I don’t know Naked Capitalism, but this is interesting.
5 Likes
Thanks for that. I’ve been reading the link roundups at Naked Capitalism since Cory’s many pullings from it sent me there. It’s great, points me to many worthwhile reads I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. The commentary is good too (smart, concise), both from those who run the site and the commenters.
5 Likes
Wow, so absurd.
I’m actually glad you wrote that. Saves me from bothering to read anything else you write.
10 Likes
It’s funny then that it’s actually Sanders, not Clinton, who would fail to pull the rug from the fossil fuel industry (and if one fails to understand why, maybe this article will help one to understand). Sanders is actually a tacit supporter of the fossil fuel industry, despite his claims to the contrary.
In fact, climate change is such an important issue that it’s really the only reason a sane person should need to vote for Clinton over Sanders, and while Clinton isn’t perfect here, I’d like to think it’s more down to political expediency on her part, and that she’d actually be more proactive in terms of Nuclear Power than her vaguely flip-flopish, but leaning pro, history on the campaign trail would suggest. Sadly the public at large suffers from a serious lack of sanity on this issue.
Trump is actually better than Clinton publicly on this one, though you have to measure that against a not-that-unlikely Dead Zone scenario amongst the many other obvious reasons to never vote for him.
1 Like
Which is LITERALLY the point of the Superdelegate system. You might pick on the authors of that system more so than those who describe it accurately in prose.
2 Likes
You think we can get the Dems and Repubs to agree to do a do-over? I think this is one of the few times they might agree!
5 Likes
Citation needed.
7 Likes
Link already provided, given that he supports a moratorium on all new nuclear, and phasing out of all existing plants. The only possible way he’s not really a tacit supporter of the fossil fuel industry, is if he’s actually an enthusiastic supporter of rolling blackouts.
Yes, Bernie’s nuclear stance is one of the only things I disagree with.
However, he’s a reasonable person and the ‘nuclear’ he describes is the sort of plants that area at Fuki (i.e. crap ones). He’s not an expert in the field and I don’t expect him to be up on Thorium reactors and such.
He also respects science more than any of the other candidates, so there are factors in favor of him adjusting his stance.
(I favor nuclear as a transition to renewables myself)
Either way, your interpretation is a bit creative, one can be opposed to one thing without being instantly in favor of something else. That’s not how brains work.
6 Likes
Ah, the old “renewables can’t replace fossils, so despite its horrific and likely dangers, nuclear is the way to go.” Got it, I see where you’re coming from, thanks (and, no thanks).
5 Likes
Did you read the article linked to in my first post? Anything in specific you disagree with relating to actual things that have happened? Do you think there’s something unique about the US that would lead to a different outcome?
There are little likely dangers with Nuclear btw, even in the worst case scenario of modern nuclear technology not even a tsunami managed to do much damage (aside from in the minds of paranoid people who have a very poor grasp of physics).
Either way, your interpretation is a bit creative, one can be opposed to one thing without being instantly in favor of something else. That’s not how brains work.
He’s obviously not in favour of fossil fuels in his own mind, but it’s an inescapable consequence of his policies unfortunately so that doesn’t really matter much at the end of the day. And I have far less faith in his ability to change tack before it’s far too late than you do (and while there’s a good chance it’s already too late for a certain level of inescapable climate disaster, it could still get a lot lot worse).
Yeah, I used to be a nuke, I know the biz. Just clicked on the link and it’s pretty obvious info and not in line with my reply. It’s pretty well trod ground.
I also disagree with your stance on conventional reactors (water cooled in particular, unless actually in the ocean). Those are old technologies and the catastrophic risk issue is severe. It’s reasonable for somebody to want to get rid of them. (Edit: Other than WCRs in the ocean, for those the catastrophic risk ceases to exist) We’ve historically made some bad judgement calls with such risks and there’s no reason to cling to them.
I’m in favor of phasing out our old reactors and replacing them with modern, safe ones (Thorium, pebble bed, etc.) and maximizing use of renewables.
I don’t consider Bernie’s stance ‘tacit support’, he’s very on record as being opposed to fossil fuels and just doesn’t happen to be a subject matter expert on all things energy.
It appears you’re using the term ‘tacit’ incorrectly, it doesn’t work when somebody’s actively opposed to what they’re being accused of supporting…it just happens that things are more nuanced than you’re implying.
