The New Atomic Age We Need - <AUTHOR> https://nytimes.com/2015/11/28/opinion/the-new-atomic-age-we-need.html <comment> 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)

<comment><USER3> 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.

<comment><USER4> 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%.

<comment><USER5> > 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).

<comment><USER4> 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)

<comment><USER5> 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.

<comment><USER6> 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)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 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.

<comment><USER8> 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.

<comment><USER9> 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.

<comment><USER10> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 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)

</comment><comment><USER12> 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)

<comment><USER13> 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)

<comment><USER14> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 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.

<comment><USER16> 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)?

<comment><USER17> These claims are from a well-known anti-nuclear organization (Union Of Concerned Scientists).

<comment><USER16> I wasn't aware, thanks for the info!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 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.

<comment><USER19> 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.

<comment><USER18> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> 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)

<comment><USER21> 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.

<comment><USER22> 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.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> 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.

</comment><comment><USER24> 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.

<comment><USER25> 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 :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> 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)

<comment><USER27> 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!

<comment><USER26> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Coal plan produces more radioactivity than nuclear plant. There are radioactive elements in coal and they get released in smoke into atmosphere.

<comment> 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.

<comment><USER28> Negative externalities?

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> 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.

<comment><USER30> _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?

<comment> 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)

<comment><USER30> 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.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> 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.

<comment><USER8> > 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> 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?

</comment><comment><USER33> 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)

<comment><USER34> 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.

<comment><USER35> 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?

<comment><USER34> 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?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> 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?

<comment><USER37> > simply

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

<comment><USER36> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> 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.

<comment><USER36> 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.

<comment><USER38> Thanks, makes complete sense now to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> YC has two nuclear start ups: Helion and UPower. How are they doing? What is their path to prominence?

</comment><comment><USER40> 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.

</comment><comment><USER41> Coincidence that this article is released at the same time as the youtube/google petition campaign?

</comment><comment><USER27> 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.

<comment><USER42> 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.

<comment><USER27> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> 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.

</comment><comment><USER44> 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 ...

<comment><USER45> 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.

<comment><USER46> The planet will survive well. We'll be screwed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> 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.

<comment><USER48> 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.

<comment><USER18> +500. WWF, SSNC, Green Peace they are all selling FUD for a price 'one p#ss for one green piece'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> 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

<comment><USER18> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> 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 - <USER2> 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.

<comment><USER50> > 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?

<comment><USER18> 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.

<comment><USER51> You mean like the Toshiba 4S? Most countries have designs for awesome stuff (at least on paper), which is never implemented for various reasons.

<comment><USER18> Have a look on early woRking prototypes of self-driving version for circumpolar regions [http://cont.ws/post/128573](http://cont.ws/post/128573)

<comment><USER51> 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?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: HuggyList: A micro-blogging platform in list format only - <AUTHOR> https://huggylist.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> (Disclaimer: design looks better on mobile)

Hey guys,

I'm very excited to share my latest MVP with the HN community :)

As a former CMO, I think blogging is today's most useful way to share deep content. Unfortunately, it is very time consuming and limited to people with writing skills. As a result, we close the door to powerful knowledge, advice, and recommendations.

 _Making this content accessible, structured and searchable is HuggyList's mission._

The current version is pretty straight-forward: 1\. Start a list (eg. free tools for early-stage founders) 2\. Insert items as you go 3\. Make your friends and followers happy

What do you guys think of the concept and its MVP?

<comment> tony-allan Easier to understand if you post a link that better shows the functionality of your new service. I don't really want to signup without at least some idea of what you are trying to achieve and how it looks in practice.

<comment><USER2> True. Here are my list that you can see without signing up:

[https://huggylist.com/list/1536198504878x785808309764751400](https://huggylist.com/list/1536198504878x785808309764751400)

[https://huggylist.com/list/1536123944713x251698623977357300](https://huggylist.com/list/1536123944713x251698623977357300)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The landing page is nothing else but login screen.

K bye!

</comment><comment><USER2> I like the idea. Check out my list "Daily Stuff for Founder" where I post a daily resource that might be interesting/useful for founders: [https://huggylist.com/list/1536198504878x785808309764751400](https://huggylist.com/list/1536198504878x785808309764751400)

</comment><comment><USER4> My thoughts: Concept: Really like the concept of lists, it's just a lot easier to get your thoughts out there in a list :D (especially as I'm too lazy to write blog posts!)

MVP: You're right, looks much better on mobile but I'm mostly going to use it on my phone anyways...</comment>


Simple caret (^) at end of Windows batch file consumes all memory - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15466298/simple-caret-at-end-of-windows-batch-file-consumes-all-memory <comment><USER2> 3 years ago...

Is it still true now?</comment>


Raspberry Pi maker Premier Farnell to be sold to Datwyler in £792m deal - <AUTHOR> http://www.cityam.com/243242/raspberry-pi-maker-premier-farnell-share-price-to-be-sold-to-datwyler-technical-components-in-792m-deal <comment><USER2> Now we will get Raspberry Pi with Swiss quality... :-)</comment>


Upgrade Your Cargo Cult for the Win - <AUTHOR> https://meaningness.com/metablog/upgrade-your-cargo-cult <comment><USER2> Long, but worth the read. It is disheartening how much of life is mindless ritual.</comment>