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The Society of Problem Solvers's avatar

Clean nuclear power. Why are we fighting this?

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eugyppius's avatar

right now, the rule seems to be that anything that might work is off the table.

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Locke's Conscience's avatar

When destruction is the goal. What "works" has a much different definition.

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Perry Simms's avatar

I can smell Morgenthau rubbing his hands in his grave.

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Marshall Auerback's avatar

Sort of like the response to Covid? LOL

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Duchess's avatar

Second Attack in the War against the West. Actually probably the second great offensive. The war has been going on since before the Patriot Act here in the US..and I will bet money that Germany has quietly passed the same legislation. Once Germany signs the WHO treaty, you will find your institutions have carte blanche to rule in tyranny based on Medical/Health Emergencies. That is what is happening now in Canada and the US.

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Cathleen Manny's avatar

Yes. An intentional disaster in the making.

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Kim G's avatar

This war with the Russians is just as unwinnable as the war against covid. Even if the Russians don't prevail militarily, they can just take their energy and go home. Europe collapses entirely. How is that any kind of victory?

When will the West collectively realize that what Putin wants (no NATO in Ukraine) is entirely reasonable and that we should just give it to him? How long does anyone think the USA would put up with either Chinese or Russian military meddling in Mexico? About a nanosecond is the true answer. Why can't we accept that Russia too has military red lines?

This entire war and economic collapse seems entirely idiotic. As Eugyppius notes above, "anything that would work is off the table."

We are truly led by idiots.

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Danno's avatar

Perhaps it's a blessing in disguise. Germans switch to coal and end energy imports. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/08/germany-reactivate-coal-power-plants-russia-curbs-gas-flow Let the Green Party suck on that.

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VigilanteSystems's avatar

Yeah, but we got rid of many coal mines long ago.. And brown coal isnt near as efficient.. also lot of sulfur content.. a.k.a. acid rain contaminant

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Vonu's avatar

The United States has plenty of coal for anyone who can figure out a way to transfer it.

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Codebra's avatar

Maybe some large floating platform... We could call it a "boat". Too crazy?

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Vonu's avatar

They usually use bulk freighters to transit the ocean. Getting it to the bulk freighters has been a problem for coal from the Powder River in Wyoming, due to port limitations and restrictions.

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

Book ‘em Danno! Amen.

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Xingyi's avatar

das fünf oh

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ChesterView's avatar

I am very interested in your take on “The Real Anthony Fauci”, a review of which is forthcoming in the relatively near future, I trust. There is evil in the world, my friend, as reluctant as one might be to admit to that hard fact.

This is is not the 90s or even the oughts. The stakes are very different, the terrain is radically transformed, and one must adjust one’s priors based on the evidence, however disorienting that might be.

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Mark Fredrickson's avatar

It's like here in the USA as Biden shuts down the energy production. Half the nation decided it will commit suicide

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pebbleanttoast's avatar

Germany is the perfect country to test how well people comply with the new green tyranny. We've been unquestioningly paying the highest electricity prices in the world for years. And we've been successfully indoctrinated to believe that nuclear power is very dangerous and our last three plants must be turned off Dec 2022.

Generally, all forms of fuel are problematic. I know someone who just put in a new pellet heating system, but he can't find any pellets. Firewood, if you can find any, is double or triple the price. Heating oil prices are up 130% over last year. Electricity prices are expected to spike dramatically soon. While France and the UK are capping the prices for the consumer, Germany is passing it on (plus VAT). Now everyone is trying to put solar panels or water heating systems on their roofs, which mostly don't work well in winter and you can't find a contractor anyway.

There are constantly new rules about what kind of fireplace or heating system you are allowed to have, i.e. something you may have installed at great expense 10 or 20 years ago is now considered obsolete. When you buy a new home, you are required to update old systems. You are already legally required to allow the chimney sweep into your home every year to check your chimneys and heating systems. Plus he is allowed to determine if your setup is up-to-date or not. It was just announced that there will be a new round of efficiency checks for all gas-based systems, paid for by the consumer of course. And there are going to be constraints on how high the temperatures are allowed to be in public and private(!) buildings.

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Perry Simms's avatar

Perhaps the concept of an occupational government controlled by the enemy has more merit than one easily admits.

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Danno's avatar

Once they're freezing, even the loyal, obedient, disciplined Germans are going to rebel, and their idiotic government may find itself replaced by a ruthless dictator, backed by an angry public demanding justice. It's not like we haven't seen it before.

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Winston Smith's avatar

Nothing our Governments and Leaders are doing is tackling the problems our society faces, and everything they are doing is making them worse.

And every problem we face has its roots in government action or inaction. Every one of them.

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SmithFS's avatar

I told you about Yablokov, he was a crackpot. And what relevance does Chernobyl have?

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Casey Preston's avatar

I’m convinced that the governments will go along with nuclear or any other “clean” alternative as long as it allows for new government expenditures and new private profits. The entire ESG movement is just an attempt to create and move money.

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SmithFS's avatar

The ESG movement is very anti-nuclear.

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Casey Preston's avatar

And I would guess that if you got to the bottom of it, you would discover that the “right” people can’t make money off of nuclear. Once they close down the nuclear plants, they will suddenly “discover” a more safe nuclear technology and rebuild all of the plants.

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SmithFS's avatar

They could make a lot of money off of nuclear, they don't care, they can print all the money they want with a keyboard. They care about power & control and that leads them to embrace Malthusianism which = No nuclear.

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Barbelo of the Pleroma's avatar

I fail to see any longer any distinction between "progressive" and "make life harder for the plebes, to discourage them from reproduction, so that we can get the sought-after depopulation." Nuclear power would make life better for ordinary people and they might be happy and reproduce at sustainable rates. Or maybe I take this too far.

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Nat's avatar

Jordan Peterson has a very nice take on this very subject. Search youtube for his 'Back Off, Oh Masters of the Universe' vid. Super brilliant.

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The Society of Problem Solvers's avatar

I think you are right on with these Globalist tyrants. The best way to fight back is to stop them from corrupting the systems that govern over our lives. This is by far the most peaceful solution. To regain control of our lives. But to do so we need to re-infiltrate our own governments with non-globalists.

Like this (it’s a totally free substack):

https://joshketry.substack.com/p/do-we-need-to-re-infiltrate-our-own

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Testpattern's avatar

Well, historically speaking, in the US the progressive movement, while ostensibly aiming at improving the life of the masses and making society better (e.g. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle), was also profoundly elitist and statist. "We, the educated WASP upper class, know what's best for you; let's create a government program to fix everything." Eugenics was popular among the early Progressives: limit reproduction of the inferior classes and races.

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood was a racist who wanted to use abortion and sterilization to reduce the weeds of human society.

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Vonu's avatar

Do you also consider negroes to be the weeds of society?

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Testpattern's avatar

Yes, that's exactly the kind of person I was talking about.

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CIAheartsKGB's avatar

So why might the racist inheritors of Margaret's elitist mantle want to first employ her perfected methods on people who most look like her and themselves?

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Skeptical Actuary's avatar

I think they miscalculated. My guess is the whole "reduce the global food supply" bit is to starve Africa, since they forget to get Africa "vaxxed".

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Perry Simms's avatar

And drive more Africans to Europe?

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Handsome Pristine Patriot's avatar

When will the plebes finally decide they've had enough?

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Local Peasant's avatar

when they start starving and freezing to death

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Handsome Pristine Patriot's avatar

Up here in North Maine, we'll be starting our heating season at the end of next month.

$4 to $5 dollar home heating oil is a no-go for anyone on a fixed income.

There's gonna be some cat food eaten by the elderly this winter I fear.

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Skeptical Actuary's avatar

I went to the grocery store a couple of days ago and noticed that canned friskies was 99 cents a can, up from about 55 cents a can last I looked, which was maybe a month ago. I guess people will be eating dry cat food, it's only up about 20%. For people in the US, I think Purina naturals is good compromise of quality and price.

One can also save money by moving into other people's basements, you have lower rent and also benefit from the insulating aspect of the underground. Of course there is that pesky problem of stairs to the bathroom; but maybe your landlord will provide a bucket you can use. :(

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Handsome Pristine Patriot's avatar

Actually, a lot of the people mooching off the system will just (try to) steal what they want.

At my house, they may face some dire consequences, however.

