
The New Atomic Age We Need - markmassie
https://nytimes.com/2015/11/28/opinion/the-new-atomic-age-we-need.html
======
T-A
> We already know that today’s energy sources cannot sustain a future we want
> to live in.

Is this really true? In Lazard's 2014 comparison of total cost per MWh, both
wind and solar beat coal and nuclear [1]. Costs have fallen so much that it's
becoming hard to justify continued subsidies [2].

[1] [http://energyinnovation.org/2015/02/07/levelized-cost-of-
ene...](http://energyinnovation.org/2015/02/07/levelized-cost-of-energy/)

[2] [http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/us-energy-
secreta...](http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/us-energy-secretary-
solar-and-wind-energy-cost-competitive-without-subsidies.html)

~~~
pilom
The problem is scale. Here is a really good analysis of renewable resources in
the UK: [http://www.withouthotair.com/](http://www.withouthotair.com/)

Conclusion: The UK doesn't receive enough sunlight or have enough
wind/waves/tidal pools/land to grow food, power cars (of any kind) and meet
other energy needs. The UK can never get all of their energy carbon free
without nuclear or importing power. The US is in a better place because of
solar in the Southwest but we still don't have the technology/infrastructure
to transport all of that power.

~~~
Retric
BS, solar is not great in the UK, but your comparing electric generation at
2009 efficiency levels with powering cars, heating using resistance heating
etc. (Heat pumps break 100% nominal efficiency by extracting heat from outside
air.) It's also perfectly reasonable for the UK to continue to import
significant amounts of energy in one form or another and or increase
efficiency levels.

EX: We can manufacture 40+% efficient solar cells, sure there expensive, but
saying the only thing possible is some lower efficiency level is clearly BS.
[They use 10% as some sort of arbitrary limit on page 41.]

PS: _Photovoltaic panels with 20% efficiency are already close to the
theoretical limit (see this chapter’s endnotes_ Current, world record for
concentrated solar is 46%.

~~~
johncolanduoni
> PS: Photovoltaic panels with 20% efficiency are already close to the
> theoretical limit (see this chapter’s endnotes Current, world record for
> concentrated solar is 46%.

They are likely referring to the theoretical limit for crystalline silicon
based cells (~30% IIRC). This is due to silicon's particular band gap. The
record is held by multi-junction cells, which don't suffer from this
limitation (which is part of their problem, as they use materials far more
expensive than silicon).

~~~
Retric
I don't think you need to be overly generous when they suggest the UK needs to
be both 100% energy independent and 100% free from fossil fuels, and grow 100%
of it's food locally, when the UK imports ~35% of it's _electricity_ in 2013
and ~40% of it's food (1). Let alone fossil fuels. And if we can't meet those
goals we need to do X.

1: _In 2010, the UK produced 73% of ‘indigenous-type foods’, and is about 60%
self-sufficient when exports and local consumption are set against production_
[http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/food/uk-
facts.html](http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/food/uk-facts.html)

~~~
johncolanduoni
I wasn't arguing for all his calculations, it's just that his evaluation of
the theoretical limit of crystalline silicon cells is accurate. He is correct
that it is unlikely that they will get much closer to the theoretical limit
than 20% in real life situations.

Some GenIV nuclear reactor technologies have a somewhat clearer path to
viability than multi-junction solar cells, which have not been able to beat
traditional cells in a price-to-performance ratio. We don't even know if there
exist materials and processes that can replicate the performance without the
costs; see high temperature superconductivity for a technology that's been
stuck at that stage for a while, even in the face of the helium shortage.

~~~
selimthegrim
There are multiple well-attested routes around the Shockley-Quiesser limit
most of which do not involve just silicon. One, which MacKay touches upon, is
multi-junction systems. Another, which he does not (not being an expert in the
field) is via so-called multiple-exciton generation systems. Contrary to most
engineers' understanding, this phenomenon is pretty well explained from the
point of a low-energy continuum QFT for the materials that most care about for
implementation. The real game changer would be to mate these systems with
topologically nontrivial materials with surface charge transport protection.
Unfortunately with current fabrication capabilities, 70% of the conductivity
is in the bulk, which does not possess the topological prohibition to one-
particle (or one e-h pair) backscattering. (It would also be interesting to
see if the known allowability of 2 particle backscattering applies to excitons
in these systems)

------
PaulHoule
The key problem in my mind is the failure of project management in building
reactors.

