It’s always funny to me to see folks with the “HN leans _________” comments every few days with the blank spot filled in with every single political position one can think of.
Different people react to different topics. Some bring out strident autistic commies, some bring out psycho druggies, some bring out extreme capitalist dreamers (also likely autistic), some bring out furries and trannies (also likely autistic and definitely strident). They rarely all met in a single thread.
I don't think anyone wants to get rid of nuclear regs entirely. There is a popular perception (i dont know if actually true) that safety regs were built around first generation reactor designs which were designed in an inherently unsafe way, and for modern designs that are inherently safer, it makes sense to relax some regulations.
Advocating for deregulation in order to achieve innovation is the opposite of conservative.
It’s not a matter of being a for profit or not. It’s an also matter of technological development. Most of the early incidents in nuclear plants happened under the management of public or state controlled companies.
> Advocating for deregulation in order to achieve innovation is the opposite of conservative.
Not sure how it's the opposite of conservatism to remove unneeded government roadblocks to enable industry. That's pretty solidly in the traditional American conservative viewpoint (not to be confused with whatever viewpoint currently dominates the GOP).
No one is saying there shouldn't be regulations on nuclear.
But our regulations on nuclear are utterly insane -- every time I get someone to read into the reasons nuclear here has been so much more expensive than safe nuclear in other countries with more reasonable regulations around it, they come away shellshocked. It takes a while to understand what's going on, because it's truly death by a thousand cuts, but the unifying principle is the NRC's ALARA ("As Low As Reasonably Achievable") principle (with honorable mention going to the NRC's Linear No-Threshold harm model, which despite the evidence assigns a linear cancer incidence to radiation dosing).
Getting radiation exposure "As Low As Reasonably Achievable" sounds like a nice idea. But there's no lower bound, so the costs scale infinitely, gutting the incentives to innovate and invest. If the prices of other forms of energy go up, regulators intentionally raise the costs of nuclear comparably by increasing what must be spent on reducing radiation exposure. New innovative plant design that increases margins? Guess what -- that's another opportunity to use the money to lower radiation exposure even further.
The lack of a lower bound results in absurd results, because we long ago decreased the exposure from plants to far below background radiation levels, and far below the levels at which we've been able to observe harm.
We need to replace the LNT model with a sigmoid model that aligns with the science on radiation harms, and we need to remove the infinitely-scaling ALARA standard. Doing these will not increase risks, but will decrease costs a large amount in the short run and even more in the longer-term.
I completely agree with you and I'm pro nuclear. But those regulations have to be streamlined and the regulator needs to have enough manpower so licenses aren't stuck in limbo for years.
It's also unacceptable that the regulations can change during builds and then you have to make large parts completely new before you get the license to load fuel into the reactor.
It’s always funny to me to see folks with the “HN leans _________” comments every few days with the blank spot filled in with every single political position one can think of.
HN leans to perfect diversity: power distribution is so boring. :D
It's not diverse. Whoever you are, HN always leans in perfect opposition to your ideas.
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Different people react to different topics. Some bring out strident autistic commies, some bring out psycho druggies, some bring out extreme capitalist dreamers (also likely autistic), some bring out furries and trannies (also likely autistic and definitely strident). They rarely all met in a single thread.
I don't think anyone wants to get rid of nuclear regs entirely. There is a popular perception (i dont know if actually true) that safety regs were built around first generation reactor designs which were designed in an inherently unsafe way, and for modern designs that are inherently safer, it makes sense to relax some regulations.
Advocating for deregulation in order to achieve innovation is the opposite of conservative.
It’s not a matter of being a for profit or not. It’s an also matter of technological development. Most of the early incidents in nuclear plants happened under the management of public or state controlled companies.
> Most of the early incidents in nuclear plants happened under the management of public or state controlled companies.
Not a fair comparison since back then nobody else had the resources.
> Advocating for deregulation in order to achieve innovation is the opposite of conservative.
Not sure how it's the opposite of conservatism to remove unneeded government roadblocks to enable industry. That's pretty solidly in the traditional American conservative viewpoint (not to be confused with whatever viewpoint currently dominates the GOP).
Nuclear safety to provide safety is important but not to stifle any innovation or deployment which is what it has been.
No one is saying there shouldn't be regulations on nuclear.
But our regulations on nuclear are utterly insane -- every time I get someone to read into the reasons nuclear here has been so much more expensive than safe nuclear in other countries with more reasonable regulations around it, they come away shellshocked. It takes a while to understand what's going on, because it's truly death by a thousand cuts, but the unifying principle is the NRC's ALARA ("As Low As Reasonably Achievable") principle (with honorable mention going to the NRC's Linear No-Threshold harm model, which despite the evidence assigns a linear cancer incidence to radiation dosing).
Getting radiation exposure "As Low As Reasonably Achievable" sounds like a nice idea. But there's no lower bound, so the costs scale infinitely, gutting the incentives to innovate and invest. If the prices of other forms of energy go up, regulators intentionally raise the costs of nuclear comparably by increasing what must be spent on reducing radiation exposure. New innovative plant design that increases margins? Guess what -- that's another opportunity to use the money to lower radiation exposure even further.
The lack of a lower bound results in absurd results, because we long ago decreased the exposure from plants to far below background radiation levels, and far below the levels at which we've been able to observe harm.
We need to replace the LNT model with a sigmoid model that aligns with the science on radiation harms, and we need to remove the infinitely-scaling ALARA standard. Doing these will not increase risks, but will decrease costs a large amount in the short run and even more in the longer-term.
I completely agree with you and I'm pro nuclear. But those regulations have to be streamlined and the regulator needs to have enough manpower so licenses aren't stuck in limbo for years.
It's also unacceptable that the regulations can change during builds and then you have to make large parts completely new before you get the license to load fuel into the reactor.