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CK's avatar

Just like Sri Lanka

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

Useful Idiots doing the bidding of Bolshevik Globalists

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suannee's avatar

If you study the history of nuclear power plants, you may revise your thinking about it. Maybe look at concerned citizens for nuclear safety, a group that grew out of concern about the contamination by Los Alamos National Laboratory. And, yes, that is a bomb factory, but the risks remain similar with nuclear power plants.

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Perry Simms's avatar

Again the fault of the State, which pushed high pressure reactor technology (because it can be used in subs) and blocked alternative tech. There are passive failsafe designs, and designs that get 20x more energy out of the material (they burn 'nuclear waste').

If there's a role for government force it is in preventing fissile material getting in the hands of bad actors, but they're completely failed at that already.

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Vonu's avatar

Burning nuclear waste releases nuclear smoke...

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Perry Simms's avatar

No it's not like putting it in your fireplace. The reaction byproducts of these processes are fewer and far less long-lived than all the partially-used fuel we have lying around. They are better contained than with our current vastly inefficient, high-pressure reactors

It's the globalist regime that suppresses clean, safe fission power. It's not technical impossibility that prevents it.

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Vonu's avatar

Radioactive decay takes place over millennia, not months.

It isn't technical issues that prevent it as much as past managerial incompetence that

disrecommends it.

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Vonu's avatar

"Nuclear power would make life better for ordinary people" if grossly incompetent bureaucrats with no understanding of the technology would eliminate the prohibition of private liability coverage so the industry could be driven by competent technical management instead by ignorant bureaucrats.

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suannee's avatar

Oops! human error. I neglected to include the article link from APS. https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201006/losalamos.cfm

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Vonu's avatar

Given that the US Park Service took until 1990 to make LANL into the obvious tourist destination it is, after most of the lab's original buildings had torn down, sold off, or repurposed, the best part, the Bradbury Science Museum, is the only unsecured public space left. LLNL hasn't had the same allure since they salvaged the Cray 1.

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suannee's avatar

You've given me my laugh for the day. U.S. Park Service? Where ever do you get your information? I don't intend to engage with you because all your comments are just silly.

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Vonu's avatar

I guess you've never actually visited a National Park like LANL is designated. nps.gov/thingstodo/los-alamos-tour-behind-the-fence.htm

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Aug 30, 2022Edited
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suannee's avatar

I seem to be unable to correct this post so it has the same sentence twice instead of the link from APS. Oops, more human error.

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Vonu's avatar

Maybe you should refuse any offers to manage nuclear facilities:-)

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Ken Sellers's avatar

I think I agree with you, but doesn't the thorny issue of nuclear plants in Ukraine illustrate one of the real downsides of nuclear? Nuclear is great in stable, unthreatened countries. Not so great elsewhere.

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SmithFS's avatar

The Fear Porn being rolled out about that Nuclear power plant is mind boggling. Yep, they're already to go Chernobyl, six in row, chain-reaction, destroy all of Europe. Sorry folks, these are modern VVER-1000 pressurized water reactors, they can't go Chernobyl. They will never be breached unless Russian government or whoever owns them tells them to use shaped charges to first breach the 2 ft thick containment dome and then go inside that and use special shaped charges to breach the 1ft thick pressure vessel which would just release a lot of steam, and then shut cooling off to the small core in the middle of the giant containment dome, and very large pressure vessel, thus gradually causing a meltdown, Fukushima, not Chernobyl, and a slow release of a minor amount of isotopes, no deaths, insignificant compared to the war. And if Russia wanted to do that it would be far easier and far more effective to just use a nuclear weapon or a deliberate radiological bomb. Same crime, same international sanctions while being vastly more effective as a weapon. But heck why bother with that, why not just use a bioweapon like the CIA/Davos released worldwide with zero consequences.

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

I fully agree with you on your analysis re nuclear technology as its based on fact. Well said. But I don’t share your conjecture regarding the CIA/Davos unleashed Covid. Logic clearly points to the CCP using it as a bio weapon to stop the resurgence of the American economy and America First. However, it’s not beyond reason that the CCP and the Davos globalist cabal had common cause in that regard. The fear and loathing they have for Trump is very telling. While he was a very imperfect messenger with faults galore, his policies were extremely effective and that scared the hell out of the globalists.

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SmithFS's avatar

CCP was clearly involved in the virus development and possibly its release. But let's get real the Davos gang is just lovin' their plandemic. They give $billions in gifts to any country that follows their nutball draconian covid lockdown policies, and the 4 countries that refused, 3 of their leaders were assassinated, and 1 was color revolutioned. They staged Event 201 wargame of a corona pandemic in Oct 2019, usual suspects Gates, Rockefeller & CIA. And Fauci stated in 2017 that Trump would have a pandemic in his term.

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

CIA? You mean CCP!

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BerryFarmer's avatar

China hosted the lab. The US NIH under Fauci funded it. The lab was built by the French. Canada unwittingly (?) provided viral samples for it. There's plenty of blame to go around.

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Neutron Flux's avatar

And Bancel (of Murderna) was CEO of bioMerieux - the company which helped build the Wuhan lab. Nothing to see here folks.

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

Fair enough

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RepublicJim's avatar

The same can be said of hydroelectric. Depending on proximity of major population centers, one large conventional warhead strike on a dam could wipe away hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people. Using your example of Ukraine, Kyiv - a city of nearly three million - has a large volume of water to the north, held back by a single nearby dam. I'm not familiar with the topography there, so I have no idea how quickly it would flood the city or to what level. Regardless, it would be catastrophic if Russia were to do that.

Yet, hydroelectric in general is quite safe, clean, and reliable. Wars and major natural disasters will cause huge problems with any kind of infrastructure, but we can't let that possibility rule out using the most efficient means to produce power.

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cabystander's avatar

I grew up in Yuma, Arizona.

In the '50's we were told that a medium sized conventional bomb placed properly would take out Hoover dam. We were told that we would have 45 minutes (as I recall) to evacuate. We were told about where the water level would reach. It would have wiped out about half the town, as it existed then.

It was the peak of the Cold War paranoia. (Paranoids can have real enemies).

Interesting time. Atmospheric nuclear tests were being conducted in NV. I recall one time being told that at about 0400, it you looked to the Northwest, you would see what looked like a brief dawn in the Northwest from one of the tests. I was a teenager, it took a lot to get me up at 0400. I didn't get up to see it. Wish I had.

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John Bowman's avatar

And people who are against nuclear - well against any risk - are all for fusion reactors. That magic, oodles of free energy which is just ‘10 years away’ - and ever shall be.

The Sun is a fusion reactor. Hydrogen bombs are fusion reactors. It takes a huge amount of energy to start the reaction, but once you’ve got it going that’s it - can’t stop it. ALL you have to do is contain it. The plasma can’t touch anything or it just consumes it, so it’s down to electromagnetic fields - keep fingers crossed no power cut.

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JC's avatar

And what do you know about Fusion reactors, and why we don't have these yet?

You truly sound like a nuclear industry bot, John Bowman.

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SmithFS's avatar

We don't have them because the Malthusian Bankster cretins in charge don't want us to have them. Insignificant rational funding on Fusion the past 40yrs compared to the failed wind & solar scam. The only thing getting big funding is the ITER bait-and-switch scam.

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JC's avatar

Well. we do agree on something. :-)

Fusion tech does excite me, especially the Polywell design. It's simple and feasable. It can be miniturized. Best thing: No neutron emissions! (=no ionising radiation)

Lockheed Martin is also working on one. But they shelved it.

Wind and solar is fine, in small quantities. It's not going to solve all the energy needs. Also it has been pushed into an absurd direction.

I'm from the Netherlands. We have windmills (the old kind). There's nothing wrong with those. Building huge wind farms with turbines that only last a few years, will line the pockets of some people, but that has nothing to do with "saving the environment".

Same with solar: If they want, they can design it, so it can be recycled.

But I think the true issue of contention, is batteries.

Why don't we have cheap, environmentally safe batteries?

Apparently it's not a technical issue, to redesign those.

Here's a fun article:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/hemp-car-batteries-200-times-cheaper-to-produce-than-classic-batteries/ar-AATaQ66

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Ken Sellers's avatar

All true, but there is one major difference. Radioactivity. And it can spread over large areas.

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

Prevailing winds would spread the fallout back to Russia. They won’t nuke Europe, it’s madness. That’s why Iran is such a threat. They’re ruled by 80-90 year old madmen who don’t have much skin left in the game of life.

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RepublicJim's avatar

Yes, but that's actually a powerful incentive for neighboring combatants to actively AVOID damaging a reactor. Nobody wants to crap in their own bed.