If they said it was going to take 2 years and 1 billion dollars and it
stretched out to 3 years and $1.5 billion that is one thing.

Back in the 1970s it was more like 2 years stretches to 9 years and $15
billion and you could blame union workers who never did nuclear work before,
the no nukes, high interest rates, etc.

The industry was supposed to come out with standardized reactor types like the
EPR, and we have low interest rates, little active opposition to nuclear
power, and projects like Olkiluoto-3 are still 9 years late.

Nobody is going to put up billions of dollars unless there is some
predictability in terms of cost and schedule. The fear of Fukushima is just
icing on that cake.

~~~
masklinn
Nuclear plants are also central points of failures, the plant itself needn't
even fail, just the electrical distribution from it and you lose 1~6GW.

If they pan out, Small Modular Reactors (30MW~300MW range) seem like they
could solve many of the issues with existing "large" nuke plants: the sealed
core can be built on largeish assembly lines (similar to airliners in size)
then floated, flown or driven to site, more units would mean more
opportunities for automation and economies of scale instead the more pharaonic
and necessarily more unique existing systems.

This would be further boosted by the inherent flexibility of SMR: they can be
kept mobile (for emergencies, temporary setting, interim power, etc…) e.g.
Rosatom's _Akademik Lomonosov_ barge, which should have a total capacity of
300MWt/70MWe.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
There's a great deal of engineering/economic appeal to factory made modular
reactors, but the weak point is you'd need a cultural shift for people to not
be freaked out about having lots of small reactors everywhere.

~~~
vlehto
Also political shift is needed. Currently in Finland you need parliament
permission for any new nuclear plant. If you are likely to get only one
permission every 8 years, you have to go big to have any impact. Which seems
to be the reason why Olkiluoto-3 got so big. Which seems to have contributed
to the schedule fuck ups from day one.

For example they had the concrete heating too much while curing when casting
the floor. This was because the floor slab was lot bigger than engineers we're
used to cast. Yes, they should have taken that into account. But the point is
it's harder to take all things into account when you are going to unexplored
territory.

------
shaunrussell
It is a shame that we went all in on uranium reactor technology (so we could
make bombs) instead of further pursuing liquid fluoride thorium reactors,
which are much safer.

Kirk Sorensen at [http://flibe-energy.com/](http://flibe-energy.com/) has some
great talks about this. I highly recommend watching some of his content on
youtube.

This is a good place to start:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/kirk_sorensen_thorium_an_alternati...](https://www.ted.com/talks/kirk_sorensen_thorium_an_alternative_nuclear_fuel)

------
blisterpeanuts
Where are we at with nuclear fusion? At this time, the only promising progress
I know of is happening at Lockheed Martin's Skunkworks[1] where they are
developing a truck-sized 100 MW [ _corrected from Mhz_ ] power plant in an
incremental, iterative fashion and claiming to have something operational by
2020.

As regards solar and other "clean" alternatives, there exists vast potential
for reducing daytime electric grid load by throwing a few panels on
residential and office rooftops. Why don't more people do it? As the cost of
panels plummets, the payoff time is decreasing and ROI over time is
increasing.

A whole industry of solar panel leasing has sprung up, whereby residential
home owners let an installer put in the panels for free, then pay a discounted
electric rate. Not exactly like going off-grid, but it does have the same
effect of reducing demand for coal/oil/gas generated power.

I'm envisioning future new home developments where every house comes with
solar pre-installed. No decisions to make; the cost is baked in (so to speak)
and you get a home that will incur minimal electric bills.

I don't see a government role in all of these initiatives, which are market
driven. People _want_ green energy these days; it's become a fad. Almost gone
are the days when homeowners associations sue a member for putting "ugly"
solar panels on his roof.

1\. [http://www.eweek.com/news/lockheed-martin-claims-
sustainable...](http://www.eweek.com/news/lockheed-martin-claims-sustainable-
fusion-is-within-its-grasp.html)

~~~
Simorgh
ITER (located in France) will build a fusion device to produce net energy, in
the next few years - 50MW input and 500 MW output. The project has about €13
Billion investment committed.

Perhaps we're on the edge of a new energy area.

[https://www.iter.org/proj/inafewlines](https://www.iter.org/proj/inafewlines)

~~~
riffraff
but what does "in the next few years" really mean?

