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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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As former President Jimmy Carter enters hospice care, we are likely to soon see a huge number of stories concerning what an honorable person he was. But keep in mind that in 1971 Carter, then Governor of Georgia "proclaimed ‘American Fighting Men's Day" likely in support of First Lieutenant William L. Calley who had recently been convicted for his role in the Mỹ Lai massacre. The massacre involved the rape and murder of Vietnamese men, women, and even children.

My reason for disliking Carter is that even though he (a Navy-trained nuclear engineer) understood what was going on during the Three Mile Island accident and could have told the nation that there was nothing to worry about, he apparently didn't want to upset anti-nuclear activists in his own party. While that was only a small part of the PR disaster that TMI was, in my mind that makes him partially to blame for why the US abandoned the adoption of nuclear power for electrical generation, which in turns make him partially responsible for global warming (very partially - it's not like Carter is responsible for what China and India have been doing or will continue to do in the next century).

I wonder how much better our nuclear power would be if we had continued to develop it. Seems like 50+ years of development, with billions of dollars poured in per year, would lead to much safer, more consistent, cheaper, and more powerful reactors. China and India would certainly switch to nuclear if it were actually the economical option. If we could even get nuclear close in price to coal we could bribe them to switch over by subsidizing the costs. Seems highly plausible to me.

China and India would certainly switch to nuclear if it were actually the economical option

Do you mean like this?

from here - At least as of 2021, china's use of nuclear power isn't much larger than its use of other alternative energy sources. They're investing in it, but solar and wind are growing more rapidly.

There's something weird about it, because the chart with absolute numbers shows higher nuclear than wind production, while the relative chart is showing the opposite (and a ridiculously small proportion of gas power for some reason).

If you take the numbers for their planned expansion from my article, and the absolute numbers chart, nuclear production would nearly double. But I guess there's the question of how long it will take them, at what cost, etc.

I think you have it set on 'world', when I click 'change country' in your chart and click 'China' I get this with wind=655 and nuclear=407

Oops, I thought it kept the settings.

Ok, so they're planning to 5x their nuclear production, which would put it above where even hydro is at the moment. Of course the question of will they pull it off remains, and wind and solar will probably grow in the following years as well.

But my original point stands, it certainly looks like they are (at least planning on) switching to it.