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SmithFS's avatar

So does a thousand other carcinogens like right out of your car exhaust. Why do people go nuts over "manmade" radioistopes but care less about "natural" radioisostopes? And somehow radioistotope carcinogens are worse than chemical carcinogens. All fables. There was no danger to anyone due to radioactivity outside the plant gates of Fukushima. The creeps are forcing Tepco to send soil to "toxic waste dump" or for treatment that has lower radioactivity than soil in Colorado. And shorter lived less dangerous radioactivity.

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Ken Sellers's avatar

That is news to me, and I'd like to learn more. Got any references?

BTW I live in Colorado.

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cabystander's avatar

So, those of us who are fortunate enough to live in "stable, unthreatened countries" should freeze because of what some banana republic might do?

Living in the US, worse yet, California, I use the term "banana republic" with a lot of trepidation.

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Aug 18, 2022
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cabystander's avatar

CA has vast problems, many of which have the potential for causing a collapse.

I moved here in 1980. At the time, it was overpriced, had a strain of nuttiness, but was a happening place. About 30 years ago, I pronounced that it couldn't continue. I have been wrong for 30 years.

I am old, looking 80 in the face. My family is here and that is about all I care about. Otherwise, I would be gone. Doing so at my age and general condition would be irresponsible. So, I will go down with the ship. Hopefully, I will exit before the collapse, which will be unprecedented in modern history.

You are entirely correct about the tech industry. The states revenue is heavily top loaded. What no one sees is that CA, indeed the US, has no monopoly on smart people. India, China, many other places are full of them. I am a technologist. IMO, we have lost the edge we unquestionably had in my youth.

As I said, my prognostication abilities are proven wrong.

The relevant quote: "That which cannot continue, won't"

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DWB's avatar

I am 55 and sadly last week moved out of California (Sunnyvale). It seems to have lost its creative spark and youthful drive. It's like a snooty retirement community.

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cabystander's avatar

People outside of CA and unfortunately most inside CA, think of CA as the coastal population centers. LA, San Francisco, San Diego. The Central Valley looks third world in many places.

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

That which won’t continue, cannot…..

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Aug 18, 2022
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GK's avatar

Please! This old canard is trotted out everytime someone points out that the West may not possess all the geniuses in the world. Anyone who cares to look, can see that China is full of intelligent, creative people. And some of the world's most creative mathematicians have come from India.

In the absence of any objective data to the contrary, you have to assume that creativity is distributed no differently than intelligence.

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

America’s enemies are doing all they can to destroy California.

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cabystander's avatar

I live in CA. CA doesn't need any external help running off the cliff.

If by "America's enemies" you mean "America's domestic enemies", I entirely agree.

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John Bowman's avatar

Nuclear plants fail safe. Even Chernobyl did result in nuclear Holocaust just a fire.

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JC's avatar

@John Bowman @SmithFS

you both make INSANE COMMENTS. Nuclear industry bots!

READ THIS ABOUT CHERNOBYL! http://strahlentelex.de/Yablokov_Chernobyl_book.pdf

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SmithFS's avatar

Alexi Yablokov is a cetacean biologist, of all things, I didn't know they had those in Russia, who got grandfathered into the Russian Academy and has ZERO qualifications in Radiation Health Physics or Nuclear Energy. His report is transformed into overpriced arse-wipe by this report by a REAL Russian Radiation Health Physicist, M.I.Balonov :

"...Prof. Yablokov and his coauthors give extensive references to the media, commercial publications, websites of public organizations, or even unidentified ones, to justify their ideas. These are also the source for statistical data on demography, morbidity, etc., which is not considered seriously by the scientific community. Most of the references are conference proceedings, abstracts of theses, and brochures in Russian, all hitherto unknown to the world and hardly accessible even in the former Soviet Union, not to mention the rest of the world. Thus, independent verification or clarification of the data presented by the authors is virtually impossible..."

"...the author proposes so-called ecological or geographic technologies,... are compared. However, international experience in radiation epidemiology has repeatedly demonstrated that this approach leads to erroneous conclusion..."

Reputable analysis of the Chernobyl incident by ACTUAL Radiation Health Scientists, the best of the best working for UNSCEAR & the World Health Organization:

In the most accurate report on the Chernobyl incident, 31 died. There is zero evidence of any further deaths. Possibility of up to 4000 additional cancers, mostly highly treatable thyroid cancer. Vs 7 million die every year (WHO numbers) due to odzadze's fave combustion fuels. See:

"...the mortality rate among these 103 survivors was 1.08 percent per year... less than the average mortality rate in the three affected countries, which was 1.5 percent in 2000..."

"...In 2000, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), the most authoritative body in these matters, and in 2006, the United Nations Chernobyl Forum (a group composed of representatives of eight U.N. organizations, the World Bank, and the governments of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine), stated in their documents that except for thyroid cancers, there was no increase in the incidence of solid cancers and leukemia, and no increase in genetic diseases observed in the highly contaminated areas..."

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JC's avatar

Here's the problem: The nuclear industry has a serious bias towards ignoring real world health effects. And the argument of authority I can dismiss, with pointing out the corruption in these governing bodies you said we should unconditionally trust.

Listen to whistleblower Alison Katz exposing this dark sordid MESS:

https://nuclearhotseat.com/podcast/chernobyl-health-cover-up-by-un-who-exposed-alison-katz-independent-independent-who/

Alexi Yablokov was right about the impact on the health of affected citizens, especially into future generations. So, he was a biologist. Would a nuclear engineer be able to asses the damage inflicted on organisms or the environment as a whole?

Some research shows no significant damage to the genome of workers who recieved a direct (high) dose, the industry focuses on that.

https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-018-0387-9

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg2365

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/apr/23/children-of-chernobyl-parents-have-no-higher-number-of-dna-mutations

Case closed, according to them.

The real world situation in Belarus however is VERY different. Who cares about poor people without real power, living in a contaminated land, giving birth to seriously deformed children?

https://www.chernobyl-international.com/did-you-know/

http://www.life-upgrade.com/DATA/Lazyuk-ChernobylBelarus.pdf

And other research DOES show effects:

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/6/1786

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35665338/

Much more information you can find in this Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20170929171331/https://tekknorg.wordpress.com/

Yes, that (scientific) information is marginalized, and you have to know where to look.

But there's no drive, to conduct followup research, or even chart the Chernobyl children. The nuclear industry is run by people protecting it, at any cost. Politics of power means that critique is seen as an attack.

These genetic effects do not exist, because they simply ignore it. Instead they came up with fantasy mumbo jumbo like the "Hormesis" theory. And biased newsmedia like the Guardian published fun stories about the wildlife in the forests close to the ruined powerplant.

My reaction: It's yet another entreched industry, and the people who run it are incapable of self-correction. Therefore they can't be trusted.

I'm not against experimental physics at all. I do think that humanity is capable of evolving, and responsible behaviour.

But not right now, and certainly not under current "leadership", which is a relatively small group of people (called the 0,01%) making all the decisions, mostly (from what I can see) to protect or enlarge their positions of power.

Also, there's a viable alternative, in the form of the Polywell Fusion reactor. Which was developed by prof. dr. Bussard and his team, but then shelved, after the development was published in 2007. It would mean an energy revolution, and decentralization of power.

Can't have that. Progress be damned. So we're stuck with a mid-twentieth century tech nuclear bomb factory industry with a civil arm to make it "acceptable".

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suannee's avatar

Great post

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Perry Simms's avatar

SmithFS, that's a winning post.

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Ken Sellers's avatar

Negative. The WHO is not credible, and neither are the governments of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. So a post citing those sources is not "winning". Attacking an author because they don't have a degree in the subject is also a classic tactic of those without a true winning argument. By that logic, Eric Lander has no right to talk about genetics because his degree is in mathematics.

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Ken Sellers's avatar

Thank you for the link. At first glance it appears to be well worth reading.

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Ken Sellers's avatar

"Just a fire"? The Chernobyl explosion put 400 times more radioactive material into the Earth's atmosphere than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Chernobyl_and_other_radioactivity_releases)

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SmithFS's avatar

Chernobyl was a Soviet military reactor without containment and a high positive void coefficient of reactivity, both illegal for commercial nuclear power. And a worst case scenario, the core blown out over the countryside, 52 deaths, possible 4000 treatable cancers over a lifetime.