As per their own site, by june 2016 they should at most decide a date for when
the first plasma will be _scheduled_ to happen. Also, there are probably still
decades between a working ITER and commercial reactors.

------
bjt
While I agree with the basic argument that we are hurting ourselves with an
irrational aversion to nuclear power, some of Thiel's arguments seem weak or
overreaching. The worst, in my estimation, is this:

> Critics often point to the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union as an even
> more terrifying warning against nuclear power, but that accident was a
> direct result of both a faulty design and the operators’ incompetence. Fewer
> than 50 people were reported to have died at Chernobyl; by contrast, the
> American Lung Association estimates that smoke from coal-fired power plants
> kills about 13,000 people every year.

So on one hand you take the failure of a single nuclear plant, and count the
direct, local deaths from that. On the other hand you take the sum of _all_
coal-fired plants, and count the number of global, indirect deaths from them.
OF COURSE the latter number is going to be bigger. The comparison is
dishonest.

~~~
lappa
A bit more than 50

>The risk projections suggest that by now Chernobyl may have caused about 1000
cases of thyroid cancer and 4000 cases of other cancers in Europe,
representing about 0.01% of all incident cancers since the accident. Models
predict that by 2065 about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of
other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident

[http://allthingsnuclear.org/lgronlund/how-many-cancers-
did-c...](http://allthingsnuclear.org/lgronlund/how-many-cancers-did-
chernobyl-really-cause-updated)?

~~~
pdkl95
These claims are from a well-known anti-nuclear organization (Union Of
Concerned Scientists).

~~~
lappa
I wasn't aware, thanks for the info!

------
ommunist
Currently only France, US, and Russia can build reactors for energy, but these
are using U or Pu in different flavours. This fuel is hard to get. China can't
afford that kind of fuel in quanities it will need. This is why China backs
breakthrough research in Th fission, delivered by Norway. And this, ladies and
gentlemen, is the future.

~~~
NumberCruncher
We have 4x more Thorium on Earth than Uran, 1 gram Thorium gives 3x more
energy than Uran and has a shorter halft-time, this means it produces less
radioctive waste. The problem is, that a Th-plant can not be used to produce
nuclear weapons. That shows that we have a political crisis and not an energy
crisis. If Japan wouldn't be afraid to build his nuclear plants on the west-
coast (protected from tsunamis but easy to get hit by a chinese rocket),
Fokushima still would be a nice place to live.

~~~
ommunist
Well, U is 10x more common element than Sn. Not just sny U isotope is good for
fuel. But you are not quite right. Thorium fuels can breed fissile uranium-233
to be used in various kinds of nuclear reactors.

------
mronge
How does this compare to what Elon Musk says about solar power? In this
presentation he shows that a reasonable amount of area could power the entire
US (if we used roof tops etc for solar panels).

Is that not feasible?

[https://youtu.be/yKORsrlN-2k?t=187](https://youtu.be/yKORsrlN-2k?t=187)

~~~
Gravityloss
US has lots of sunny areas with little people, agriculture or wildlife, but UK
doesn't. Many European countries are dense and cloudy.

It can still help.

~~~
nickhalfasleep
I'm surprised they don't invest in production just south in North Africa, it
would be pretty trivial to lay cables across to Gibraltar. They would of
course have to do it with a sense of economic fairness and fairly pay the
countries in money and technology / education transfer.

~~~
T-A
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec)

------
indifferentalex
As much as the causes at Chernobyl can be attributed to the poor quality of
the systems installed and of incorrect safety procedures, it shows that bad
things can indeed happen, simply saying that they were caused by incompetence
doesn't prove nuclear power is safe. Likewise stating that "fewer than 50"
died at Chernobyl, while possibly true (referring to the immediate area), is a
severe understatement of the crisis. All european countries were forced to
react, radioactive dust sent up into the air by the fires was carried across
the continent and whole crops had to be destroyed. The low figure of
consequential deaths is thanks to a large and costly effort to prevent further
problems. Much like Fukushima. This article is reverse fear mongering and it
is just as wrong, nuclear energy is without a doubt an incredible resource and
the pros objectively outway the cons compared to fossil fuels, and the claim
that the gap left open by insufficient adoption of renewable energy can be
closed by nuclear in the meantime is a valid one, downplaying the dangers of
nuclear however is not the correct way to move forward.

