frezik

frezik , 9 days ago to Memes in Nuclear isn't perfect, but it is the best we have right now.

China built a few Ap1000 designs. The Sanmen station started in 2009 with completion expected in 2014 (2015 for the second unit). It went into 2019. The second, Haiyang, went about the same.

This is pretty similar to what happened in the US with Volgte.

frezik , 9 days ago to Memes in Nuclear isn't perfect, but it is the best we have right now.

And 5 years is what nuclear projects have promised at the start over the years. Everyone involved knows this is a gross lie.

frezik , 9 days ago to Memes in Nuclear isn't perfect, but it is the best we have right now.

Nuclear is nothing bog standard. If it was, it wouldn't take 10 years. Almost every plant is a boutique job that requires lots of specialists. The Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design was meant to get around this. It didn't.

The experts can stay where they are: maintaining existing nuclear power.

Renewables don't take much skilled labor at all. It's putting solar panels on racks in a field, or hoisting wind blades up a tower (crane operation is a specialty, but not on the level of nuclear engineering).

frezik , 9 days ago to Memes in Nuclear isn't perfect, but it is the best we have right now.

Then we just move the problem. Why should we do something that's going to take longer and use more labor? Especially skilled labor.

Money is an imperfect proxy for the underlying resources in many ways, but it about lines up in this case. To force the issue, there would have to be a compelling reason beyond straight money.

That reason ain't getting to 100% clean energy in a short time. There is another: building plants to use up existing waste rather than burying it.

frezik , 9 days ago to Memes in Nuclear isn't perfect, but it is the best we have right now.

... it's currently not possible to store the renewables anywhere

Every time someone argues this, it's immediately obvious they haven't actually paid attention how the storage market has been progressing.

Next, you'll probably talk about problems with lithium, as if it's the only storage technology.

frezik , 9 days ago to Memes in Nuclear isn't perfect, but it is the best we have right now.

If you're going to do that, then also consider the co2 output of all the concrete needed for nuclear power plants.

frezik , 9 days ago to Memes in Nuclear isn't perfect, but it is the best we have right now.

No, you just pay out the nose up front.

If I had money to invest in the energy sector, I don't know why I should pick nuclear. It's going to double its budget and take 10 years before I see a dime of return. Possibly none if it can't secure funding for the budget overrun, as all my initial investment will be spent.

A solar or wind farm will take 6-12 months and likely come in at or close to its budget. Why the hell would I choose nuclear?

frezik , 9 days ago to Memes in Nuclear isn't perfect, but it is the best we have right now.

But the technology to rely entirely on renewables isn't really there either.

Yes, it is.

https://books.google.com/books/about/No_Miracles_Needed.html?id=aVKmEAAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description

This is a book by a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering that goes into the details. We don't need nuclear. All the tech is there.

frezik , 9 days ago to Memes in Nuclear isn't perfect, but it is the best we have right now.

Except we have better options than we did 10 years ago.

I'd be all for nuclear if we rolled back the clock to 2010 or so. As it stands, solar/wind/storage/hvdc lines can do the job. The situation moved and my opinion moved.

frezik , 10 days ago to Technology in [Gamers Nexus] "Google is Getting Worse," ft. Wendell of Level1 Techs

Good chance you could at this point.

frezik , 10 days ago to Technology in [Gamers Nexus] "Google is Getting Worse," ft. Wendell of Level1 Techs

You know who is most fed up with YouTube's policies? Content creators on YouTube. They're locked in, they know it, and they hate it.

frezik , 10 days ago to Technology in [Gamers Nexus] "Google is Getting Worse," ft. Wendell of Level1 Techs

Gmail and other big providers tend to consider new domains to be spam until they've proven otherwise. Can't prove otherwise until you've been up and running for a while. Catch-22. The way out of that is to host with an existing provider for a few years.

Does it cut down on spam? Perhaps. Does it favor existing providers like Gmail? Yes, definitely.

Honestly, hosting email has long been difficult to setup, and all the more so if you don't want your box to be a spam host within three seconds of plugging it in.

frezik , 11 days ago to Technology in OneDrive automatically backups folders in Windows 11 without users' permissions

I wonder about Microsoft's liability on this one. People store all sorts of things in there, some personal, and some corporate things that are at least non-public, if not outright sensitive. Yeah, people should be using an encrypted drive for especially sensitive info (not that this would stop Microsoft when they own the OS), but they don't, and it's not for Microsoft to force the issue.

Did their legal department actually sign off on this? Or did someone in MS legal just shit a brick when they saw the headlines?

frezik , 11 days ago to Technology in OneDrive automatically backups folders in Windows 11 without users' permissions

Not how that should work. They don't get permission to all that unless I say so.

frezik , 11 days ago to Technology in OneDrive automatically backups folders in Windows 11 without users' permissions

Coincidentally, they make it harder to use a local account with every update.