Utopia Talk / Politics / Do you still fear Germany?

Daemon Member	Sun Jan 15 09:27:22 German police in action: http://twi...lot/status/1614548180057862146
Daemon Member	Sun Jan 15 09:36:42 Background http://edi...otests-climate-intl/index.html Germany plans to destroy this village for a coal mine. Thousands are gathering to stop it
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Jan 15 11:24:08 I fear the war you have waged in your own energy infrastructure and by virtue of connectivity the European grid. I also fear how you have actively tried to sabotage Nuclear energy at the EU level. Once again a german cult is bleeding Europe, trying to pay an old debt.
Rugian Member	Sun Jan 15 11:30:16 Germany quite simply is not capable of being normal. They just swing from one extreme (uber-chad sigma Nazi geociders) to another (effete, nihilistic, pedophilia-tolerating weaklings).
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Jan 15 11:30:37 As for the OP, you wanted this. You closed down your reactors and sucked gas out of putin pipes. That bet didn’t age well and you have learned nothing. Nuclear energy is the only energy source that can be strategically sourced entirely from western countries. Both wind and solar rely on China. I am sure China is different from Russia. Totally.
murder Member	Sun Jan 15 11:35:46 "German police in action:" It's like a Three Stooges episode.
murder Member	Sun Jan 15 11:37:49 "Both wind and solar rely on China. I am sure China is different from Russia." Why? Do they have magic solar and wind dust in China?
Rugian Member	Sun Jan 15 11:44:11 Murder Not magic dust, just a lot of it. China has a huge quantity of both land and shoreline.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Jan 15 11:57:19 Murder Yes in children’s language we can say that China has almost all the magic wind and solar dust that wind turbines and PV panels need to operate.
Paramount Member	Sun Jan 15 13:06:15 Why are they standing in the mud and not on the green grass? It doesn't look very professional.
murder Member	Sun Jan 15 15:23:08 "Why are they standing in the mud and not on the green grass? It doesn't look very professional." Because that wouldn't be nearly as funny.
murder Member	Sun Jan 15 15:38:20 "Yes in children’s language we can say that China has almost all the magic wind and solar dust that wind turbines and PV panels need to operate." There are rare earth element deposits outside of China.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Jan 15 17:48:41 Murder There is oil and gas outside the middle east yet it didn't nullify it's value as strategic leverage. So in principle it isn't as meaningful as you think. But it isn't the rare earths alone, despite 90% of neodymium used in the permanents magnets coming from China - most of the production and supply chain is Chinese. Wind and solar already suck in an anemic way, building an entire new supply China independent of China, will make them suck even more as they become more expensive.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Jan 15 18:07:31 We can build and design nuclear just fine and Australia and Canada have something like 50% of the worlds Uranium production. Nuclear is, among other things, the most strategically sound source of electricity. The more you look into this, the more obvious it is that nuclear is the only real option for decarbing and electrifying. 1. Lots of power on demand. 2. Low resource and space usage, far more sustainable than wind and PV. 3. By far the highest energy return on energy invested of the fossil free energy source 4. We can do it without china, Russia or the ME
Sam Adams Member	Sun Jan 15 23:00:29 It is amazing that germany paid money to retire their nuke plants early... in exchange for russian gas... and then when that got cut off... instead of rebuilding the nuke plants... destroyed their own villages to get new coal mines! The worst and dirtiest of all fuels! This is one of the greatest examples of national stupidity in history.
Sam Adams Member	Sun Jan 15 23:02:28 "The more you look into this, the more obvious it is that nuclear is the only real option for decarbing and electrifying." Correct. This was obvious 15 years ago to any competent physics student. Alas, the left wing anti-nuclear movement has really fucked that up.
murder Member	Mon Jan 16 02:48:07 "instead of rebuilding the nuke plants... destroyed their own villages to get new coal mines! The worst and dirtiest of all fuels!" I'm assuming that has to do with how fast they can get them going, because otherwise it makes no sense.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Jan 16 04:04:56 That would make sense if on the back end of ransacking their countryside they were keeping the reactors they do have? If they had not kept trying to sabotage nuclear at the EU level LAST SUMMER. Yes indeed, Germany was as late as this summer trying to stop EU money to go towards developing nuclear. Germany just never learns, they are that annoying friend you have, you know they discovered something new that they like and now EVERYBODY in your friend group needs to so it. First it was cross fit, then hating jews and not it is hating nuclear.