Many people stayed after Chernobyl. Other Reactors continued to be manned and operated until 2000, 18yrs later. The people who stayed were more healthy than those who evacuated. Watch bionerd, a radiation biologist, as she wanders around Chernobyl nuclear plant area, including Greenpeace's much hyped "Red Forest", eating Greenpeace's daunted "radioactive apples" and then visits a naturally radioactive beach resort in Guarapari, Brazil for 3 days. Search for her (bionerd23) Youtube videos:

" brazil 2012: sunbathing on radioactive beaches "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvgAx1yIKjg

" Chernobyl wild zone: radioactive rabies, autumn fruit and foxes "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_ZvHMGXdbE

End result after 2 days at Chernobyl doing the worst of the worst: she got a 100 uSv dosage, after 2.5 days at Brazil beach she got a 300 uSv dosage. She admits if she had the time to lay on the beach like a typical tourist she would have got about a 900 uSv dosage. At Chernobyl you are getting primarily a gamma & beta radiation external dosage. On the beach you are getting a stronger dosage of both PLUS an internal Alpha particle dosage from breathing and ingestion of Thorium daughters, i.e. Radon, (similar but more potent than plutonium). People have lived on that beach for thousands of years, no detectable bad effect on their health.

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JC's avatar

NO! This is a lie.

600.000 deaths in the first 20 years (Nablokov).

Not "many people" stayed after Chernobyl. More lies.

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SmithFS's avatar

See Yablokov above. The man is a well known crackpot in Russia.

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cabystander's avatar

Bravo.

As I understand (fake news alert--you cannot believe anything in the MSM), the survivors of Hiroshima/Nagasaki have been intensively studied. A lot died early on from immediate effects--both radiation and blast. Those that survived past the first year or so have actually had a somewhat better life expectancy than the norm. Not to suggest that radiation is good for you, but because of their being followed carefully, they probably got somewhat better medical care than the average Japanese.

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JC's avatar

This is an insane comment and the Hormesis theory that you're touting here, as if it's fact, has been thoroughly debunked a decade ago.

Hiroshima&Nagasaki's radiation victims have been thoroughly ignored after the war. Because critique on the new nuclear world order was not allowed. The "Black Rain" caused a lot of suffering and casualties.

Also the diseases, miscarriages resulting of slow radiation poisoning as a result of the fallout of Fukushima reactor 1 and 2 having a NUCLEAR DETONATION have been largely swept under the mat. Japanese society has no place for victims, if you're a victim it may mean it's your own fault (but it isn't, of course).

It's very cynical to then state these reactors were safe, and nothing bad happened. It tells me you're very very very badly informed.

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John Bowman's avatar

Just a fire, that is to say not a nuclear detonation.

And yet we are all still here.

How much radiation think you, comes out of the ground from natural sources? If your house is built over granite it will be full of radon gas, for example.

Then there is the perpetual bombardment from Space, by X-rays, gamma rays and sub-atomic particles.

Time people stopped frightening themselves with what they don’t understand and just got on with their lives - more important let the rest of us get on with our lives who don’t live in constant dread of the big bad monster.

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JC's avatar

Complete and utter NONSENSE.

You seem not very well informed, about ionising radiation.

And no, to be exposed to ANY kind of ionising radiation is not a good thing. It damages DNA. It's not a "big bad monster". That's a straw man argument, aimed at people with the mental capacity of a toddler.

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SmithFS's avatar

"...Mental capacity of a toddler..."?!? Oh you mean like these Radiation Health Physicists, they don't work in Nuclear power, but Health Medicine:

"...Radiation's principal effect is on the defenses. Low radiation doses/levels stimulate all the defenses reducing the incidence of cancer. High doses/levels have the opposite effect ... there is a small chance that a cancer may develop due to DNA altered by a near-lethal dose of radiation..."

Wade Allison, professor of radiation health physics, points out that radiation treatments of tumors and post-surgical follow-up radiation treatments irradiate large amounts of healthy tissue (organs too) at 200 rad each day for 4 weeks. That amounts to 200 x 5 x 4 = 4000rad [40Sv] in a month. [23,000X Fukushima district maximum allowed]. There are many cells in this healthy tissue (10^9 per gram), and Allison says that these tissues recover. These irradiated areas do not become cancer ridden..."

"...Radiation-induced: 10-100 DNA alterations per cell/cGy 1 mGy/year radiation [=1mSv/yr = max allowed nuclear power plant radiation leakage by authorities] 6 million times lower than spontaneous rate!!!

So radiation is not a significant cause of cancer. We've known this for more than 20 years!.."

"..Low radiation dose/dose-rate reduces cancer incidence because it stimulates:

-- prevention of DNA damage

-- repair of DNA damage

-- removal of damaged cells and removal of cancer cells

High radiation dose/level has opposite effects.."

"It is important to understand that the risk to health from radiation from Fukushima is negligible, and that undue concern over any possible health effects could be much worse than the radiation itself."

-Gerry Thomas, Imperial College, London, in Fear and Fukushima.

Professor Bernie Cohen offered to eat an ounce of Plutonium if Ralph Nader would eat an ounce of caffeine. That sent Nader running with his tale between his legs. This fellow, Albert Stevens died of cardiorespiratory failure at the age of 79, 20 yrs after getting a MASSIVE dose of plutonium.

"... known as patient CAL-1, was the victim of an unethical human radiation experiment, and survived the highest known accumulated radiation dose in any human.[1] On May 14, 1945, he was injected with 131 kBq (3.55 �Ci) of plutonium without his knowledge or informed consent.[2]

Plutonium remained present in his body for the remainder of his life, the amount decaying slowly through radioactive decay and biological elimination. Stevens died of heart disease some 20 years later, having accumulated an effective radiation dose of 64 Sv (6400 rem) over that period. The current annual permitted dose for a radiation worker in the United States is 0.05 Sv (or 5 rem)...."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Stevens

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JoshTul's avatar

Ugh! Be smarter

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Peter's avatar

There are two issues with nuclear.

1) Nobody but the Fins have a solution for nuclear waste yet. (Also long term storage is payed for by the taxpayers not part of the kWh price, but that is just a side issue here.)

2) Risk of disasters is small. But if it happens in densely populated Europe unimaginable. Not so much in direct death, but the amount of area not habitable for basically as long as Western civilization exists. (And no, you wouldn't want to live in the Fukushima fallout zone, so don't give me crap about it wasn't so bad.) Another way to look at it is that the same people in charge of our covid response would be in charge of nuclear safetly. Yeah, no thanks.

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SmithFS's avatar

Literally EVERY pro-nuclear person incessantly explains to dummies that nuclear waste is not a significant issue, they never learn, they just block their mind to the facts.

The total volume of all the World's steel hard dense ceramic spent nuclear fuel would fit in the space of one wind turbine and contains ~$400 trillion of clean energy, burned in new reactors like the Elysium MCSFR. What idiot would proclaim that a steel hard dense ceramic can leak out? Nuclear is the ONLY energy source that contains its waste. Solar & wind have 300X the waste and it is not contained. China is blighted with radioactive waste dumps from its Rare Earth mines which make materials for wind turbines, very high thorium radioactive waste that lasts for billions of years.

Watch this video by the Illinois Energy Professor on Nuclear Waste storage and get the facts, not Fear Porn:

Dispelling the Myths of Nuclear Energy (Live Lecture):

youtube d0t com/watch?v=c1QmB5bW_WQ

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Armin's avatar

If it is so easy, why is it then so hard t find good spots?

The main thing with the waste is that it gets very hot. So you cannot just burry it in the ground, rock, etc as it indeed would break out of its ceramic or other containments.

Last it is a bit more than just a few barrels. Perhaps the core uranium if condensed would be that small (I doubt the math, I think it is more like a small warehouse), but you cannot condense it that small. So in uncondensed volume it is pretty large. You need at least various safe containment locations. If you can point a few out that we missed, that would save the world ...

(Last, I'm not advocating for solar/wind, so the argument Y is also/even worse bad, doesn't really apply.)

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M D's avatar

I work at a nuclear power plant. All the spent fuel EVER used at the plant (30+yrs) is stored in heavy stainless steel welded flasks. They are about 10ft tall and 10ft diameter. They aren't even warm to the touch. And yes it's totally safe to touch them and walk around them with zero protection. The volume including these heavy thick walled flasks of all the spent fuel sits in a warehouse less then the size of a soccer field. That plant produces 4000 megawatts 24/7 for 30+ yrs and will for 30 more. There are plenty of technically appropriate long term storage locations. The only difficulty is finding politically acceptable ones. FYI.