11 Likes
I disagree with the automatism of coal plants replacing nuclear power generation
and Germany realised it would largely have to be filled by one thing: coal. This is more or less beyond doubt, because Germany’s then Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said so
Coal was a political decision, amended by all Merkel governments with supporting laws and decisions. The big four electricity producers in Germany are depending on big central power plants and own nearly all coal and nuclear plants.
Coal as energy source source is attractive for the social democratic party (Gabriel is the leader) because it’s partly mined in Germany (brown coal, an environmental disaster) and for the conservatives (Merkel is the leader) because of tight bounds with Corporate Germany.
Both coal and nuclear plants are inflexible and cannot really balance the fluctuating production of reneweble energy. But fast reacting natural gas plants were rejected - again a political decision.
4 Likes
Yeah, I used to be a nuke, I know the biz. Just clicked on the link and it’s pretty obvious info and not in line with my reply. It’s pretty well trod ground.
That reply was to @anon15383236
I also disagree with your stance on conventional reactors (water cooled in particular, unless actually in the ocean). Those are old technologies and the catastrophic risk issue is severe. It’s reasonable for somebody to want to get rid of them. (Edit: Other than WCRs in the ocean, for those the catastrophic risk ceases to exist) We’ve historically made some bad judgement calls with such risks and there’s no reason to cling to them.
I’m in favor of phasing out our old reactors and replacing them with modern, safe ones (Thorium, pebble bed, etc.) and maximizing use of renewables.
I don’t disagree that older reactors should be phased out for newer ones, though we shouldn’t be limiting ourselves to speculative designs, we really should have been spending the last 20 years building large numbers of Gen III reactors. Even given the risk with water cooled reactors, the benefits far outweigh the costs imho (potential or otherwise). Far more damage has been done because of the ignorance surrounding nuclear power than from the incidents that have actually happened.
It appears you’re using the term ‘tacit’ incorrectly, it doesn’t work when somebody’s actively opposed to what they’re being accused of supporting…it just happens that things are more nuanced than you’re implying.
Tacit just means that something is implied, normally used when someone means to imply it sure, but it’s hard to escape the implication in this case.
A thousand times, this. She’s pissed away votes for November. I wouldn’t vote for her anyway, because the country does not need another 4-8 years of stagnation or her baggage, but other independents might’ve considered her if her campaign hadn’t worked so damned hard to alienate Sanders supporters. Her online surrogates aren’t helping her, either.
Thanks to this negativity, our next president will most likely be named Trump. ::golfclap:: Good show, Clinton, good show.
9 Likes
Technically possibly true, but only if we didn’t have so many other advanced reactors.
I still say we keep the water cooled reactors in/on the ocean where they can’t do any harm (I know this might scare people, but the science is solid. A WCR in a sub isn’t any more dangerous than a pebble bed reactor on land)
Also, VERY agreed on the ignorance bit, and don’t get me started on the London Convention and the ban on sediment bed disposal. Talk about shooting the whole planet in the foot rolls eyes
That being said, I still think it’s a bit of a stretch to use ‘Tacit Support’ when the subject is actively opposed to the object in question…I think it doesn’t become tacit until you force them to choose between the options, which I can’t find anywhere on record (like I said, this is the subject on Bernie’s side that I disagree with) 
1 Like
Both coal and nuclear plants are inflexible and cannot really balance the fluctuating production of reneweble energy. But fast reacting natural gas plants were rejected - again a political decision.
I agree that nuclear in it’s present state is inflexible, though there will undoubtedly be lots of small scale modular nuclear solutions in the future.
However, a certain amount of inflexibility is a requirement for base load power generation, not the opposite, if you can generate that from geothermal or hyrdo then great, but there are severe limitations on where that’s going to be feasible. Coal and nuclear are really the only stable alternatives, gas is not due to the issues regarding supply and storage (though gas should be favoured over coal where it makes sense for sure).
1 Like
That’s not how cause and effect work. Superdelegates are for the case where the “best” candidate doesn’t get the majority of pledged delegates. A) It doesn’t follow from just that statement that any conclusion can be drawn about who the best is by looking at who got the majority. And B) 59% is an arbitrary threshold based on how many delegates and superdelegates there are. If you go only by the numbers, how could it possibly make sense to declare someone must be the best if they have 41-49% of the delegates but not if they have 51-59%?
Clearly the superdelegates are supposed to be able to decide who’s best by some other metric.
1 Like
And now we’re agreeing reasonably and stuff.
How annoying! 
