Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal: Forging a New America
medium.com
medium.com
Yes. I'll probably get downvoted for saying it, but I want to get out in the open that the situation reeks of a PR/astroturfing campaign. There are a small number of ardent nuclear energy supporters acting in good faith, but a much larger army of paid trolls that have been active for the last few years. I mod on Reddit and have seen this happen daily. They post a pro-nuclear/anti-renewables talking point and then when you look at the account history, the account will be days old or have a clearly artificial history generated by karma farming (reposting old comment or short junk comments generated by computer).
It follows much the same patterns we saw with accounts pushing climate change denial on social media. Research later showed this was driven by bots and paid trolls.
> Is there any reason to believe that this isn’t just an industry group with a friendly, activist face
I can almost guarantee this is the case. So-called environmentalist Micheal Shellenberger is another example (made more clear when he came out as a climate change minimizer recently). It uses the same playbook that fossil fuel companies used to create artificial climate change skepticism.
At least one group of reporters is doing investigative research into this issue.
One litmus test to use: most nuclear energy advocates that are acting in good faith see it as part of an all-of-the-above energy solution that includes nuclear, renewables, and storage. The shill accounts break from this by trying to trash renewables while pushing nuclear energy.
I have a question about this article. It says that inequality is the highest it has been in 50 years, yet the graph it uses to show this doesn't support that claim. It shows that the top 1% of families held more wealth in prior years until approximately the 1940s. Now I'm not arguing that inequality is not a problem, nor am I saying that it isn't higher now than in the past, but what I am wondering is why they would use a graph that seemingly contradicts their claim? It might be that the top 10% have gained a larger share over time, but if that were the case, then why not use a graphic that illustrates that?
The graph is inverted than initially assumed, the smallest share is at the top (15%), the largest share is at the bottom (55%). So in 1960 the share was ~28% and now it is ~40%.
The 1940s are approx. 80 years ago. "In 50 years" refers to the period starting from ~1970 onwards.
If you want to cut carbon emissions ASAP it's important to pick the fastest, cheapest zero-carbon solution.
¹ http://euanmearns.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nucle...
² https://phys.org/news/2020-10-viability-small-modular-nuclea...
The most promising SMR project is already hitting the same delays and cost overruns that plague the nuclear industry. Citation: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/several-us-utilities...
Quote: "announced that completion of the project would be delayed by 3 years to 2030. It also estimates the cost would climb from $4.2 billion to $6.1 billion."
1: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower-idUSK...
Solar/wind are dropping in price at double-digit percentages per year, as are numerous metrics for battery storage for cost.
in 8 years, solar/wind with -10% (which is actually conservative in the last 20 years, solar has been dropping 15-20% per year I believe) will be only 40% of the current cost.
Flamanville in France is fully 3x its original cost estimate. If it manages to hit its current planned opening date in 2022, then that will be after 15 YEARS of construction.
Out of the recent wave of reactor construction in Europe and the US, most are have hit massive delays and cost overruns. At this point it's hard to conclude that the nuclear industry is remotely competent to deliver on any single promise.
France is also the world leader in nuclear power and is investing even more resources towards it (France today produced an excess of power and exported 12GW of power to other countries²). They have the lowest carbon emissions, and lowest electricity costs.
¹ http://euanmearns.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nucle...
Nuclear proponents keep advocating for an overly expensive technology that, in recent decades, never arrives on time or within budget. This is unnecessary with Europe's solar, wind, and hydro potential. Even more expensive offshore wind is cheaper than the cheapest nuclear generator.
https://www.reuters.com/article/france-nuclearpower/building... (Building new nuclear plants in France uneconomical -environment agency)
https://www.lazard.com/media/451419/lazards-levelized-cost-o... (Lazard Levelized Cost of Energy Comparison 2020, slide 3)
The data on ElectricityMap is dubious at best -- I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it's simply due to not updating with more recent figures for some countries.
1: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower-idUSK...
[1] https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap-contrib/blob/maste...
I have literally only seen ElectricityMap cited by nuclear energy shills -- as has been demonstrated in the comments here.
Edit: I won't deny it might have value for trends over time within a given country, but the country-to-country carbon emissions comparisons simply don't fit with official figures.
People shilling for nuclear is an entirely distinct issue, regardless of the data sources they're using to make their claims.
[1] https://www.tmrow.com/blog/announcing-our-partnership-with-g...
[2] https://blog.google/inside-google/infrastructure/data-center...
These are people whose behavior shows they are very clearly acting in bad faith -- throwaway accounts that post talking points. They almost exclusively use ElectricityMap to back up their claims.
> Can you source a citation demonstrating "Nobody who is involved with the energy sector thinks ElectricityMap has any credibility."
Of course not, nobody wants to go officially go on the record saying this and get handed a SLAPP lawsuit. But it's a known reality at this point.
I don't know if the issues with ElectricityMap are due to data quality (or lack of data in some cases), but it's not reliable.
Edit: for credible data, go to the official yearly figures reported by national and international agencies.
> All of the used nuclear fuel produced by the U.S. nuclear energy industry over the last 60 years could fit on a football field at a depth of less than 10 yards!
That waste can also be reprocessed and recycled, although the United States does not currently do this. (https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-reasons-why-nuclear-cle...)
The US manufactured triggers for nuclear weapons there, leaving portions contaminated for millennia. They did a major cleanup in the 90’s and built a nice park, but the contaminated core DoE “Legacy Site” has to be maintained and secured in perpetuity. One of the site’s responsibilities is to maintain a very elaborate groundwater contamination remediation system so that runoff doesn’t poison millions. Also, the hazardous waste from the cleanup has to be stored on site as it was legally/practically impossible to transport it out of the state or to any other location in the state.
All of this works for now, but it requires the United States government and all of its successor states maintain this remediation infrastructure for the next few thousand years.