Rugian Member	Mon Jan 16 10:30:07 "Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was removed Sunday by police along with other protesters as they demonstrated against the razing of the German village of Lützerath for the expansion of a coal mine. Thunberg did not comply with a police request to leave the area, prompting officers to physically escort her away, German media outlet Bild reported. Thunberg was among a group of activists still at the site on Sunday, the newspaper said. Climate activists have been squatting in the village in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia for more than two years to protest its demolition to accommodate an extension of the Garzweiler coal mine. Thunberg joined them on Saturday, telling a large rally in the fields outside Lützerath that the German government’s compromise deal with the owner of the coal mine was “shameful." According to the police, nine activists were taken to the hospital, Bild reported. More than 70 police officers have been injured in the operation to clear demonstrators from the site, the newspaper said." http://www...e-from-lutzerath-protest-site/
Daemon Member	Mon Jan 23 10:28:44 Don't blame me, I wrote here before that I didn't want to close our nuclear plants prematurely.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Jan 23 10:42:44 They shouldn't be shut down at all Damon and you should build more. But I do note that you are not insane like your Green party. The energy infrastructure that you need does not exist, no one has built it and given the material needs and ultimately constraints that the rush to solar/wind will (already is) lead to, no one ever will without de-industrializing in the process. And all the materials that go into solar/wind have other uses with increasing demand as they are used in a bunch of fossil free technologies. The grid that nuclear needs already exists and all the expertise and materials can be sourced without Russia, China or Saudi Arabia. We can start by stop calling them "renewables" fundamentally the term violates thermodynamics and more practically there is nothing renewable about the materials that go into them.
Daemon Member	Mon Jan 23 10:55:33 Well, our plan was to run for a few decades with gas plants while slowly building up wind and solar power. Russia was earning billions that way, I'm still surprised they like imperialism more than capitalism, but what do I know. Building new nuclear plants was no option given the mood of the population, it wasn't just the Green party. Remember that it was chancellor Merkel who changed her position on nuclear energy after the Fukushima nuclear accident. The position of many Germans was "if not even the Japanese are able to safely operate a nuclear plant, no one is", Germans have a lot of respect for Japanese technology.
Daemon Member	Mon Jan 23 11:18:12 But we still do fusion research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X
Paramount Member	Mon Jan 23 11:18:46 But there are no earthquakes or tsunamis in Germany, so it should be fairly safe.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Jan 23 12:45:35 Daemon How does the German people feel about Japan’s complete 360 on nuclear?
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Jan 23 15:05:31 It would not have matter if Russia hadn’t invaded Ukraine, the material problems of wind/solar are rooted in the physics. Copper, cobolt, neodymium, dysprosium lithium, silica and more. All these materials are used in solar and/or wind batteries the electrical infrastructure that goes with them and everything else we love like WTBs gay electric scooters, the EVs that his hate fuck Elon Musk is building, computers, phones, chemical industry, plumbing, jet engines and the list goes on. All these materials exotic like neodymium or common like copper are projected to have shortfall in the coming decade and those calculations _do not_ include the entire world building PV panels and wind turbines.
Seb Member	Tue Jan 24 04:31:27 Daemon: ""if not even the Japanese are able to safely operate a nuclear plant, no one is", Germans have a lot of respect for Japanese technology." That is unfortunate as the plant in question was actually entirely American technology. The reactor and containment structures were designed by GE (and not well - interesting story, the regulator was bounced into approving the design as it was already under construction and engineers in both the regulator and GE quit over the design because they felt it was not fit for purpose). And Japan built the plant itself as a slavish copy of the layout - including location of backup power supplies for cooling below ground level - based on the layout of a plant somewhere in the US well away from the coast. They did all this for much the same attitude you describe: post war, the Japanese view was "The Americans beat us, so everything they do must be totally awesome and beyond question". The number 1 lesson from the Fukushima disaster is that "It must be good/bad because he did it" is a really poor heuristic.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Jan 24 04:59:03 Yea, I don’t believe for a second that had any material weight beyond the fear aspect. I mean considering that it was the deadliest earth quake in recent Japanes history, a phenomena totally absent in German risk assessment. I maintain that this issue, like so many others, have become almost completely detached from the physical world and engineering realities and turned into a theological one. The good news is that the Japanese have come full circle, atleast 33 reactors are coming back, improved and more resiliant. So the question now is when will Germany come to its’ senses? It is especially aggravating considering they have used their massive influence in the EU to ruin nuclear for everyone else as well. Progress has been made, but it slow and still ambigious. This is important because market dynamics are down stream of policy that allows subsidies and state money to go towards one type of energy and not another.
