Europe has survived 3 energy shocks in 4 years. The only way out is to stop buying power from its enemies | Fortune
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Oil above $100. Gas prices up 70%. Every crisis has a different trigger—and the same vulnerability. Europe must become the world's first Electro-Continent.
  • WoodScientist@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    4 days ago

    So even with an authoritarian government that can roll over any political opposition or protest, it still takes four-six years at best to build a damn reactor! And in actual democracies, it will take even longer. In functional democracies, people have the power to make sure the reactors are built safe. And they’ve put in regulations to make sure they’re built safe. The best the people of China can do is to simply hope for the best.

    Chernobyl was also built cheap and fast. Look how that turned out. “Fast” is the last way I want a nuclear power plant to be built!

    • encelado748@feddit.orgEnglish
      3·
      4 days ago

      Just because is China that does not make it unsafe.

      CAP1000 is an incredibly safe 3+ generation design that uses multiple redundant passive safety system. A reactor like that can cool itself without electricity nor human intervention.

      The comparison with Chernobyl is laughable. That design had a lot of flaws that do not exists in modern reactors. Just so you know there are still 7 reactor like Chernobyl running in Russia. I would worry more about those instead of one of the safest industrial facility ever designed by humankind.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        4 days ago

        Yes, you’re quoting the marketing well. I’m sure the platonic ideal of the CAP1000 is perfectly safe. But you’re making the fatal assumption that the plant will be built as designed and properly maintained to maintain that level of safety. It still relies on a massive network of piping that can become clogged or damaged if not properly built and maintained. Your naivety is laughable. Regulatory capture is already a problem in capitalist countries. Now your regulator and construction/operator company are the same people!

        And again, you’ve completely ignored the ‘problem’ of democracy. The CCP can simply decree something and it will happen. There’s no opportunity for local feedback. The opinions of the locals are irrelevant. There’s no environmental review. You simply build it.

        But ultimately, you completely missed the point of my comment. Democracies demand a certain level of process and accountability. (Yes, the US’s present leadership is making a mockery of that, but Trump is an authoritarian.) In functioning democracies, you have to work to build popular legitimacy and build support for any major project. Dictatorships can just decree something to happen. Democracy itself makes nuclear power plants expensive to build. You need to work really hard to convince people that what you’re building is safe, as you’re building a damn nuclear reactor. I know technofascists find the idea of having to convince the common rabble to go along with their grand visions abhorrent, but I’m in favor of lynching technofascists, so fuck it.

        • encelado748@feddit.orgEnglish
          2·
          4 days ago

          The CCP can explode a nuclear bomb in Beijing also, but why should they?

          A well maintained power plant is a resource and the maintenance cost less than building a new power plant. And if the power plant lack maintenance it will stop working and that’s it.

          If you perfectly and simultaneously clog all eight primary injection pipes (a statistically impossibility, must be elaborate and deliberate sabotage) the reactor will meltdown, and the corium will sit at the bottom of the containment dome where natural air circulation will reduce the temperature with all the radiation trapped inside.

          I trust an AP1000 in China more then an older reactor in France. Your critique is based on fantasy. No dictatorship can decree that physics stop working.