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Peter's avatar

You are thinking too small. You don't need oen of such plants, but hundreds. Suddenly that is hundreds of football fields.

Also the problem is that you cannot store these above ground forever. The same people that managed covid will manage these flasks. Something will go wrong eventually with a chance of 100%. They'll lose them somehow, they get stolen, the flasks don't get replaced on time because of budget cuts. Wars, floods, etc. Remember we are talking thousands of years.

So we have to store then underground. We have no geological stable facilities. Name one if you think you know better. And underground the temperature of these flasks rises as you have a higher temperature equibrillium. For Finland they calculated they would be around 70 degrees Celsius. The flask will crack after a while and leak unless there is no groundwater. The US selected sites all had serious groundwater issues. Hence we are still looking ...

Just handwave and pretend you know better doesn't make the problem go away. It is in fact scary that you work at a powerplant and don't know 101 in waste storage ...

The only solution I can think off is shoot them into space once space travel becomes safe enough.

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M D's avatar

You are conflating a few things and making some very basic flawed arguments.

First, 4000 megawatts powers about 25% of the entire province of Ontario, Canada's most populaced province. For 30 years! And all it created was enough waste to fit in a building about 50yds by 120 yds.

Secondly they are managed by teams of highly trained highly educated highly experienced engineers, not politicians. You cannot lose a flask. It needs a specialized mobile crane to move it. It weighs tens of tonnes! The flask is over a foot thick stainless steel and has multiple layers of containment inside. It won't rust, leak, or spill. It doesn't get hot, it doesn't emit any radiation. You can hug one all day long. Flasks don't get replaced. I don't think you have any understanding of the process.

The deep geological repository in Kincardine Ontario is the perfect place to store them and it would hold the entirety of all the nuclear fuel ever used in Canada with enough space for the next 300 yrs of fuel. Based on technological progress, we can probably reprocess all that fuel in about 200 yrs in any case. You need to brush up on physics if you think you can use fossil fuels to launch nuclear waste to break free of Earth's gravity forever (escape velocity). The amount of energy required would negate all the benefit of using the fuel in the first place! I think the big difference here that you might not understand is in Canada we don't need or use enriched uranium for fuel. We use unenriched uranium. Can't make bombs from it, way less radioactive, safer to handle, etc. Google Candu reactors. The plant I work at was recently rated one of the safest, highest performing in the world... Go look up WANO.

Educate yourself a bit more and you'll realize nuclear energy is the safest, cleanest, most cost effective , environmentally friendly power source on the planet right now. Although I wish thorium would really be pursued more aggressively. Watch the documentary Pandora's Box then reply back . We all want a safe healthy planet for our children- at least I want that for mine. The climate change scammers will be the end of all of us and unless we stop the real pollutants, +plastics, chemicals, biohazards, etc, we are condemning them to a very distopian future. A bit of trivia - a coal plant emits 10x more radiation than a nuclear plant due to the natural levels of radioactive materials in the coal and it gets released into the atmosphere wherever the wind blows along with the acid rain producing fly ash and other nasty carcinogenic compounds...no energy is clean. It's all about trade-offs.

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SmithFS's avatar

It is easy and the Blue Ribbon Presidential commission concluded storing it on site in dry casks is perfectly safe and effective for hundreds of years before which the waste can be burned in Fast reactors already being built or future ADS reactors or Fission-Fusion hybrids. Simple solution. The Davos Malthusian psychopaths don't want any solutions.

Ya know that spent fuel puts out about 10 watts/kg @ 1yr after leaving the core. And 0.5 watts/kg @ 10yrs. You could hold that in your hand, it wouldn't even be warm, it would be deadly for the radiation, but the heat is insignificant. Quit spreading Fear Porn about something you know nothing about.

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Perry Simms's avatar

"The Davos Malthusian psychopaths don't want any solutions."

That's going to get some mileage in my posts.

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Irena's avatar

What happens if a missile hits a nuclear power plant (accidentally or deliberately, it doesn't matter)? What happens if there's a major earthquake? What happens if, due to economic and/or political turmoil, a reactor is simply abandoned (not "decommissioned"; simply abandoned)? All these are very realistic scenarios. Wars, revolutions, and natural disasters are built-in features of collective human existence. Yet, nuclear proponents never address them. They always assume that a nuclear reactor will be properly taken care of, indefinitely. This is a completely unreasonable assumption.

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SmithFS's avatar

Negligible effect on safety, expensive damage of course just like hitting any power plant. Much worse if they bomb a hydro dam, one dam failure killed 200K people in China and wiped out a vast area of land. All the Japan reactors easily withstood the world record Tohoku earthquake with insignificant damage. Fukushima reactors were stupidly designed for a much smaller tsunami than they got. Dumb. Easy fix.

And nuclear proponents always address wars, revolutions & natural disasters, you ecofascists just continually ignore everything we tell you. Abandoned NPPs would be the least of anybody's problems if society collapses to that extent. Leave the core right there it won't hurt anybody except some supreme idiots who would have to expend enormous energy, effort and resources to kill themselves (and little else). Why not release one of the many bioweapons they are stockpiling without any civilian oversight?

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Irena's avatar

I stopped reading at "ecofascists." If you cannot be minimally polite, it's probably because you don't have much of an argument to make.

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SmithFS's avatar

Nice passive aggressiveness, proves you know you are wrong and can't win the debate. Typical of Neoliberals.

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JC's avatar

The finish project to bury Plutonium has hit a snag. The "extremely stable" geologic formations proved not so stable at all. So, I agree with you: The waste storage is not solved at all.

Risk of disasters is small? 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima. To introduce a BIOCIDE (Plutonium is a man-made substance that kills all life) into a closed environment, and just declare it safe, based on the short history of failing safety measures, is not correct. And that's not counting the hundreds of "near misses".

We agree that it's a very bad idea to let the people sabotaging healthcare to run the nuclear show. The very rich organized in groups like the WEF, seem unhinged, in their lust for power.

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SmithFS's avatar

BIOCIDE?!? Plutonium is an alpha emitter and it emits that at a much lower intensity than the Radon in your natural gas or basement, or the Americium in your smoke detector or the Thorium daughters on a popular beach in Brazil. Bernie Cohen offered to eat an ounce of plutonium if Nader would eat an ounce of caffeine. Housepainter Albert Stevens was injected by a massive 64Sv dose of plutonium and lived another 20yrs, dying of a heart attack.

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Irena's avatar

When people talk about how "safe" nuclear is, I want to know about what assumptions are built into that statement. What happens if it gets hit by a missile (deliberately or accidentally, it doesn't matter)? What happens if there's a natural disaster such as a major earthquake or a tornado? What happens if there's an economic crisis and so politicians decide to take their chances and postpone scheduled maintenance for a year or ten (or forever)? What happens if the site is simply abandoned (in the sense that no-one's looking after the reactor in any way, but people are still living in the area)? These events may be "rare" by "one reactor over one human lifespan" standards. But there's always a natural disaster somewhere, a war somewhere, a major economic disruption somewhere. These things can take a very long time to recover from. If there's climate change (anthropogenic or not, it doesn't matter), they may never recover. Remember, Sahara used to be a grassland. Until it wasn't.

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John Bowman's avatar

Sellafield fuel reprocessing in the UK, and the French running 59 reactors for 60 years are rather good at it.

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Ken Sellers's avatar

Thanks for bringing up France. How stable has France been over the last 150 years or so, and during the periods of tumult, would you have wanted 59 nuclear reactors there?

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Irena's avatar

Right. I'd love to know how "safe" all those reactors will be if the French suddenly get the urge to have a go at La Révolution II, or if the French and Germans decide to have a nice little replay of WWI (in WWII, the French quickly surrendered, so whatever). The supposed safety of nuclear energy always seems to have a built-in assumption that no major disruptions will occur. But on a historical scale (and not even all that large of a scale), major disruptions (wars, revolutions, natural disasters...) are pretty much guaranteed. So, what happens next time there's such a disruption?

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John Bowman's avatar

Because the aim is to drive us back to pre-industrial societies subject to feudal rule by our rent-seeking betters.

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Matthew McWilliams's avatar

Because "Three Mile Island", "China Syndrome", whatever.

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SomeDude's avatar

"Clean" nuclear power. Does that mean an environmentally sound storage/disposal facility has finally been implemented for the radioactive waste?

The US is still moving around waste for lack of disposal options.

France has shut down a significant amount of their nuclear reactors for lack of cooling water.