Seb Member	Tue Jan 24 07:20:57 Nim: You might take the view that "If Japan, another industrial country with superb engineering, cannot design three things to account for black swan events, what chance do we?". And that is exacerbated by the primary, secondary and tertiary containment *all* failing even though they are explicitly designed - and the entire point of them existing at all - to deal with the situation where for whatever reason the core melts down. Sure, Germany doesn't get earthquakes that might knock out heating and cause the core to melt down - but it does get storms, floods, heatwaves, terrorists etc etc. that could also potentially do that. The lesson people could reasonably take away from Fukushima without detailed knowledge is "supposed tolerances for black swan events aren't good enough and the safety systems don't work as advertised". Certainly, building for a 1 in 1000 year event for a plant with 50 years lifespan works out at a 5% chance of occuring and is clearly not good enough. Truth of the matter is, the Fukushima plants were not safe. They were never safe. They had a 5% chance of utterly catastrophic failure. All the assurances given by designers and operators abs engineers on their safety were utterly wrong and incompetent. It was just lucky that an event that had a 1 in 20 chance of happening at some point during the plants lifetime hadn't happened. So sure, the key point here is that the reactor containment was incredibly poorly designed, the layout of the plant was poorly designed etc. But it still leaves open a reasonable fear "we don't think our institutions and regulators are up to ensuring this technology is safely deployed, even if technically it ought to be possible". That's fatalistic in my view. But it's not an unreasonable view to come to.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Jan 24 08:17:47 ”cannot design three things to account for black swan events, what chance do we?” An event with limited damages and how many dead? Almost zero. The risk assessment is one of public sentiment not any real calculations. This the problem. And earth quakes and tsunamis in areas that have earth quakes and tsunamis are not ”black swan events” they are neither rare or totally unpredictable. But funny enough one of the points of Taleb is the undue importance that people place on black swan events, hence the name fooled by randomness. This then leads to distorted preceptions and decision making based on rare and random events. Like the German and Japanese reaction to Fukushima one would think. But since Fukushima was totally avoidable and neither earth quake or tsunamis rare and unpredictable, it would be incorrect to equate the . It is just ordinary mundane irrational human behavior absent actual facts, data and priors.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Jan 24 08:46:51 "But it's not an unreasonable view to come to." It depends on what you mean with unreasonable. I understand that some people will reach this conclusion and the mechanism behind it, but I do not believe it is a reasonable conclusion in the scientific sense. That is when you look at all the facts and review the pros and cons of all energy source holistically, and take into account that the nuclear industry has since and after every incident made significant improvements in safety and emergency preparedness. Things you do not expect from the masses, but certainly from policy makers who have experts at their disposal and can commission reports, people we pay to be reasonable and rational.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Thu Jan 26 08:36:31 Alright, Swedish state owned utility company Vattenfall has applied for building new reactors. 2800 megawatts of small modular reactors at Ringhals. There is no time like now to neat repeat mistakes and join in on the momentum created.l
Paramount Member	Thu Jan 26 08:58:26 I read that they have applied for investigating whether to build or not. A decision whether they will build or not will come after they are done with da investigation.
Seb Member	Thu Jan 26 11:05:22 Nim: "An event with limited damages" The capital destroyed in the plant along runs to billions. The amount spent on disaster response is something like $82bn. Yes, the number of dead is low, but the cost is far from zero. And before you say that the cost of disaster response is low because safety standards are too high (which is an argument I've seen several make) - compare to e.g Goiana incident. There are health impacts from radiation exposure - so you do need to do the containment and clean up. The best thing to do is contain a melted core in the containment structure (primary or secondary) - the failure of those hardly creates confidence when experts say "well yes, but an EPR can take a plane flying into it". "And earth quakes and tsunamis in areas that have earth quakes and tsunamis are not ”black swan events”" I agree, but it's unhelpful that a lot of people arguing for nuclear safety argued strongly this was a very rare and unprecedented earthquake (in context, not so much!) - but the biggest issue that has most merit isn't that the plant layout was inadequately risk assessed. It was that the regulatory regime allowed that. And for both primary and secondary containment to fail is also terrible. That wasn't a risk assessment issue. The whole *point* of the containment structure is to prevent a core that *does* melt down from releasing radioactivity into the environment. Again, this was supposed to be the designed in safety. I can see why that would fatally undermine confidence in nuclear power which is actually pretty dangerous, and is made safe through rigorous (some say too rigorous) safety being designed in. But if you don't *trust* those designs and regulations because they demonstrably failed, that's hard to overcome. Yes, Fukushima was avoidable - the point is it was supposed to have been avoided. So when someone says "our plants are safe from having a jet liner flown into them" - how many people are actually in a position to trust and believe those assurances Vs how many will look at Fukushima and say "well, they also said that plant was safe to build in an earthquake zone, and the designer said that even if the core melted down it wouldn't result in radioactive release because of the designed in safety, and that turned out not to be true". As for policy makers, well, we live in a democracy and sometimes a policy is just not something the electorate wants. That said, pushing to exclude nuclear from the EU green energy framework and the impact that had on the French fleet was an act of stupidity. "2800 megawatts of small modular reactors at Ringhals." Excellent news! SMRs are the way
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Thu Jan 26 12:21:20 The capital destroyed in the plant along runs to billions. The amount spent on disaster response is something like $82bn.” They were anti nuclear to begin with and Fukushima just became another brick in the wall. It is a kinda pointless line of discussion, Germans had already decided to get rid of the reactors in the 80’s. And I do not believe for a second that concearned green and renewable friensly constituents cared at all about capital costs and clean up. Beaides these numbers all look staggering until you levelize them and look at the costs of other source. The only difference is the shock factor, the trauma. This becomes completely moot since the people who suffered the damages, the Japanes, they came to their senses. Hence my question to Daemon, are the Germans looking to Japan now as well? Of course not, which brings me full circle to this being ideologically driven and more a question of theology. “As for policy makers, well, we live in a democracy and sometimes a policy is just not something the electorate wants. That said, pushing to exclude nuclear from the EU green energy framework and the impact that had on the French fleet was an act of stupidity. “ Well when I suggested that politics was the hurdle to nuclear, I believe you said I was parochial. There is nothing provincial about the largest economy in the EU sabotaging development of nuclear power for everyone else. When I say that German’s view energiewende as a way to repay their nazi debt, sure not every German, but that is a strong prevailing narrative, not something I am making up to ridicule. They have invested their nation’s soul into it. I find that very problematic, because there is no way to reason with people about articles of faith central to their religion.
