@Laurelai frankly energy production must be decentralized.

@CapnMurphy I mean if you want to waste resources. Duplicating efforts and such. Decentralized electricity is wasteful.

@Laurelai if you want a truly non-hierarchical Society you cannot have centralized energy because energy is political power just like controlling the food chain that the water is political power.

@CapnMurphy Thats like saying you dont want nationalized healthcare. Its silly, backwards and wont work for the people.

@Laurelai as part of a minimum transitory program I support single payer just as I am willing to support centralized nuclear power.
But that doesn't fix fundemental long term systemic problems that caused the environmental degradation to begin with.

@Laurelai who would own and control a centralized power grid?
a workers state?
private moneyed interests?
do you even care?

@CapnMurphy I do care. You don't want some dictatorial force controlling it. However local power cooperatives federated across the area could control it via a democratic process. The plant isnt everything. Things like transformers and power lines still need to happen.

@Laurelai
Could control a single power source? perhaps.
but it would be quite tempting for one of them to take it over and make the others vassal States.

@CapnMurphy You cant run a power plant by yourself, nor repair lines or replace transformers. Besides you cant centralize it to the point say the US ran on one reactor anyways

@Laurelai no you can't but you could cut off power to other regions in an attempt to levy tributes.

@Laurelai Do you see the root of my apprehension here?

@CapnMurphy I do, but i find it largely unfounded. Infrastructure tends to empower people to be able to take part in the political process. This is why dictators dont build roads.

@CapnMurphy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

@Laurelai I suppose what you say could be possible within a regional confederation but I do not believe nuclear is risk free nor do I share the same enthusiasm over sharing a singular power source as you do.
many things could go wrong.

@CapnMurphy Nothing is risk free, nuclear is just the least risky option.

@crystalsopen @Laurelai If you read much about the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the largest Superfund site in the country, you may change your mind. Major radioactive and other environmental mess.

@svenhayden @crystalsopen That was for nuclear weapons production. Which is bad. Why do anti nuclear electricity people always conflate bombs with power??

@Laurelai @svenhayden I agree that weapons plants seem to have more problems. And I don't think nuclear power is perfect, but it's the best of all the realistic options in the near term. Decreasing energy supply, is politically impossible and would hurt poor people the most. As shortages always do. Massive reductions in power consumption would be needed to go to 100% renewable, and there really still needs to be an always on back-up.

@Laurelai @crystalsopen Hanford is/was used for both. It is a convenient poster child, certainly, but similar problems exist at Vermont Yankee, Indian Point, Pilgrim, Diablo Canyon, etc.
For the record, I prefer combined-cycle LNG plants, assuming good practices (especially CWA 316(a) & (b)) over nukes.

@svenhayden @crystalsopen I lived in Vermont and Vermont Yankee was safe, but attacked all the time by hippies who didnt know the bananas they ate while protesting it gave them more radiation than the power plant ever did.

@Laurelai @crystalsopen
Perhaps when you lived in Vermont, but it has bloomed into a monster mess.
http://www.reformer.com/stories/tainted-water-shipments-continue-at-vermont-yankee,535551

@svenhayden @crystalsopen I lived there last year, this is the fear mongering im talking about. Again. More radiation from a banana.

@svenhayden @crystalsopen @Laurelai Part of the problem (possibly a big part) is that all our current nuclear power plants are super ancient, high risk (by today's standards) designs and were never intended to still be running, plus it costs more to shut then down then it does to run them. It's a real conundrum.

@feoh @Laurelai @svenhayden
Yes they are are engineered typically for a 40 years lifespan, and most of them them were built in the late 60's and early 70's.

Also there are new reactor designs that are even safer. Like everything engineered, the more science and tech move forward the better they can be built. Wave, liquid fuel and thorium are all safer than the pressurized heavy water reactors aka PHWR. The Gates foundation is really smart abotu this. https://www.zdnet.com/article/bill-gates-stops-chasing-nuclear-wave-pursues-variety-of-reactors/

@feoh @crystalsopen @svenhayden Sounds like an argument for an upgrade

@Laurelai @feoh @svenhayden #agreed

@Laurelai @svenhayden @crystalsopen Definitely! But the American public isn't rational about nuclear power. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl have imprinted the idea that nuclear == dangerous - full stop.

@Nerdcoresteve Nuclear is renewable https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-seawater-extraction-makes-nuclear-power-completely-renewable/#66518d05159a

@Laurelai What about nuclear waste? Or power plant accidents? Wouldn’t it be preferable not to use nuclear power if we can avoid it?

@Nerdcoresteve 1. The waste is fuel for advanced reactors.

2. Advanced reactors are remarkably safe.

3. Either we use nuclear or we arent taking climate change seriously.