Notices by Emil Jacobs - Collectifission (collectifission@greennuclear.online)

An 18 lane freeway, 100 meters wide, moves less people than a busy subway line.

The Brooklyn bridge used to move 420,000 people per day.

In the 1950s, trolleys were removed, and since then it has never moved more than 180,000 people per day.

Cars 👏 destroy 👏 cities.

Info from @notjustbikes

#Urbanism #PublicTransport

TIL that these big and very expensive cables we need to bring wind power onshore have a life expectancy of just 25 years. So, whenever you read that there needs to be an investment of, say, a hundred billion for this infrastructure, just add "every generation" in your mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkgvqC3M1Tw

@feld WHAT? For real?

The tools we had to find twitter users on the fediverse have all long stopped working. Below extension, to achieve this for bluesky, is very recent however. Do we have a new generation of tools perhaps that do the same for mastodon?

#MastodonMigration

https://lifehacker.com/tech/use-this-extension-to-find-all-your-x-followers-on-bluesky

@feld @sachee do I have bad news for you.

@sachee They actually believe this.

"Nuclear physics and simulation of some of the most infamous nuclear accidents: Fukushima and Three Mile Island. In this video, we’ll dive into the physics of nuclear reactors and simulate various reactor behaviors, including neutron moderation, control rod functionality, and decay heat management. Discover why these accidents happened, despite both reactors having passive safety features meant to prevent meltdowns.

We'll break down complex concepts like uranium fission, neutron moderation with light vs. heavy water, and the role of decay heat that makes cooling essential even after a reactor shutdown. Through this simulation, you'll gain a clear understanding of what went wrong and why the outcome was so different from other reactor types, such as Chernobyl’s RBMK design.

Perfect for anyone interested in nuclear physics or reactor safety! Watch to see how the smallest details in design and response can prevent—or lead to—nuclear disaster."

#Nuclear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PA__L3n7r4

@rysiek

@kolchak the guy is heading a ‘fediverse implementation’ for a company with an unlimited budget. Yet where open source projects run by volunteers can do implent ActivityPub in a few weeks, Meta is at it for 1.5 years now. It’s absurd.

Another data point in my hypothesis that the West is falling behind in the crucial grow market of Africa. Rwanda is now going to lean on the Russians for their nuclear plans. From a Rwandan perspective I completely get it: Rosatom has a great deal to offer with thei Build-Own-Operate model. "Nuclear waste? Don't worry about it! We'll just ship that back to Russia".

If it is a good deal for them to swap their geopolitical overlords from the West to Russia and China remains to be seen.

#Nuclear #Rwanda #Russia

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/11/09/rwanda-counting-on-russia-to-train-nuclear-power-specialists-a86964

@feld What? That was some doxing incident or something?

D'aww, we get spambots now? Mastodon is truly growing up. Looking forward to the porn accounts 🥺

/s

@feld Thoughtful reply, I appreciate it.

> Who is going to shoulder the costs to maintain the infrastructure? *crickets*

Exactly. These costs are largely socialised. So, 'tax payers' is the answer. This is going to be only socially acceptable up to a point.

And the worst thing is, that it *still* raises kWh prices. Going back to the France/Germany comparison: Germany has much higher electricity prices compared to France, causing very real deindustrialisation for the past decade or so, which is currently accelerating.

> But that's the problem. The modern world does not entertain long term investments.

That *is* the crux, isn't it? We need to think long term again. In my view this requires less shareholder economics and more state intervention. Ideally of course, being a commie, I'd just want to trash capitalism altogether, but I'll settle for a return to state intervention as was the norm in the second half of the 20th century in Western Europe.

For the US, I guess there's little hope of that, especially now with Trump being re-elected. So, maybe Big Tech gives the push that's needed?

> [silly numbers about x amount of reactors in wind and solar]

Classic frame, but really a misdirection. A 1 GW wind farm and a 1 GWe nuclear reactor have very different energy results as their capacity factor differs so wildly. So, maybe you could say China is installing 1 nuclear reactor a week in renewables, if you count a more useful TWh metric? Even so, that still needs firming. As far as I know China still does that with coal.