Seb Member	Mon Jan 30 04:13:50 Nim: Political consensus in society emerges as much when one side finds nobody willing or able to cheerlead it because it costs political capital for no political return. If it becomes too difficult to advance positive arguments or address criticisms, then policies get dropped. Nuclear, or rather conventional nuclear, suffers because it splits the green vote (with pro nuclear greens being a minority) and after Fukushima and Chernobyl it is harder to explain why nuclear plants can be made very safe *and* that this time, you can trust the experts. On top of that it comes with a huge upfront price tag, spending tends to be highly concentrated in terms of who benefits from the construction contracts, and takes ages to materialise. So not great retail politics either. This is how things work in a democracy. The result - a consensus where everyone knows that nuclear is not the way, because no serious politicians is challenging it. This is not theology, this is just what happens in a democracy when you can't find someone willing to expend the capital to argue the other side. So yeah, sure, Green policy makers probably don't care about the exact price tag - but they do care that the land around Fukushima is polluted in a way that is slow and difficult to fix. They have reached the (wrong) conclusion that nuclear is a dirty and polluting technology to persist with based on obsessing about the long lived nature of the waste and risk of accidents. But it is a mistake to think that it is ideological for ever green voter or the Germany public as a whole. This consensus view is largely a consequence of perfectly rational decisions by others to give up trying to contest this point.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Jan 30 04:51:16 “Political consensus in society emerges as much when one side finds nobody willing or able to cheerlead it because it costs political capital for no political return.” “This is how things work in a democracy.” This is tragic and part of the reason I have lost faith in the process. “This is not theology” This is wrong. ”The political party The Greens (German: Die Grünen) sprung out of the wave of New Social Movements that were active in the 1970s, including environmentalist, anti-war, and anti-nuclear movements which can trace their origin to the student protests of 1968. Officially founded as a German national party on 13 January 1980 in Karlsruhe, the party sought to give these movements political and parliamentary representation, as the pre-existing peoples parties were not organised in a way to address their stated issues.” -wiki Notice this is before Chernobyl. Seb, we agree on a lot of things and something things we disagree on fundamentally , but for whatever reason you are on this misguided and misinformed quest to defend the indefensible, under the assumptions that I am trying to paint the greens as worse than they are or inflame the discussion that really has a rational and logical resolution. You are simply wrong.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Jan 30 05:27:28 Anti-nuclear power movement literally sprang out of the anti-nuclear weapon sentiment. Because people thought they were the same thing or close enough. This perfectly encapsulates the illiterate and anti-scientific way in which religious dogmas take shape. We are in a sense lucky that we can trace this dogma back in history in some detail.
Seb Member	Mon Jan 30 06:11:00 Nim: You are conflating a narrow number of greens with the majority of the German electorate. It would not matter if there were some greens that were anti-nuclear - the reason their position has been adopted as the consensus is due to the increasing political difficulty in making the case for nuclear and not enough people wanting to do that. And - I have to say - a certain arrogance on proponents that rely heavily on "Science says it is safe, you are ignorant and foolish" which is undermined heavily when plants like Fukushima which are also supposedly safe, turn out not to be. If you campaign as though the people you wish to convince are a narrow set of ideologues, you end up looking less convincing to them than the ideologues. As for the anti-nuclear green movement, yup, nuclear weapons are part of it too. But to pretend Chernobyl was not a tipping point that both made them look prescient and also made it impossible for pro-nuclear greens (even as the movement took off) to argue nuclear was essential for climate change is just far too reductionist. It's not like Green policy was set in 1968 and has never changed since. Basically, as someone pro nuclear energy, I despair that some of the loudest voices pushing for nuclear are folks like yourself - this is absolutely not the way to get policy change. Like it or not, the German population are convinced that nuclear is dangerous. "You are all religious idiots" isn't going to make them change their mind. Instead it makes it look like you have nothing to address the points put against it. In short you act like you want the fight, not the outcome. And when you aren't getting what you want you say things like: "This is tragic and part of the reason I have lost faith in the process." The problem is that you are engaging in the process wrong. One of the wisest bits of advice I ever got when transitioning from a science career to a policy one: "sometimes, often in fact, convincing someone to do something isn't the same a convincing them they are wrong and you are right".