------
namespace
I think that recent initiative by YC under sam to invest in startups that may
herald breakthroughs in sustainable fission is a great start. This should lead
to a healthy competition which so far has been missing since it used to be a
government only venture for a long time.

~~~
jacquesm
I'm not convinced that YC is the vehicle through which the next major
breakthrough in the field of energy generation will be conceived.

YC companies that do relatively tiny hardware projects tend to fail at a rate
much higher than their software siblings and the kind of investment required
to get a next generation nuclear reactor from the drawingboard to a reality is
not usually associated with start-up accelerators.

I know they're funding two start-ups in this domain but I don't believe this
is a path that will work out. On the other hand, I've been wrong in the past
on other predictions so feel free to ignore me :)

------
ilaksh
That equation changes when you move to a sustainable society.

Much smaller residential plots in suburban/rural areas, cut out commuting by
60 plus percent by using Skype etc. Move to much smaller single passenger
electric vehicles (300 pounds instead of 3000).

Switch to high-tech (or low tech) efficient ultra-local food production, like
potato bags on every roof, a tilapia farm on every corner. Solar on every
roof, transparent VAWT on every roof. Solar roadways. Ground-source heat pump
and net zero airtight ventilated homes. Wide deployment of residential energy
storage.

We can literally make society 5-10 times more efficient.

[https://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage](https://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage)

~~~
jensen123
I love this idea of tiny houses and 1-person vehicles!

I'm currently living in an apartment and using public transportation, which of
course is what many environmentalists are recommending. However, this is not a
good solution because of the noise from neighbors. I'm currently tempted to
move to a house and get a car, but of course, that is not good for the
environment.

The tiny house and tiny car idea solves this!

~~~
ilaksh
Right, thanks for pointing that out. I have had similar thoughts about public
transportation and apartments which is part of what lead to this idea.

They could be human powered or maybe self-driving transport pods, much more
efficient than cars or buses. Also, airtight construction helps a lot with
noise pollution from neighbors.

------
jkot
Coal plan produces more radioactivity than nuclear plant. There are
radioactive elements in coal and they get released in smoke into atmosphere.

~~~
bro-stick
This old one again. As someone who's actually worked in the nuclear energy
industry, it's a common but wrong refrain... diffusion of petrochem
radioactivity is much less of a liability than the very real, concentrated
dangers of radioisotopes, even factoring in all of the other many negatives of
coal.

~~~
jkot
Negative externalities?

It would be great to concentrate all pollution from ocean, land and air into
single place. And I do not mean CO2.

------
ScottBurson
I'm in the middle of reading a great book on geoengineering, Oliver Morton's
_The Planet Remade_. Engagingly written and comprehensive; I recommend it
highly. From the introduction:

 _If the world had the capacity to deliver one of the largest nuclear power
plants ever built once a week, week in and week out, it would take 20 years to
replace the current stock of coal-fired plants (at present, the world builds
about three or four nuclear power plants a year, and retires old ones almost
as quickly)._

Morton goes on to make the case for considering geoengineering, and for
ramping up research on it. I don't know that I can do justice to the argument
in a short summary, but one key point is the extent to which we're already
doing it in an unplanned way. We all know about all the carbon dioxide we're
putting in the air, along with other greenhouse gases -- nitrous oxide, for
example -- but there's also the massive amount of reactive nitrogen we're
creating, mostly for fertilizer. We all know about the massive local
environmental effects of burning coal, but there's also some evidence that
coal smoke has a cooling effect; changing from coal to nuclear may actually
worsen warming in the short run.

I was favorably disposed toward geoengineering before I got the book, so I
can't claim to have been won over, but there was an awful lot I didn't know
about it -- for example, how the various approaches would affect different
regions of the globe differently, and how those effects could be adjusted to
some extent, though not optimized for everyone simultaneously.

Again, I highly recommend it.

