonna happen without nuclear subsidies, which Trump has spoken against before? Obama was better for nuclear energy than Trump.[/B] [editline]27th June 2017[/editline] Perry notable avoided the questions on waste/nuclear safety in the conference and instead talked about how France uses nuclear for 76% electricity. The answers to those questions are lengthy/technical and would probably confuse/worry the public so I think he did a good job diverting the question to prevent nuclear topics from becoming a political football again. [B]Or he just didn't know the answers.[/B] Reactor safety and waste management are two completely different areas in my field but if there's an issue with any one area then protestors and politicians swamp nuclear power as a whole and its problematic. [B]And you think the most emotional president and political party in the last 5000 years wouldn't just join those protestors and politicians if an unfortunate catastrophe were to happen during their reign?[/B] [/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=LAMB SAUCE;52409100]Which is piss poor, what are some Solar panels on the top of an apartment block going to do? There's no room for solar to make a real difference In a high density living future. Nuclear has way more potential for the future, since it's not reliant on weather, space, rain etc.[/QUOTE] Obviously they're not for every locale, they'd be better suited for rural/suburban areas. Particularly rural where steady, reliable connections to the grid are iffy to begin with in some regions. (rural's a good spot for wind, too, where suitable) Obviously for steady generation we can rely on nuclear, but for those moments where we can get "free" energy from the sun/wind, I say we go for it.
I hope this doesn't push hard left people further away from nuclear power just because of its association with Trump's government.
[QUOTE=squids_eye;52409504]I hope this doesn't push hard left people further away from nuclear power just because of its association with Trump's government.[/QUOTE] im pretty hard left and i think nuclear and solar and electric cars are the future. im just not naive enough to think this one statement by a hard conservative implies progressivism. like people who said that trump isnt a homophobe just cause he held a pride flag
You know what's cool? Cold Fusion.
[QUOTE=Vodkavia;52409728]Rick could do a lot more for clean energy by not being in bed with a party of climate change denial. Like think of how much more demand there would be for nuclear, solar, wind etc if more than 49% of Americans understood that climate change is both real and manmade. Him and his party's part in that embarrassing statistic is lost on no one, while this is a step in the right direction, Trump's attitude towards nuclear subsidies and the GoPs part in climate change denial more than undoes this several times over. if taking off "anti trump" glasses means being so narrow minded as to look at everything without considering important context and giving politicians brownie points for doing things that are entirely undermined by their bedfellows then nty im keeping them on.[/QUOTE] i don't rightly believe rick perry actually believes in climate change, he just believes in energy which was why he jumped into the doe position without even reading that like 75% of their budget is to maintain nuclear weapons not actual energy. it just so happens that rural voters in texas do like wind and solar even though they have long typically supported policies that disadvantage those energy sources. they do not like them for their renewable potential (as that would be admitting oil is finite) or even to save the planet (CO2 is natural or they just don't see it they usually say) they like the ability to have a massive generator of virtually free power on their property so they can tell the utilities to fuck off
[QUOTE=Sableye;52409834]i don't rightly believe rick perry actually believes in climate change, he just believes in energy which was why he jumped into the doe position without even reading that like 75% of their budget is to maintain nuclear weapons not actual energy. it just so happens that rural voters in texas do like wind and solar even though they have long typically supported policies that disadvantage those energy sources. they do not like them for their renewable potential (as that would be admitting oil is finite) or even to save the planet (CO2 is natural or they just don't see it they usually say) they like the ability to have a massive generator of virtually free power on their property so they can tell the utilities to fuck off[/QUOTE] In the FY2018, the DoE requested US$10,239m for nuclear weapons, with a total budget request of US$28,041m. So not really. [url]https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/05/f34/FY2018BudgetSummaryTablebyOrganization.pdf[/url]
10 billion on nuclear weapons! think of how much real shit like nuclear power plants you could fund with that kind of money
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;52409935]10 billion on nuclear weapons! think of how much real shit like nuclear power plants you could fund with that kind of money[/QUOTE] About one new AP1000 unit, +- a billion or two.
[quote]Now, can we agree we ought to have a conversation as a people? Intellectually engaged, not screaming at each other, and not standing up in the middle of my speeches and saying you’re a climate denier, when the fact is, I just want to have a conversation about this. Q Isn’t that what the scientists have done? SECRETARY PERRY: No, they haven’t. Because when you have a scientist like Steve Koonin who stands up and says the science isn’t settled yet, I can say, okay, well let’s have a conversation and get these guys together. In my Senate committee, I said let’s -- Senate hearing -- I said let’s have a conversation about the blue team and red team getting together and talking this out. Okay, you’re up. [/quote] how you can have any respect for this man when he says things like this is fucking baffling [editline]28th June 2017[/editline] also clean coal still going out there, amazing
[QUOTE=Silence I Kill You;52410018]About one new AP1000 unit, +- a billion or two.[/QUOTE] an extra one of these every year wouldn't be too bad at all
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;52410242]an extra one of these every year wouldn't be too bad at all[/QUOTE] Could build a lot more than one per year if you dissolved the NRC and handed its responsibilities over to the DoE's Naval Propulsion division.
[QUOTE=download;52410254]Could build a lot more than one per year if you dissolved the NRC and handed its responsibilities over to the DoE's Naval Propulsion division.[/QUOTE] Wouldn't naval propulsion be under the DoD..? I agree that the NRC needs a total overhaul or its duties passed elsewhere if were going anywhere with nuclear power
[QUOTE=download;52410254]Could build a lot more than one per year if you dissolved the NRC and handed its responsibilities over to the DoE's Naval Propulsion division.[/QUOTE] naval nuclear reactors are much smaller than civilian reactors though and have completely different purposes. theres never really going to be any reform to nuclear in this country because theres just no crisis to build nuclear power like there was in the 1970s and the 1950s
[QUOTE=Sableye;52411793]naval nuclear reactors are much smaller than civilian reactors though and have completely different purposes. theres never really going to be any reform to nuclear in this country because theres just no crisis to build nuclear power like there was in the 1970s and the 1950s[/QUOTE] Size doesn't matter when it comes to reactor licencing. [editline]29th June 2017[/editline] Purpose doesn't matter either, the nuclear side systems are essentially the same. The only difference is the steam turbine is connected to a generator instead of a propeller.
[QUOTE=download;52412414]Size doesn't matter when it comes to reactor licencing. [editline]29th June 2017[/editline] Purpose doesn't matter either, the nuclear side systems are essentially the same. The only difference is the steam turbine is connected to a generator instead of a propeller.[/QUOTE] um no the engineering challenges for the two are enourmous and very different. a powerplant is an order of magnitude larger and more complex than a ship plant, they have fuel loading and unloading routinely whereas the navy has to deal with that maybe once every few years and soon, not much at all since the new reactors are life of the sub. you can't use the same rulebook for your house to set the building code for say a business its just got different purposes
[QUOTE=Sableye;52412464]um no the engineering challenges for the two are enourmous and very different. a powerplant is an order of magnitude larger and more complex than a ship plant, they have fuel loading and unloading routinely whereas the navy has to deal with that maybe once every few years and soon, not much at all since the new reactors are life of the sub. you can't use the same rulebook for your house to set the building code for say a business its just got different purposes[/QUOTE] Those are very minor things in the whole. Scale also (again) means jack shit. The safety features on both should be the same, only on the larger reactors they need to be larger in scale. It also does not apply to SMRs that are the same size as naval reactors. [editline]29th June 2017[/editline] Larger =/= more complex. Just because the Navy only refuels a reactor every few decades doesn't mean they're unfamiliar with the safety procedures to do so.
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