Daemon Member	Sun Feb 05 12:38:29 January energy chart: http://www...nth&month=01&year=2023&exp=tcs You may want to go back month by month and look at France.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Feb 05 13:27:19 We have done this for a few weeks and the first time, you told me this problem I was pointing to was somehow exclusive to Sweden, I think you now agree thanks to Germany it infests the entire EU. You even give me that democracy of the fearful and illiterate masses together with the political cost/profit calculus complicates what are essentially engineering issues i.e what kind of a energy infrastructure is best for us given our provincial and global circumstances. It is the final line to walk here, the green movement either the driving force or a force that taps into the insecurities and fears of the broader uneducated/unaware voters, is a major hurdle. And it is't just Sweden and Germany, you can easily find the list of all the western nations that in one way or another banned nuclear power based on the same type of poorly reasoned arguments that ultimately come from resistance towards nuclear weapons. But you fail to internalize your own error and admit that you are wrong about the driving force being the market and costs, that these arguments are post fact and ad hoc, that it is in fact political and social sentiment. When I finally show you that the religious creed is established long before any accidents rooted in the exact kind of conflating illiteracy that goes with religious beliefs trying to explain how the world works, what do you do? "It's the fault of people like you for ridiculing the religious nutbags' silly beliefs!". Classic victim blaming. But it is still ok for you to ridicule your political opponents as cargo cultists. Clown face much? Anyway, you conceded when you wrote "This is how things work in a democracy". I know how democracy malfunctions, now go find the thread where you are parroting the talking point of various green parties "it isn't political, the markets don't want nuclear". I am not going to explain why Chernobyl is an even dumber example than Fukushima. So I will show you this tweet by Craig Mazin that created the HBO show (himself pro nuclear) admonishing a Swedish minister on twitter who watched the show and thought it was some kind of nail in the coffin of nuclear power. In her defense though, unlike you, she is dumb on paper, does not have a PhD in physics. https://twitter.com/Ivarpi/status/1575726689635553280/photo/2
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Feb 05 14:00:11 The summary is: There is no good faith dialogue to be had with people who are ideologically hostile towards something and then lie about what motivates them. People who use political power to make their ideology a self fulfilling prophecy. People who use traumatic but complex events to play the harp of fear and doom, but then when all is said and done, with a straight face will tell you, wasn’t me, it was the market.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Feb 05 14:14:55 “this is absolutely not the way to get policy change.” And yet this is exactly how the last decades left/green wave have been pushing their agenda, be it ridiculing white people, straight men or nuclear power. Name the issue. And what makes this a comedy, as I mentioned earlier, you yourself have been engaging in that ridicule. Different when you do it?
Dukhat Member	Sun Feb 05 14:23:00 Poor straight men. What an opressed group.
murder Member	Sun Feb 05 14:37:47 "People who use political power to make their ideology a self fulfilling prophecy." That's literally everyone.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Feb 05 15:13:22 lol Dickbot doesn't even read the context I am responding to he just crawls posts like a script written by a 13 year old and produces incoherent oppression tweets. I am actually saying that the ridiculing tactics worked for the left... well what is good for the goose is good for the gander. And that seb is a hypocrite putting on some bizzare outraged preformance lol "as a proponent of nuclear power". Well, as the proponent of equality... As an immigrant from a muslim country.... As the opponents of racism... Imagine if I had used lazy emotional shit like that with seb across the many topics he has ridiculed his opponents as everything from nazis to "walking in to the backstory of the handmaiden's tale". Pathetic.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Feb 05 15:18:19 All of this so that he does't have to admit that I was right when I said it was political while he was busy writing walls of nonsense about supply chain and reactor design. You next post should start with "you were correct, politics sunk nuclear power, politics is holding it back." If not you are wasting your time, I will ignore.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 06 08:46:24 Nim: And yet - as I have pointed out - where is the pro-nuclear faction stridently demanding building of more nuclear plants? There is a reason that they don't have an effective lobby group, and every other part of the energy sector does. It's because actually the tech on the market isn't that good and there isn't a lot of people who are furiously trying to ensure they have the opportunity to invest in it. It is not a malfunction: lots of people (for whatever reason) do not like a thing - and very few other people care about it. It would be different if a lot of other people cared about it.
Daemon Member	Mon Feb 06 09:02:17 "All these materials exotic like neodymium or common like copper are projected to have shortfall in the coming decade and those calculations _do not_ include the entire world building PV panels and wind turbines." http://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00001-6#%20 "Global decarbonization of the electricity generation sector over the next three decades will necessitate the construction of substantial new infrastructure such as wind and solar farms, hydroelectric generating stations, and nuclear power plants. Such infrastructure contains substantial quantities of materials, from bulk commodities like steel and cement to specialty metals like silver and rare earth metals. Our estimates of future power sector generation material requirements across a wide range of climate-energy scenarios highlight the need for greatly expanded production of certain commodities. However, we find that geological reserves should suffice to meet anticipated needs, and we also project climate impacts associated with the extraction and processing of these commodities to be marginal. Due to varying material intensity of different power generation technologies, technological choices strongly influence the spectrum of future material requirements."
Seb Member	Mon Feb 06 11:16:00 Nim: "I am not going to explain why Chernobyl is an even dumber example than Fukushima." This is the midwits view. The reason Chernobyl happened was literally because soviet industry and regulators (or what passed for them) could not admit how their plant might be flawed and suppressed those flaws so they could get on with building the plant. The reason Fukushima happened is literally because American industry and regulators could not and would not admit their plant might be flawed, and suppressed knowledge of those flaws so they could get on with building the plant. And your proposed answer to this is... tell everyone it is stupid to worry about nuclear power.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 06 11:19:39 Ironic you use the writer of the drama - because the drama hits the nail on the head. It's less the physical technology that matters and more the social technology around it that lets you trust that the physical technology actually does what it is supposed to do and hasn't had it's flaws suppressed to support corporate interests. You do not build trust by telling everyone else they are idiots to not trust you. And when you look around and see on the one hand a bunch of Greens rabbiting on about how nuclear is really dangerous, and on the other side... not very many people at all willing to push for the technology (because it's far too expensive and cumbersome for most industrial concerns) - what conclusions do you draw?