~~~
CamperBob2
_If the world had the capacity to deliver one of the largest nuclear power
plants ever built once a week, week in and week out, it would take 20 years to
replace the current stock of coal-fired plants (at present, the world builds
about three or four nuclear power plants a year, and retires old ones almost
as quickly)._

That's extremely hard to believe. Does he show the math?

~~~
T-A
Let's se... According to [1], world electric power generation from coal in
2014 was 8726 TWh. The largest nuclear power plant in the US, Palo Verde,
delivers on average 3.3 GW [2], or 365 _24_ 3.3 = 28908 GWh/year. So you would
need 8726/28.9 = 302 nuclear power plants of that size to replace all coal
plants. At a rate of one per week, it would take less than six years.

But! Palo Verde has three reactors. If you assume that he really meant
"reactor" rather than "plant", and went with 1 GW as its output, it would take
a little more than 19 years.

[1] [http://www.tsp-data-portal.org/Breakdown-of-Electricity-
Gene...](http://www.tsp-data-portal.org/Breakdown-of-Electricity-Generation-
by-Energy-Source#tspQvChart)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_Station)

~~~
CamperBob2
Interesting, thanks. What confused me is that we've all seen pie charts like
the one at [http://www.tsp-data-portal.org/Breakdown-of-Electricity-
Gene...](http://www.tsp-data-portal.org/Breakdown-of-Electricity-Generation-
by-Energy-Source#tspQvChart) that show the relative "market share" of various
energy sources with nuclear playing a significant but not dominant role. In
this case it's 11% nuclear, 39% coal. It's easy but incorrect to assume that
the number of plants of each type is proportional.

Wikipedia says there are about 50,000 coal plants online, as ScottBurson
notes, but I _know_ there aren't 50000*11/39 = 14000 nuclear plants in the
world. Googling "number of nuclear power plants" returns an answer of 438
"reactors." Obviously the number of plants is somewhat smaller, and we don't
know if the statistic includes military reactors on subs and carriers. Call it
400.

So what I've missed appears to be the fact that a typical nuclear plant must
generate 14000/400 = 35x as much power as a typical coal plant. The largest
plants of both types are in the gigawatt class, so most of those 50000 coal
plants must be significantly smaller.

So, at some point, it must have been decided that most nuclear plants needed
to be as powerful as the largest coal plants. Absent a change in policy, that
clearly denies the nuclear industry the benefits of economies of scale...
unless those economies are realized on a per-plant basis. (E.g., if it doesn't
cost much more to build a 1 GW nuke plant than a 100 MW one, you might as well
build the former.)

------
lumberjack
Nuclear Fission is not a plug and play solution either. Unlike other possible
solutions like a breakthrough in mass energy storage, we know that fission
could satisfy our needs. But it will still require some 30 years of investment
to figure out the new breed of reactors and where to source the fuel from.

~~~
masklinn
> Nuclear Fission is not a plug and play solution either.

That's actually the intent of SMRs. Small-ish reactor (30~300MWe) assembly
plants, then ship them wherever they're needed/desired, and either bury them
or keep them mobile depending on the purpose. When the fuel load is expended
(10~30 years, similar to nuclear subs and ships) you just replace the whole
reactor assembly, pop a new one in, and send the old one for recycling and
disposal.

------
Zigurd
After reading this, I still have mixed feelings about nuclear. On the one
hand, we have an overhang of old-tech nuclear power that is dangerously
obsolete, poorly run, and insanely expensive to build, run, and clean up
after.

On the other hand, new-tech nuclear looks very attractive. The argument gets
circular, because new-tech nuclear is speculative. Lots of old-tech nuclear
should get shut before we get another Fukushima. So despite the theoretical
ability to scale up faster, does nuclear _really_ have an advantage over
renewables?

------
nova22033
In 1949 the federal government built a test facility at Idaho National
Laboratory to study and evaluate new nuclear reactor designs. We owe our
nuclear power industry to the foresight of those New Dealers, and we need
their openness to innovation again today.

Thiel is a self-described conservative libertarian.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Political_activiti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Political_activities)

~~~
jessaustin
My grandfather died with multiple cancers plus pulmonary fibrosis caused by
multiple exposures he received while working in DoE facilities in the early-
mid 1950s. In those facilities there were basically no safety procedures. Safe
nuclear power was not a goal; more nuclear weapons was the goal. It's no
surprise that TFA exaggerates the "foresight" of the damned "New Dealers".
They were just like Thiel is, looking to make bank off a public that's not
always paying attention. He will feel no more guilt about it than I do for
driving on public highways.

~~~
ams6110
I'm sorry for your grandfather but what does that have to do with anything
happening today? You think safety standards and understanding of risks are
still the same today as in the 1950s?