Thorium reactors look feasible... have any been built and put into service outside France?

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SmithFS's avatar

There is no source of energy that emits anywhere near the minuscule amount of waste that Nuclear power does. That is because uranium & thorium have 3 millionX the energy density of fossil fuels and they are far more energy dense then wind or solar.

There's $400 trillion in clean energy contained in that waste. Just burn it up in new reactors coming out like Natrium or Elysium. After doing that, what's left is 83% valuable isotopes that can be sold at a considerable profit, the 17% after that amounts to 1/6th ounce in order to supply one American's lifetime share of energy that's 10kw continuous for 80yrs. So every 80yrs the USA would have 1800 tonnes of waste to store, only dangerous for 300yrs. Dump it down a borehole, a trivial expense. No other form of energy comes even remotely close to that low level of waste.

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Ede Wolf's avatar

There was an area in Africa that had a natural nuclear reaction going for hundred of thousand of years because the Uranium was concentrated enough for it.

Somehow, nature survived...

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/meet-oklo-the-earths-two-billion-year-old-only-known-natural-nuclear-reactor

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SomeDude's avatar

It helps that the radioactives were deep underground and not above ground in a concrete shell, and didn't rely on artificially pumped water sources to keep from running out of control.

I've read about that formation before, it's very interesting.

I won't regale you with other, far less mainstream, theories about why it's there.

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Guttermouth's avatar

Ancient nuclear holocaust by a Precursor master race? Demon poop? Ruthkanda? Come on, man, I'm dying to know.

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SomeDude's avatar

A few of the folks who researched it thought that about 200g of uranium had been removed in the distant past, that the remaining u235 had been enriched to facilitate fission reactions, and that unnaturally high water purity would be required for the reaction not to be "poisoned" by contaminants.

That the structure isn't completely natural is, of course, completely unthinkable for most folks, considering the age of the structure. So I am not leaning on this as a high potential explanation and left the original comment to match the common consensus.

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Guttermouth's avatar

Fascinating.

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SmithFS's avatar

The uranium-235 content in natural uranium in those days was enough to allow criticality if a water moderator was also present in abundance. So anywhere you had concentrations of uranium, along with ample water, even in a stream bed, you would have a fission reactor which will run until the water boils off and restart when the water replenished. Happened on Mars too. Pretty simple stuff. Works with present day natural uranium also if you have heavy water moderator.

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suannee's avatar

You are right. I worked on the Yucca Mountain Project that was meant to be a respository for radioactive waste. After much expense drilling into the mountain, it was decided that it would not be safe, nor politically popular, to store radioactive material there. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southern New Mexico had to close down for 3 years because of an accident there. I don't know about thorium reactors, but, for the love of Pete, solar energy is feasible. I've had my solar array for 10 years with no problems and no updates necessary. Not only is my electric bill fairly minimal, most of the time I provide energy back to the electric company. After the initial expense of the solar panels, there doesn't seem to be a problem.

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John Bowman's avatar

What exactly do you think has been happening for the last 70 years?

Primitive minds that don’t understand technology see it as magic, something to be feared, work of devils.

A little education helps.

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M D's avatar

China has a thorium reactor.

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Aug 18, 2022
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suannee's avatar

And it had to close down from 2014 to 2017 because of an accident there. The people who live around there (not nearly as crowded as Europe) are objecting strenuously to the enlargement of the facility. I worked on the Yucca Mountain Project where waste was meant to be stored. It never got off the ground. It's not feasible to ship all that waste by trains and trucks thereby endangering people in its path with possible accidents. You might want to look at Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety's website.

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Vonu's avatar

Nuclear power is clean but its past managers have blood on their hands.

Atoms and Ashes by Serhii Plokhy tells the story of gross incompetence of nuclear energy.

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norstadt's avatar

Germans seem obsessed with the long term, to the point of disaster. First the 1000-year Reich, now Nachhaltigkeit, AKA sustainability.

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Vonu's avatar

Their attitude will probably change after Nord Stream 1 is completely shut off and Nord Stream 2 is still not allowed to open.

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Zenitram's avatar

Quit using the word "Clean" to describe it. Its capitulation to the green whackos.

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Al X G's avatar

The problematic waste from those plants doesn’t seem so clean though.

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suannee's avatar

Ya think? Also the expense of creating them is greater than the "savings." I have a solar system at my house. It seems pretty clean and I also provide energy back to the electric company!!

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SmithFS's avatar

Your solar is a welfare bum public subsidized turkey. Go off-grid and see what your solar costs. Quit asking poor people to subsidize your power bill.

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suannee's avatar

As you probably won't read the referenced article, this is part of what it says:

How Utilities Make Money

According to The Freeing Energy Project, utilities are "government-granted monopolies with exclusive rights to sell electricity in their assigned regions." Utilities actually don't make money based on how much electricity they sell. Instead, their profits come from "investment in the assets (the pipes, substations, transmission lines, etc.)" that provide electricity (Sightline Institute). Public officials and utility commissions highly regulate utility companies to ensure fixed prices for consumers. These government agencies also determine how much to pay the utilities, often via archaic formulas that disincentivize utility companies to innovate, improve efficiency, or optimize existing systems.

When profits are down due to solar adoption, what can utilities do? Their only option is to levy fees on their existing customers in an attempt to recoup the so-called "lost costs" of clean energy programs.

So while it's true that people may see increased electricity costs, it's not accurate to attribute those to solar installations. The utilities made a choice to pass their lost revenue through to their customers.

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SmithFS's avatar

How are profits down due to nutty wind & solar scams? They can profit from them more easily than with reliable baseload power. Enron loved wind & solar, Enron promoted wind & solar, because it is so easy to scam high prices with an intermittent unreliable energy source. All the big crony capitalist investing scams just love wind & solar. Up to $5/kwh market electricity prices when wind and/or solar is low.

The sensible and effective thing to do is implement, the rational Revenue Neutral Carbon Fee and Dividend (CF&D) and replace the myriad of massive subsidies, mandates & exemptions for Wind & Solar, that no other low carbon generation gets. Level the playing field fairly. Why doesn't nuclear get those immense subsidies? The CF&D rewards the lower energy users, i.e. us, and penalizes the energy gluttons, i.e. the rich. And let the market decide winners and losers not corrupt politicians who love wind & solar (because they're paid to love it). They won't because they know wind & solar will die a quick death without massive preferential subsidies.

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suannee's avatar

I have acquaintances who are off grid and it costs them nothing. What in the world are you talking about? Had the battery storage units been better I would have gone off grid. As it is, I have a propane-powered generator for when the system goes down. It costs whatever the cost of propane is and is seldom in play, for what that's worth.

Instead of making unfounded pronouncements, maybe you should do some research. Here's another article for you to look at (but I doubt you would or do look at anything that doesn't agree with your pre-conceived points of view). https://www.mygenerationenergy.com/2021/03/26/does-solar-really-increase-energy-costs-for-others/#:~:text=So%20if%20that's%20true%2C%20how,due%20to%20net%20metering%20programs.

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SmithFS's avatar

"costs them nothing" really. How much did their solar system and battery storage cost? Their backup generator. Fuel costs. Give me a break. You are being ridiculous.

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suannee's avatar

Always do the ad hominem attack when you have no facts. As I said the cost per kWh of nuclear power must include the cost of building the nuclear power station, the insurance, the harm to the workers, etc etc. But you choose to ignore that. I also said that after the initial installation the cost is nothing. In my case, I chose to stay on the grid providing and taking electricity. I must pay a monthly fee whether I am taking or providing the electricity. Also for your information, not that it matters, I am an 80 year old widow living on a pension. So tell me about all the poor people I am depriving of cheap nuclear power. LOL

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suannee's avatar

Probably because nuclear power is not clean. What is everyone doing with the waste. Then there's Fukushima, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl. Maybe you were being sarcastic. As a retiree from Los Alamos National Lab, one of the world's nuke centers, I can assure you, it is plenty dirty.

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Aug 19, 2022
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suannee's avatar

I know all energy sources are dirty to a degree. I also worked with nuclear engineers because I retired from Los Alamos National Lab, once called Los Alamos Scientific Lab. They gave up the "scientific" part after Reagan became president. I started there in 1975 in the solar energy group. That also disappeared and most funding went to "star wars" weapons. The nuclear engineers always loved nuclear energy. Sort of like some "scientists" and doctors loved the covid narrative. I think in the long run burning coal may be cleaner.