Seb Member	Mon Feb 06 11:20:10 Democracy isn't flawed here - the problem is that conventional nuclear technology is: it's too big to scale.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 06 11:22:04 "All of this so that he does't have to admit that I was right when I said it was political while he was busy writing walls of nonsense about supply chain and reactor design." Back to front, if there wasn't these huge supply chain and finance issues that made the technology basically highly commercially unattractive, then people would be willing to expend the political capital to push for it as a feasible solution. Because it is not that feasible, nobody wastes their time expending political capital and financial resources pushing for it.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 06 11:24:21 Nim: "There is no good faith dialogue to be had with people who are ideologically hostile towards something and then lie about what motivates them" *Sigh*. Politics does not work with one faction persuading the other faction their paradigm is right. It works by one faction persuading the bulk of the population that they are right. If your advocacy is aimed at the "other side" you are wasting your time and doing democracy wrong.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 06 11:26:46 I mean even the fucking French couldn't be bothered to burn the political capital needed within the EU structures to insist on a carve out or opt-out on the renewables energy directive. They found it easier to increase maintenance cycles and build a bunch of wind-turbines anyway. What does that tell you?
Rugian Member	Mon Feb 06 11:30:29 "You do not build trust by telling everyone else they are idiots to not trust you. Now then, inject these experimental drugs into your body or else we'll call you idiots for not trusting us."
Seb Member	Mon Feb 06 11:32:14 tl;dr the politics is a symptom of conventional fission reactors being designed into a parameter space where they are a very bad product/market fit for energy generation while also being extremely well engineered. As a result nobody is willing to invest the necessary political capital in addressing attacks on the industry from green groups and building the necessary levels of trust to win over sceptical public that the technology can be managed safely. And at the same time a bunch of emotionally stunted techies think they are helping when they push argument forward like: * Nuclear power is being blocked because of excessive safety regulation, we should reduce it * Actually, Fukushima and Chernobyl were not that bad * Radiation isn't dangerous, low level exposure can actually be healthy (this is actually a thing and there is some evidence for it) None of these things help convince the public - it makes you look like e.g. the cigarette companies marketing campaigns in the face of growing evidence of the damage smoking does.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 06 11:35:40 Rugian: "You do not build trust by telling everyone else they are idiots to not trust you. Now then, inject these experimental drugs into your body or else we'll call you idiots for not trusting us." Exactly. The countries most successful at tackling vaccine hesitancy did not do that. The problem is you are a very online person and what you are mostly exposed to is culture warriors attacking each other; not effective public health campaigns that absolutely did not lead with "you the sceptical or hesitatnt audience are an idiot anti-vaxer". Some may have ridiculed the idiot anti-vaxxer or portrayed them as tragic or malevolent figures in order to discredit them - but generally that is not how they go.
Rugian Member	Mon Feb 06 11:55:54 "The problem is you are a very online person and what you are mostly exposed to is culture warriors attacking each other" Huh? I was talking about people like my own president as well as a multitude of European and Oceanic leaders who said exactly that. "The unvaccinated are idiots, and those who insist on non-compliance should expect to become second-class citizens." Its a refrain we heard again and again. This isn't some online culture warrior bs ffs.
murder Member	Mon Feb 06 13:06:03 "The unvaccinated are idiots" Stupid and self-centered.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Feb 06 16:25:51 Seb Ignored.
Rugian Member	Mon Feb 06 16:34:16 ^ oh fuck thats mean. I laughed a little at it.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Feb 06 16:55:23 Daemon ”Whether society can meet future material demands for new power sector generation infrastructure also depends on whether projected growth in material requirements outpaces historical growth in raw material production. We estimate that median future 10-year growth rates for Cu, solar-grade polysilicon, Ga, In, Se, Ag, and Te demand will exceed their respective average historical (1946–2018) 10-year growth (Table S1). In particular, growth in solar-grade polysilicon, Ga, In, and Te demand might considerably outpace historical precedent.” The lynchpin in the conclusion are estimates that the future will be like the past. However the reality is that the highest quality prospects, the mines and veins that are easier and most profitable are opened first. Where do they get these estimates from besides linear assumptions?