~~~
jessaustin
Perhaps it's a small point, but I wished to counter TFA's false claim that
"nuclear New Dealers" possessed any admirable sort of foresight. Do you think
the publicly-stated level of safety standards is less exaggerated today than
it was back then?

------
danbruc
Why not simply outlaw nonrenewable energy sources over ten years or so?
Problem solved.

EDIT: Would someone care to point out why that is not an valid option? Lack of
technological viability? Lack of energy storage technology or capacity?
Ideological resentment against a political over an economical driving force
for the change?

~~~
bjacobel
> simply

Browse the FEC website for contributions from oil & coal companies to 2016
candidates. That's why it won't be simple.

~~~
danbruc
I am presupposing that you really want to get rid of fossil fuels. If the
people making the decisions prefer to keep oil and coal in business for
whatever reasons than the discussion is pretty pointless to begin with, no
matter what alternative you are discussing.

------
Pietertje
Does somebody know if nuclear power will actually be an improvement for the
environment (only considering temperature here)? Essentially you just release
heat which is stored as mass.

A quick calculation shows that if you only consider heating up our atmosphere
and assume an entire switch of all our energy consumption to nuclear energy
you end up with a temperature rise of 0.1 deg C per year. I know it is a
worst-case scenario - energy will be stored in land/water as well, dissipation
etc. - but still.

Compared to fossil fuels, the plus side is you do not produce any greenhouse
gases. However, I'm unsure which contributes more to global warming, could
well be the former is negligible. Would love to hear an expert on this.

~~~
danbruc
Not an expert but the temperature of the earth is the equilibrium temperature
between the amount of energy received and the amount of energy emitted into
space. Human energy consumption is four order of magnitude smaller than the
energy received from the sun, so the anthropic effect is not really important.
Greenhouse gases on the other hand have a significant effect because they
prevent radiating a fraction of all the energy, no matter whether received
from the sun our set free by human activity.

~~~
Pietertje
Thanks, makes complete sense now to me.

------
11thEarlOfMar
YC has two nuclear start ups: Helion and UPower. How are they doing? What is
their path to prominence?

------
tomohawk
Any technology that requires political machinations to work is a non-starter.

Nuclear technology's achille's heel is waste disposal. Sure, there are
technical aspects to it, but it's mostly a problem in the political realm.

The Feds were supposed provide a disposal mechanism, but there's apparently no
political will to do that any longer. Instead, we have nuclear waste piling up
all over the place at facilities that were never meant to store it. As soon as
we have a natural disaster at one of these facilities, it will be like
fukushima all over again. Such a shame.

------
dfar1
Coincidence that this article is released at the same time as the
youtube/google petition campaign?

------
jensen123
He does not mention bombs. I'm certainly no expert here, but I think I read in
the book An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore a long time ago, that if you have
the ability to build a nuclear power plant, then building a bomb is not very
hard.

I'm not terribly keen on living in a world where most of the countries in
Africa, the Middle East etc. are able to build nuclear bombs.

~~~
pjscott
Having nuclear reactors doesn't mean your country can build them. For most
countries it would almost certainly be cheaper to just import them from
whoever offers you the best deal. Countries with nuclear reactor export
industries include China, Russia, France, and South Korea, so there's some
decent competition here.

~~~
jensen123
You are probably correct that it would be cheaper to purchase nuclear power
plants from others, rather than developing yourself. I'm thinking though -
maybe many countries would be reluctant to rely on foreigners for something
this essential.

------
macco
I have a feeling Mr Thiel didn't cosider important facts.

Nuclear energy is highly deficient, building nuclear plants uses much more
energy and concrete (bad for the environment) and you have to store nuclear
waste.

I know Thiel is a long term thinker, but maybe Kaynes view is also important.

------
etaty
I like how Thiel writes his sentences about safety, to avoid saying anything
wrong. I invite him to spend the rest of his life in Chernobyl or Fukushima.

Personally nuclear energy is dangerous because when it goes wrong the result
is really bad.

And the source of error is infinite, human, software, design, terrorists, war,
civil plane, drone ...

~~~
wstrange
Hydro Dams cause immense catastrophe when they fail. They have killed far more
people than Nuclear power. According to Wikipedia, the failure of a single Dam
in China caused:

26,000 dead from flooding, 145,000 dead from subsequent famine and epidemics,
11 million homeless

All forms of power generation have risks and tradeoffs. We should use the best
available science to evaluate those risks - not emotion and fear. The future
of our planet depends on it.

