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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2512 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 4, 2022

Be advised; this thread is not for serious in depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I’ve recently become quite enamoured with the idea of offshore nuclear power, as laid out in this presentation.

The benefits seem quite numerous:

  • the possibility of mass producing standardised power stations at significantly reduced cost

  • export business model

  • reducing the risks posed by tsunamis and earthquakes

  • sidestepping the NIMBY problems that normally emerge with these kind of projects

Anyone here able to point out why this is likely to be a terribly stupid idea in practice?

I'd love to see nuclear implemented at all, so if we have to put them out at sea then so be it. I'm a layman when it comes to this, but I guess there's the risk of contamination going directly into the sea if things go wrong. That said, we've detonated nuclear bombs over the oceans in testing before so it's probably not an existential problem, and we still run the risk of ocean contamination with traditional power sources via oil spills.

I don't think this will change the minds of many who aren't on board with nuclear already. Most of them oppose it on concerns of safety or the supposed permanence of the waste. I suspect there is a large group against nuclear because it can address power sustainability without fundamentally restructuring our economic and social system, but this is getting close to CW thread territory so I don't want to get into that.

That said, we've detonated nuclear bombs over the oceans in testing before so it's probably not an existential problem

There's also two US nuclear subs (Scorpion and Thresher) at the bottom of the sea, with no contamination.

We... dont talk about the Russian subs down there.

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