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Feb 06 17:44:06 “Our study’s results may consequently underestimate true raw material requirements, while our selected materials of interest is also not comprehensive. Our simplistic separate estimate of material requirements associated with off-site transmission and distribution, which may require sizable quantities of Cu, steel, cement, and Al,36,49 omits much of the transmission grid’s real-world complexity. Nor does this analysis account for the widespread future deployment of grid-scale battery storage, which may in turn leverage distributed battery capacity from electric vehicles.“ ”Our model calculates material demand and material-associated emissions for new generation infrastructure but does not include material requirements and emissions associated with fuel production, parts manufacturing, construction, fuel combustion, operations, and decommissioning and end-of-life processes (Figure S2).” ”Our study’s results may consequently underestimate true raw material requirements, while our selected materials of interest is also not comprehensive. Our simplistic separate estimate of material requirements associated with off-site transmission and distribution, which may require sizable quantities of Cu, steel, cement, and Al,36,49 omits much of the transmission grid’s real-world complexity. Nor does this analysis account for the widespread future deployment of grid-scale battery storage, which may in turn leverage distributed battery capacity from electric vehicles.” Very disappointing considering that it's common knowledge that the grid needed for these things will be massively expensive and require a lot of resources. Half the copper needed for wind is the medium voltage cable connecting them to the grid. And this is a reoccurring theme with people who are sold on these things, they don’t know what the whole thing even is, they see the wind turbine and think that is it.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Feb 06 17:55:35 And no one (the study included) ever takes into account that the technical lifespan for wind turbines is 20-25 years and they lose effect each year, nuclear reactors live for 50-60, probably a 100 years and they don’t lose any significant effect. It is very very sad because on the surface they sound great, but solar and wind are just not good besides marginal usage for some optimized localities that do not have heavy industry. I would be fine with Germany destroying itself, if not for the fact that we are all connected, that when the wind does now blow you guys are burning coal and when the wind blows you are dumping the price and creating instability in the grid of neighboring countries. If not for the fact that you sabotage others attempt at nuclear.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Feb 06 18:45:11 We can just take copper from the miners, because copper is relatively abundant on this planet, so it only gets worse with more exotic materials: Conclusion In recent years, the global transition towards clean energy has stretched the need for copper. More of it will be required to feed our renewable energy infrastructure, such as photovoltaic cells used for solar power, and wind turbines. The metal is also a key component in transportation, and with increasing emphasis on electrification, demand is only going to increase. But the copper market is facing a serious crisis of under-supply. Some of the largest copper mines are seeing their reserves dwindle; they are having to slow production due to major capital-intensive projects to move operations from open pit to underground. New deposits are getting trickier and pricier to find and develop. In Canada and the United States, there is a lot of anti-mining sentiment and politicians are beholden to these pressure groups. It can take up to 20 years to build a mine, after all the stakeholders (including indigenous peoples and greens) have been consulted and the many permitting requirements, at the Federal level in both countries, and the states and provinces have been satisfied. Overall it is getting harder, and taking longer, for new projects to be green-lit. According to Goehring & Rozencwajg Associates, the number of new world-class copper discoveries coming online this decade “will decline substantially and depletion problems at existing mines will accelerate.” E&MJ Engineering stated in its outlook for copper production to 2050, “The trend toward declining orebody grades and continued development of the pursuit of existing operations to exploit lower grade deposits is likely to continue, in the absence of high-grade project discovery. A decline in ore grade results in higher operating costs due primarily to the amount and depth of material required to be mined and processed to produce the same amount of copper product. It is no surprise that both GHG emission intensity and energy intensity increase as ore grade decreases. There is a point of inflection, where below an ore grade of around 0.5% copper, the intensity of both metrics rises sharply.” Given that many mines are fast approaching, if not already tackling, similar grades, this is a pressing problem. In its fiscal year 2020 commodity outlook, BHP, the world’s third largest copper producer, estimated that grade decline could remove about 2 million metric tons per year (mt/y) of refined copper supply by 2030, with resource depletion potentially removing an additional 1.5 million to 2.25 million mt/y by this date.” Along with technical issues such as falling grades/ deteriorating ore quality, there is also supply pressure from growing resource nationalism. In Chile, a left-ward shift is a mark against the top copper producer as far as attracting mining investment. Although Chile’s constitutional assembly has rejected plans to nationalize parts of the mining sector, the government is now weighing how much to increase royalties; a decision is expected soon. Peru’s President Pedro Castillo has proposed to raise taxes on the mining sector by at least 3%, which the country’s mining chamber says could cost US$50 billion in future investments. This week, Castillo dissolved congress hours before an impeachment vote, escalating a political crisis in the South American nation. Members of the constitutional court called the move, which is sure to increase doubts about Peru as a mining-friendly jurisdiction, a “coup”. Given this and all the other supply challenges the copper mining industry faces, it’s hard to disagree with Glencore’s CEO Gary Nagle’s comment that, “There’s a huge deficit coming in copper.” Chief Executive Officer Gary Nagle said that while some people were assuming that the industry would lift supplies as it had in previous cycles to meet a forecast increase in demand driven by the energy transition, “this time it is going to be a bit different.” He presented estimates showing a cumulative gap between projected demand and supply of 50 million tons