But there is a reason China is currently on track with building 150 GWe in new nuclear until 2035. A small amount of what is needed still. I hope they scale that up until 2060.

> Australia desperately wants nuclear too but they can't as they have almost zero trained engineers in the country to operate it.

I don't think that's a big issue? The UAE is also new to nuclear but is currently operating their first four reactors with their own people. I guess the upside of long building times, is that you have plenty of time to train the people needed to operate them.

> I worked for a power company for a while FWIW.

I appreciate your insights. I suspect you're from the states? What's your view on a TVA model of business, given that it is federally owned?

@feld I should read this study more closely, but glansing at it, I come across this: "Table 2, the costs of the French PWR program translate into 230 billion Euros(2008) or 330 billion US$2008." and "These costs of the program of 1.5–1.6 trillion FF98 refer to a total installed PWR capacity of 65.9 GWgross or 63.1 GWnet."

Corrected for inflation, today that would be €320 billion.

This Messmer fleet still largely intact, this provided 320 TWh in 2023, or 65% of electricity production in France (source: IAEA PRIS). The carbon footprint for France was around 50 grams / kWh for 2023 (source: Electricity Maps).

Meanwhile, Germany's Energiewende has cost around €700 billion (see below link), provided 52% of the produced electricity for 2023 (source: Our World in Data), and Germany's carbon footprint remained at 370 grams / kWh. So, 7x France on average.

So, even using your source, it follows that nuclear energy built at scale is an excellent idea.

Some caveats:
1. It's not my position that we should only build nuclear. I've repeated ad nauseam that we need to build all the clean energy sources. I don't think in the false dichotomy of "renewables vs nuclear".

2. Pretending that, to borrow a phrase, renewable energy will be "too cheap to meter" really grinds my gears. The energy transition away from fossil fuels will inevitably be a costly one. How we deal with that will be a social and political question. What does not help, even turns people towards climate scepticism and rightwing politics, is to say it's cheap, whereas it's actually raising energy bills for many households significantly.

3. Therefore, I'm really tired of this distraction of the cost argument. Nuclear energy is proven to be extremely cheap in the long run, with reactors built in the 1970s currently being uprated to run for 80 years. The main financial hurdles are with building them, and mostly even then have to do with interest. In the case of Hinkley Point C, 65% of the costs are financial costs alone. This is what needs fixing. Not gloating and pushing another agenda.

4. We will not, I repeat NOT, be able to power many countries in Europe with solar and wind alone. In the case of the Netherlands we're talking about 50% of the energy needs being met by solar and wind, by 2050, with the 70 GW of wind turbines in the North Sea being the primary source of that. That still leaves the other 50% that can only be resolved by (a combination of) importing clean energy from outside Europe, deindustrialising and/or nuclear energy. Again, we need to build ALL the things. If you are anti-nuclear, you are, whether you like it or not, contributing to the problem of climate change as we'll not hit the target of zero emissions.

https://www.foronuclear.org/en/updates/news/nuclear-energy-could-have-saved-germany-e332-billion-according-to-research/

"Mr. Maniego said the Philippines should have “distributed generation” rather than a “centralized” system to suit its archipelagic geography."

#Nuclear #Philippines

https://www.bworldonline.com/economy/2024/10/13/627492/smaller-nuclear-power-plants-deemed-more-suitable-for-phl/

Well well well, looks like my prediction was woefully pessimistic. Big Tech building new 'first of a kind' units is 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 what the doctor ordered. Let them run the risk of building the firsts, the rest of the world gladly follows suit.

https://archive.ph/fdSXf

@meso Yeah, Audon looks more like what I had in mind, but Mumble's web ui isn't bad.

One thing I still like about twitter is their 'spaces'. What would be a good open source alternative to that?

I accept it won't (easily) integrate to Mastodon's web UI, which would be ideal, but I am looking for as low a barrier as possible:

- No new apps, so Mumble drops out
- Web UI
- No account
- Audio-only

Any suggestions?

This is what uranium looks like in a cloud chamber: the visible tracks are mainly alpha particles.

Nothing fancy, but cloud chambers are without equal in visualisation of radioactivity for newcomers to nuclear energy.

@tk