• Clarke @lemmy.worldOP
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    1 year ago

    We could shut down every coal fired plant and replace the coal fired apparatus with a modern reactor and keep the current steam turbine facility in place. But tell me more about how keeping Cole burning and spewing radioactive nuclei into the atmosphere as preferable than hypothetical meltdown situations.

    • AggressivelyPassive@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      And that will take just, what, 200 years? Nuclear reactors aren’t diesel engines, they take a while to build.

      Also, assuming the only option besides nuclear is coal, is stupid at best, but I’d assume, you’re misleading on purpose here.

      • Clarke @lemmy.worldOP
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        1 year ago

        If only we could use an assembly like process on a proven modular self contained reactor design to turn them out of a factory like clockwork. It’s almost like you don’t have to build an entire condensing tower if you already have one from a coal fired plant and it’s basically a direct engine swap. Does this gloss over a lot of complications Yes Yes it does is it a realistic solution Yes it is. You’re complaining that there isn’t an economy of scale will also stopping an economy of scale from existing…

        • AggressivelyPassive@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          And if my grandma had wheels, she would be a bike.

          You’re massively oversimplifying pretty much everything involved here. Nuclear reactors are not just pressure cookers with concrete shielding, they’re very complicated machines. Even countries with a, let’s say rather speedy certification and construction process like China need years, if not decades to build a reactor. From a design that already exists.

          You’re proposing an unproven reactor, with unproven economics, retrofitted in an unproven way into aging infrastructure, using factories that don’t exist yet. Why?

          Seriously, give me one viable reason, why any sane person would do that? I’m deliberately ignoring all safety concerns, this is just about economics. We have proven, existing, scalable and cheap technologies (wind, solar). Yes, they do have downsides, like any technology, but those are known, quantifiable and solvable. So why would an investor give money to a nuclear company? There are currently two reasons: expectations of subsidies and an almost insane desire for anything nuclear out of principle (this is you).

          I’m not against nuclear power per se, but currently, there’s simply no viable approach to that.