A lot of the anti-nuclear sentiment comes from the 80s when the concerns were a lot more valid (and likely before half the pro-nuclear people in this thread were born).
But blaming people on social media for blocking progress on it is a stretch. They're multi-billion dollar projects. Have any major governments or businesses actually proposed building more but then buckled to public pressure?
Anyway, I'm glad this conversation has made it to Lemmy because I've long suspected the conspicuous popularly and regularity of posts like this on Reddit was the work of a mining lobby that can't deny climate change anymore, but won't tolerate profits falling.
At least part of the billion dollar cost is the endless court fights and environmental impact reports before you can even break ground.
Like every other piece of infrastructure. Are you actually advocating that people should just be able to build power plants wherever they want?
No, I'm saying the opposition to nuclear plants is uniquely strident. It's almost easier to get a new coal plant built. And it shouldn't be.
Okay sure, I can see how that would plausibly be true, even if I haven't bothered to check it genuinely is.
But why were "environmental impact reports" lumped in with your criticism of the process?
Usually the only people throwing tantrums over those are property developers upset they can't bulldoze forests full of endangered species or heritage buildings and replace them with high density housing.
An EIR covers the effects to the human environment as well as the wild. So the effect to land value and perceived fear of the neighbors are part of that, regardless of any actual risk.
I saw one article which said a company spent $500 million just on the design and bureaucracy to file an application. Before a single shovel of dirt was moved.
An EIR covers the effects to the human environment as well as the wild. So the effect to land value and perceived fear of the neighbors are part of that, regardless of any actual risk
Yes, I am aware of what an EIR is and what it covers. I'm also aware of their shortcomings, but I'm also aware of exactly who would make hundreds of millions of dollars (and at whose expense) if they were scrapped.
I saw one article which said a company spent $500 million just on the design and bureaucracy to file an application. Before a single shovel of dirt was moved.
How much did that company spend on articles complaining about how much they spent?
The poor little things clearly had $500 million to spend and still believed they could profit from the building despite that.
You also danced around how much of that was actually spent on an EIR and what the context of it was, so deliberately that it makes me wonder if it's in your self interest to spread FUD.
What exactly does "design and bureaucracy" mean? Site selection, zoning approval, architectural design, engineering, EIRs, geotechnical surveys, legal fees for contracts and submissions could all fall under that extremely broad category.
My parents, who are boomers, are vocally anti nuclear because when they were children through young adulthood, had weekly nuclear drills. Stop, drop and roll. They thought it was ridiculous, and believe that all nuclear technology should be destroyed as it leads to nuclear weapons. They also strongly believe that the human race will make itself extinct in a nuclear war any moment now.
Mining lobby? You realize that most of what is mined are the roughly 2 billion tons of iron ore annually. While uranium mining is what... 50,000 tons a year?
There is no version of Earth where mining executives say "It's fine, our profits are already profitable enough".
Astro-turf is cheap and uranium is expensive -- something you conviently left out to focus purely on tonnage, which bears little relation to profitability.
A lot of the anti-nuclear sentiment comes from the 80s when the concerns were a lot more valid (and likely before half the pro-nuclear people in this thread were born).
But blaming people on social media for blocking progress on it is a stretch. They're multi-billion dollar projects. Have any major governments or businesses actually proposed building more but then buckled to public pressure?
Anyway, I'm glad this conversation has made it to Lemmy because I've long suspected the conspicuous popularly and regularity of posts like this on Reddit was the work of a mining lobby that can't deny climate change anymore, but won't tolerate profits falling.
At least part of the billion dollar cost is the endless court fights and environmental impact reports before you can even break ground.
Like every other piece of infrastructure. Are you actually advocating that people should just be able to build power plants wherever they want?
No, I'm saying the opposition to nuclear plants is uniquely strident. It's almost easier to get a new coal plant built. And it shouldn't be.
Okay sure, I can see how that would plausibly be true, even if I haven't bothered to check it genuinely is.
But why were "environmental impact reports" lumped in with your criticism of the process?
Usually the only people throwing tantrums over those are property developers upset they can't bulldoze forests full of endangered species or heritage buildings and replace them with high density housing.
An EIR covers the effects to the human environment as well as the wild. So the effect to land value and perceived fear of the neighbors are part of that, regardless of any actual risk.
I saw one article which said a company spent $500 million just on the design and bureaucracy to file an application. Before a single shovel of dirt was moved.
Yes, I am aware of what an EIR is and what it covers. I'm also aware of their shortcomings, but I'm also aware of exactly who would make hundreds of millions of dollars (and at whose expense) if they were scrapped.
How much did that company spend on articles complaining about how much they spent?
The poor little things clearly had $500 million to spend and still believed they could profit from the building despite that.
You also danced around how much of that was actually spent on an EIR and what the context of it was, so deliberately that it makes me wonder if it's in your self interest to spread FUD.
What exactly does "design and bureaucracy" mean? Site selection, zoning approval, architectural design, engineering, EIRs, geotechnical surveys, legal fees for contracts and submissions could all fall under that extremely broad category.
My parents, who are boomers, are vocally anti nuclear because when they were children through young adulthood, had weekly nuclear drills. Stop, drop and roll. They thought it was ridiculous, and believe that all nuclear technology should be destroyed as it leads to nuclear weapons. They also strongly believe that the human race will make itself extinct in a nuclear war any moment now.
Mining lobby? You realize that most of what is mined are the roughly 2 billion tons of iron ore annually. While uranium mining is what... 50,000 tons a year?
There is no version of Earth where mining executives say "It's fine, our profits are already profitable enough".
Astro-turf is cheap and uranium is expensive -- something you conviently left out to focus purely on tonnage, which bears little relation to profitability.