between 2022 and 2030. That compares with current world copper demand of about 25 million tons a year. “There’s a huge deficit coming in copper, and as much as people write about it, the price is not yet reflecting it,” Nagle said. The Goldman Sachs’ report we’ve been referencing doesn’t exactly fill us with confidence that the industry will be able to bridge the 50-million-ton gap in production, in the eight years before 2030. In fact if these 84 projects are all we have imo we’re in serious trouble. Out of a total LOM average copper output of a risked 4.3Mtpa AOTH thinks the reality is “new” copper supply of just 1,199ktpa, that doesn’t bode well for production from the 2018 unapproved projects. That’s a long way from the new copper supply needed. A new wave of production is washing through the copper market, thanks to supply additions from Kamoa in the DRC, Quellevaco in Peru, and two mines in Chile — Quebrada Blanca II and Spence NGO — Reuters reported on Thursday, but once it breaks, will it be enough to satisfy what comes afterwards? Not likely. Those are the projects now ramping up into production but, he warned, “there is nothing coming behind”. (something we at AOTH believe was just proved through our analysis of Goldman’s copper project summaries — Rick] Mining project approval rates have stalled. During the first half of 2022, the volume of committed projects totaled just 260,000 tonnes of production per year “Whatever was planned to be built has been built,” Glencore’s CEO Gary Nagle warned analysts on a conference call, via Reuters: Glencore estimates that if the world is going to meet its net zero emissions targets, it will be cumulatively short of copper to the tune of fifty million tonnes by 2030 as the global pivot towards green energy transition boosts copper usage in grid upgrades, solar panels and electric vehicles. New mines can’t be built and commissioned that fast, even if the will is there. The sector’s low capital expenditures on expanding production suggests many are still loath to commit to the mega-billion investments needed for the next generation of supply. Of 224 sizable copper deposits discovered in the past 30 years, only 16 have been found in the last decade. Only two major copper mines have been brought online between 2017 and 2021. At existing mines, between 2001 and 2014, 80% of new reserves came from re-classifying what was once waste rock into mineable ore, i.e., lowering the cut-off grade. The problem is that between miners lowering their cut-off grades and high-grading (removing all the best ore and leaving the rest) the grade of new reserves each year has steadily declined. The copper industry was still able to replace all the ore used in production with new reserves, but the quality of those reserves, i.e., the grade, had dropped by nearly two-thirds. The authors of a 2021 report, Goehring & Rozencwajg, contend that even with prices above $10,000 per tonne, reserves cannot keep growing, specifically at porphyry deposits, where most copper is mined. Their analysis also suggests that we are quickly approaching the lower limits of cut-off grades, concluding that we are nearing the point where reserves cannot be grown at all. The industry can no longer re-classify itself out of its problem. The copper industry is in the grips of a structural supply deficit that is only expected to get worse. An Aug. 31 presentation from BloombergNEF states that a recession will not “significantly dent” consumption projections going into 2040. The demand pressure about to be exerted on copper producers in the coming years all but guarantees a market imbalance, resulting in copper becoming scarcer, and dearer, with each infrastructure initiative and with each ambitious green initiative rolled out by governments. http://ahe...be-easily-fixed-richard-mills/
Seb Member	Tue Feb 07 02:51:18 Sounds Malthusian.
Seb Member	Tue Feb 07 02:51:51 Nim: At least you are being honest now and admitting you don't bother reading counter arguments.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Feb 07 03:13:49 I was honest preemptively and gave you the pre-requisite to keep reading, so don’t bitch and whine. You have been surprisingly and exceptionally useless.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Feb 07 03:41:04 And you show how useless you are with the latest comment. This isn’t “malthusian” these are fairly detailed industry projections for virgin material for the comming 10 years, that is immediate term. Things could change beyond that, but based on this we can say that copper will become more expensive, as it has been for the last 2 decades. Linear assumptioms become less and less useful the longer you project them. Ironically the study Daemon posted is the one that makes such projections not taking into account the nuances that are detailed in the article I posted. It just assumes that high quality mines are just sitting there, the capital is there and cheap for miners to risk.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Tue Feb 07 04:40:08 And of course, if it isn’t obvious despite being presented as the more resource intensive option among the options, obviously we can create resource bottle necks by wasting resources on things that create less value, in this case energy. Obviously. That’s just common sense, like household budget level of intelligence to grasp. Cute to try and turn the malthusian trap, but you end up not understanding the actual problem or the trap itself. The people trapped in the malthusian prison only have one solution, less people, or if used outside population, less of whatever, energy. That is clearly not the solution presented by nuclear, a source that can produce lots of energy on a minimal foot print with a fraction of the resources. Common sense.
Seb Member	Tue Feb 07 04:45:30 Nim: The pre-requisite to keep reading was apparently to agree with your reverse-causality explanation. Which I fundamentally disagree with, and which is apparently beyond your comprehension. The reason there is a political consensus against nuclear is *because* its economics and supply chain suck; therefore there is no strong pro-nuclear industrial/political caucus; what little is left are so divorced from what actually persuades the undecided as to effectively be doing the anti-nuclear greens work for them (like yourself); and so the anti-nuclear green win the policy fight. RE the question of copper etc: you are fundamentally describing a shortfall in investment in prospecting and mine development. I've pointed out that nuclear build suffers the exact same issues: long lead time, high investment costs. Seems these are only issues in so far as it affects decision making away from your ideological preference. However, fundamentally mining is faster to scale out than nuclear. You need to also consider substitutes for copper usage across the entire supply chain as prices spike.
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