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Zenitram's avatar

So you're on "OG Greeny" with a bone to pick with anything not "renewable".

I remember your type.

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suannee's avatar

You're funny. I don't even know what an OG Greeny is. No I think decentralization of power is a great idea. I am in the US. A former Democrat and liberal who was awakened during Covid by the Dem and liberal take on me as an unvaccinated person whose freedoms were taken from me. Does OG stand for Old Gradma? I'm old all right, but never had kids.

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Zenitram's avatar

OG - Original Gangsta. Typically used to refer to someone who was first in their breed. I remember the 90s, and the original tree-huggers. We were supposed to be all renewable then, and they sing the same tune now. The problem is everything moves WITH them. We never reduce how much power we use, we simply more and more technology to our homes as old devices become more efficient. All of the estimates, including the doomsaying, will be wrong.

It felt nostalgic reading your comments is all. Everyone has been saying the same things for decades, and the end has yet to come. The apocalypse is a myth, but people keep finding new ways to describe its arrival.

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Rosemary B's avatar

because we are a country of stupid bun headed people. :-P

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John Bowman's avatar

Don’t claim all the credit… bun headed people are in oversupply throughout the ‘civilised’ West.

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The Wiltster's avatar

Many people have already offered excellent answers to this question. So I will, as is my habit, offer a more expansive, yet likely no more helpful, answer! What the covid dumpster fire provided, is spades, was an illustration of how bogus dogma masquerading as truth can take over the available mental space for an issue. Long, long, LONG ago, nuclear power was relegated to a position where the ignorant dogmatic response would be, "it's too dangerous." Despite excellent work from scientists in the U.S. and elsewhere, it continues to occupy that emotional space. (And just like with covid, some of those scientists, while respected generally, began to enter the fabled, "crazy old man" zone, as they promoted nuclear more and more.) Fear is sticky, but irrational fear is even stickier. And so, masks forever and nuclear power never.

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Dr. Hubris's avatar

... but you know where nuclear is "safe"? In weapons, scattered all over the place; in US we had a few very close calls, but nobody is going to ban those...

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Vonu's avatar

Nuclear weapons are completely safe until they are triggered.

Nuclear power plants are unsafe from the delivery of their fuel rods to their decommissioning.

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Dr. Hubris's avatar

... and their safety was tested a couple of times in US, when we nearly nuked ourselves...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents

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Vonu's avatar

There is no nearly with nuclear weapons.

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Vonu's avatar

Nuclear power was made too dangerous by gross mismanagement of the assets by people like those at NASA that let an unsafe shuttle be launched against the recommendations of all of the engineers and technicians on the scene.

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Vonu's avatar

Probably because its cleanliness is fictional unless one understands radioactivity.

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The Society of Problem Solvers's avatar

Please. Elaborate.

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Vonu's avatar

I can't find what you want me to elaborate on in a very long thread.

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Dr. Hubris's avatar

... because we like nuclear energy only when it is brought by "the beauty of our weapons".

There are NO money for the "elites" in this - this is why.

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John Carter's avatar

Cheer up. Destroying Germany's economy via artificial energy poverty will stop the weather from changing.

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SmithFS's avatar

That's the only way their "climate change energy plan" actually works. Enforced energy poverty = reduced emissions. But will developing nations where all the massive emissions growth is coming from embrace that plan?

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John Bowman's avatar

It the Energy Wand - waved by the good fairy to produce energy from nothing. Next week perpetual motion.

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Forbes's avatar

Reducing energy consumption to Third World levels will produce a Third World standard of living.

It's kind of ingenious. In a destructive way. Probably foments revolution.

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Vonu's avatar

Nothing will stop the weather from changing until the sun that powers it winks out.

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AndyinBC's avatar

Not to mention - significantly reducing the population. Solves the "food crisis". More bugs for all!

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Good Citizen's avatar

Awoke this morning in a Polish city floating in a waft of mist and smog, in August. They've gone back to using way more coal than is good for human lungs. It used to be a Polish winter thing, now any sacrifice is worth it to "stick it to those evil ruskies!"

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Marshall Auerback's avatar

And Germany is also using more coal to offset the lost electricity from the decommissioning of the country's nuclear power plants.

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KC & the Sunshine's avatar

But hey, that will be the nail

in the coffin for the lungs which have already been compromised by “run-death-is- near”/remdesivir, covid, vaccines and ventilators.

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The Alive One's avatar

Not to mention all the micro plastics breathed deep into lungs from wearing polypropylene masks.

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KC & the Sunshine's avatar

Yep. I steered clear of that 95% of the time by staying home, largely avoiding stores that required them and also being self employed but I def had one for here & there, sadly.

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The Alive One's avatar

I know what you mean. The only time I ever wear a mask is when I have to. Which is usually taking a flight or in some doctor surgeries. I have a long haul flight coming up that I’m dreading because of the mask requirement.

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Flo's avatar

We flew from Germany to Portugal three days ago. There was a Mask mandate but 50% just ignored it. Me and the Kids included....

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The Alive One's avatar

We have the same mandate in Australia. But in the airports only about 1 in 50 people seem to wear masks. I have a friend who flew back to Austria a few weeks ago and apparently the flight crew pestered passengers to put their masks on.

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Christina S.'s avatar

Writing from France here.

Our government is a total disaster as well. Somehow they’ve managed to close half of our nuclear plants for maintenance at the same time after closing one permanently (Fessenheim). The agency that controls the safety of the plants said it was in perfect condition, but our “dear president” closed it because of an agreement signed between former president Hollande and former chancellor Merkel six months before saying that the nuclear energy is a clean energy and that we can’t discard it as an energy of transition to “renewable energies”. No wind no energy, no sun no energy. 🙃

As if it wasn’t enough, it seems that we are selling electricity to Germany and to another country I can’t remember as I write.

So, it seems France and Germany are selling and buying each other’s energy and both will face shortages.

All of it is done on purpose and NOT for our good.

Our ministers are telling us to turn the wifi off to save energy.🤡

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Riri's avatar

Is this pure incompetence or is there something more sinister at play? Seems like this whole energy crisis has been orchestrated.

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Christina S.'s avatar

All orchestrated. Everything.

They are incompetent as well, but they are following a script provided by uncle Klaus.

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Testpattern's avatar

Well, turning of the wifi might not be such a bad idea. Get out into nature and enjoy life!

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Christina S.'s avatar

🤡

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BARRY ISAACS's avatar

Virtue signaling while freezing. Yeah, that’s the ticket….for the insane asylum.

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Quakeress's avatar

Worse.. they will be virtue signalling while WE will be freezing. If it were they themselves that were freezing, they'd shut up and stop virtue signalling....a fate devoutly to be wished.

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edelamsee's avatar

germany's minister for interior (Innenminister) already ordered 100 satellite phones for police in addition to gas to heat policemen. They are preparing for civil war

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Mos51's avatar

They are preparing for the civil war they themselves started.

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FoolsGold's avatar

And I'm ready to order my ak47 when the time comes.

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GK's avatar

It'll be too late then!

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cocopuffs's avatar

i know we always say thing need to get bad before they get better, but just how much bad is needed?

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Irena's avatar

You know what, I don't think it'll get better any time soon. Europe is in long term decline. Sure, we'll still get an occasional year that turns out to be better than the year before it. The overall trend, though, is downward. A century from now, great powers will treat Europe as an afterthought. As for the really long term (such as 500 years from now) - who knows?! If you want me to speculate (an entertaining enough exercise), Europe will be dominated by Semitic and Bantu speaking people by then.

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GK's avatar

The way Europe is inviting the Muslim world to "relocate," I suspect it'll be a different language altogether.

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Perry Simms's avatar

Funny how what Barbara Lerner Spectre said turns out to be half-true.

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Irena's avatar

What language? Arabic is Semitic, and that's what I had in mind.

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Michelle Dalsing's avatar

Have to break the people so they will be grateful when World Government comes in to save them and tells them to be happy owning nothing. Everything can be rented from World Government but make sure your Carbon footprint is low and your pokies high in order to be "free" to purchase/rent from New World Order. Otherwise your accounts will be frozen.

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Deb Hawthorne's avatar

You have exactly nailed it! This is all planned. It’s incredible that it is happening in our time. Get ready for it! Start sticking up. Make a plan now

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Yukon Dave's avatar

I used to think the law of unintended consequences was what we are all facing right now. I no longer believe that to be true but instead we are facing evil straight up with purpose pretending to hide behind incompetence.