~~~
witty_username
The planet will survive well. We'll be screwed.

------
cft
I am afraid that the real goal of at least 50% of climate change activists is
not clean energy, but the disruption of current elite and wealth
redistribution by taxation vs value creation. It is because of these 50% the
realistic proposals like Peter's will not fly politically.

~~~
TheLogothete
In my country, green organizations, including the local branch of WWF are
nothing more than extortion artists. They rally young, impressionable people
by spreading FUD. They block ski lift projects and drum the media on all sorts
of nonsense and broker their power to influence current political agenda or
for money (when they run out). Most were created by ex-intelligence slightly
before or after The Wall fell. It's disgusting.

~~~
ommunist
+500. WWF, SSNC, Green Peace they are all selling FUD for a price 'one p#ss
for one green piece'.

------
bro-stick
Thiel skips the fact that Chernobyl is uninhabitable for thousands of years
(save bloggers on motorcycles), all of the dispossessed persons and extra 40k+
cancer deaths. Plus Fukashima. Big PWR/BWR reactors will always be too
inherently dangerous because of high pressures and too expensive to build,
regulate and insure (in the US, without insurance _and_ NRC approval, there is
no project). And the risks of dual-purpose reactors and long-term storage for
large amounts of waste.

Taylor Wilson's TED talk on low pressure, molten salt, modular reactors built
as standardized modules with a scram / recycle pool underneath and made in a
factory is one of the best ways to go. Smaller, isolated, modular setups limit
failure risk compared to a single reactor having a big, explosive meltdown.
The other one is thermal generation using chip-like technology with tiny
amounts of radiological material isolated in individual "wells" making it
safer, more efficient and scalable for many types of battery and generation
use-cases.

I think we can do fission safer, cheaper and smarter, responsibly, but
repeating the same failures by taking the same risks without learning from the
past is inherently dumb.

Disclaimer: nuclear energy consultancy alum

~~~
ommunist
Bro, I worked in Gomel for 4 years and spent 2 field seasons in 'Chernobyl
radioactive wasteland'. Relax, life is ok there. Just do not eat local apple
seeds in the 80+ Ci/sq km zone. Pulp for cider is OK.

------
squozzer
Forgive my skepticism, but Mr. Thiel did not offer to live near a reactor. For
someone with his obvious intelligence, his oversight could not have been
accidental. Does he fear the radiation or the decline in property value?

When a robber baron like Dale Carnegie wanted people to believe in his steel
bridges, he staked his life and reputation and walked across the damned
bridge.

Another major risk not mentioned by Mr. Thiel is a financial one, as it seems
every nuclear project in the West at least has become a boondoggle. Even the
project a few hours from my house - Plant Vogtle - where the state legislature
generously transferred the financial risk to the taxpayers and customers - is
behind schedule and over budget.

Until nuclear cheerleaders develop a taste for risk that will not be borne by
others, maybe we should reduce consumption. If Las Vegas were to shut off 90%
of its' outdoor lighting and fountain displays, would everyone there go blind
and lose their enthusiasm to play slots? I doubt it. Just a thought.

~~~
incepted
> Forgive my skepticism, but Mr. Thiel did not offer to live near a reactor.

Living next to a coal plant is even more dangerous than a nuclear plant, are
you suggesting we should ban both plants based on these considerations?

~~~
ommunist
Actually the late USSR had a technology of small fully automatic single loaded
reactors for long-term supply of electric power in middle-size cities. Fully
sealed unit. After use (decades) - you just cover it with a lawn. But back
then the USSR had enough fuel in production. Right now the know how in Russia
is lost and nuclear fuel generation is very weak. Also HMD generator by Oleg
Gritckevitch was very promising. The town in Armenia was fed by electricity
generated by a small prototype in 1988.

~~~
prodmerc
You mean like the Toshiba 4S? Most countries have designs for awesome stuff
(at least on paper), which is never implemented for various reasons.

~~~
ommunist
Have a look on early woRking prototypes of self-driving version for
circumpolar regions [http://cont.ws/post/128573](http://cont.ws/post/128573)

~~~
prodmerc
Huh, that's really interesting. Truly land (and sea) mobile nuclear power
plants - I wonder why they gave up on them?

Seems like an awesome idea for powering remote locations, for sure.

Maybe they were deemed unsafe for military operations?