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Bryan's avatar

Isn't globalism grand?

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jotolo's avatar

re-open the three nuclear plants that were recently closed

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eugyppius's avatar

apparently bringing them back online could take years.

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Marshall Auerback's avatar

Not sure that's true. Plant operators had only bought enough uranium to make it to the end of 2022, so nuclear fuel supplies are set to run out regardless. My understanding is that the issue is fuel rods. BUT, Australia, Canada, and the United States could all create fuel rods to supply the plants and Die Welt reported last month that, in a confidential meeting on March 4, 10 days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nuclear energy representatives told Habeck and Steffi Lemke, the Minister for Nuclear Safety, who is also from the Green Party, that they could indeed accelerate the acquisition of nuclear fuel rods.

“So far,” notes Die Welt, “the federal government has always emphasized the long delivery times for fuel rods, which alone represent an insurmountable obstacle to extending the service life of German nuclear power plants. The fact that procurement would also be conceivable in 15 months, and thus realistic continued operation under full load from the middle of next year, is generally pushed into the background by government representatives.”

In fact, the rods could have been acquired even more quickly than 15 months. In February, just days after Putin’s invasion, the German government asked the US nuclear fuel manufacturer, Westinghouse, an established supplier of German nuclear plants, whether it could make fuel rods on short notice. Westinghouse managers said they could — and that they could deliver them by the end of 2022 (as of July). Lemke and Habeck declined both the offer from Westinghouse and from nuclear operators.

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eugyppius's avatar

interesting, thank you.

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jotolo's avatar

Bravo!

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Nat's avatar

Lemke and Habeck should be used as fuel for nuclear reactors.

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

So should Merkel and Schroeder.

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w0utert's avatar

Better start quickly then! 💡🤡

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Barbelo of the Pleroma's avatar

It's almost like these decisions were made by people in an elite caste who have no actual clue about energy or factories.

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SmithFS's avatar

They indeed are an elite caste but they do actually know what they are doing. Deliberately creating energy supply shortages, food supply shortages. Rent seekers love shortages = big profits. Also as Kissinger stated: " Control the Energy Supply and control the nation, Control the Food Supply and control the people"

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cabystander's avatar

Just a guess. If the "powers that be" had their power shut off first the problem would be solved in months, not years. Maybe weeks.

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Quakeress's avatar

There was an interview a couple of weeks ago by one of those atomic whizzes...qpparently they could get new rods within three months and fire the things up again. Its just that the Greens are stalling.

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Stephen J Wood's avatar

Yeah, starting up a nuclear power plant is no easy task. I believe in California, with all the renewable energy, energy prices went negative just so the nuclear plants could stay online.

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Marshall Auerback's avatar

Presumably, you're referring to the period during which oil prices went negative (an anomaly that only lasted for a few days). That had nothing to do with California policies and everything to do with 1. The complete shutdown of the economy in 2020 due to Covid fears and 2. A short term storage capacity problem brought about by the collapse in demand and the corresponding glut (lockdown related). As oil producers desperately tried to unload crude oil into a market that was suddenly massively oversupplied. The glut spurred Russia and Saudi Arabia to end the price war and prompted OPEC and its allies to agree to production cuts, and prices quickly recovered from that anomalous situation very quickly.

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

Trump wisely used that opportunity to fill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He wanted to buy more but his political enemies put party politics ahead of national security as usual. Now that empty suit occupying the Oval Office is emptying the reserve for personal political gain and taking away a strategic asset just as the Chinese are flirting with the Saudi’s. The chess board is getting very difficult for America.

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Stephen J Wood's avatar

No, this is a different issue. Sorry I meant *electricity* prices, not energy prices. My bad.

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Stephen J Wood's avatar

If there is a lot of intermittent solar and wind energy on a grid, and if they are generating at full capacity during off-peak hours of the day, it drives down the market price of electricity. Power market prices are determined primarily by marginal costs, and since the marginal cost of running solar and wind is basically zero, it brings down the price. Because nuclear plants are so expensive to turn off and start up, they will offer negative prices to buyers if the market price gets down to zero. This is a rare occurrence and has more to do with hourly electricity prices, not with the price of oil.

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jotolo's avatar

Let's see the analysis.

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SomeDude's avatar

"We've got an energy shortage! Citizens and even businesses are hurting! Sell electricity to France!"

Sounds like the US.

"Oil shortage! Citizens, farms, and shipping companies hurting! Open the Strategic Reserve and sell the oil to China!"

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Ouessante's avatar

I agree and sympathise but it seems reasonable of Gazprom to demand some assurances within a contract that the regular servicing of compressor-turbines (five still to do I understand) which is already scheduled (this was merely the first that got held up) will continue, guaranteed. To raise transit levels back up only to find the next c-t gets the same treatment and they have to wind down again is no way to manage a contract or a gas supply, given the supply end routing planning and is probably breaching contract. It has knock-ons in production and routing flows. It's serious engineering stuff and not merely something to be left to that organism called Trudeau to decide over his insectburger and kale smoothie while Germany awaits. Russia needs respect and a serious relationship as do we all.

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eugyppius's avatar

i don’t disagree at all, but i also think russian retaliation here is justified.

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Irena's avatar

It's really funny how the EU thought it could dictate all the terms. Sanction Russia in a way that hurts Russia, but not the EU. 'Coz the Russians were just going to go cry in a corner. Right.

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Knalldi's avatar

Well it's kind of retaliation along this way:

"If you want you look for a way, if you dont want you look for a reason."

And russians are giving reasons ;).

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wolf's avatar

All part of the plan to destroy western societies for one woke shit or the other. They tried and failed with covid, now the use the pretend Ukraine war. Next will be climate change.

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Aug 18, 2022
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Perry Simms's avatar

Population replacement. An army of enemies. They did this in the 1300s too with the muslim invasion they orchestrated. Yes, there was a will behind it.

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Ouessante's avatar

Any intel on why France did this off-lining of half its (granted, ageing) reactors for maintenance at this same somewhat inconvenient time welcome.

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eugyppius's avatar

“cracked pipes” is the official explanation. i suspect deferred maintenance since pandemic will be the excuse but i need to look more deeply into it.

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Perry Simms's avatar

Cracked pipes in a high pressure water reactor is a serious issue, indeed. Whatever happens nowadays is politically motivated though, so skepticism is always in order.

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Viv's avatar

Cooling is apparently also an issue. Due to the dry spell river levels are lower, and less waste heat can be dumped in rivers.

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

Curious as well is the recent explosion at Americas largest LNG export terminal. Coincidence? I think not.

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Aug 18, 2022
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PubliusHamilton's avatar

LOL. I knew the Bidens had a hand in it.

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Barbelo of the Pleroma's avatar

Surely you can't expect the French to cancel their 8 week July-August holiday for some pesky nuclear plant maintenance.

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SmithFS's avatar

That is undoubtedly bullshit. You will find "cracked pipes" or "cracked pressure vessels" anywhere you look with sensitive NDT equipment. These are done regularly on critical components and engineers have decades of experience in what could constitute a safety problem. Every plane you fly on has cracks in their wings and support structures. There is just no chance that this French reactor shutdown is not deliberately contrived for political reasons.

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

Macron is a patsy for Putin.

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

The claim is “corrosion”. I don’t believe in coincidences.

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cabystander's avatar

I am an old man. Most of my life, I have operated with the base assumption that people take actions for good, to them, reason. Most of the time. If I saw someone doing something apparently irrational, my assumption was that they were doing it for a reason that I didn't understand--from their point of view.

Yes, people do stupid things, but my default belief was that there was a reason.

Now, I really wonder. WTF is going on? My mother used to say: "The whole world is crazy, except for me and thee. I am not so sure about thee."

I am searching Amazon for tin foil hats by the case.

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INFJ-T Advocate's avatar

Tbh. I think the globalists have been searching for the sweet spot between their goals and what the serfs will tolerate. They have been 'boiling the frog' the last 2 years and the only real question is. Have the serfs had enough?

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PubliusHamilton's avatar

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. - The Who - , Won’t Get Fooled Again

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ChesterView's avatar

Read Naomi Wolf’s new book “The Bodies of Others”. She is an ex elite who now sees the light. Whitney Webb is better but many more people will find Wolf much more palatable.

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SmithFS's avatar

You're not the only one. Neil Oliver on GB news had an excellent video on the very same topic:

Neil Oliver: 'It's hard to tell yourself you've been taken for a fool but open your eyes':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIpLwiaQRRk

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