@kravietz @themactep Pretty sure nobody reasonable claims we can (at the moment) run purely on solar? Sounds a bit like a strawman argument. Either way current consumption levels are impossible to sustain especially at scale, even if we radically increase nuclear share (which im not fundametaly against, but the radical centralisation is also a problem in such a scenario). Every solution has its pros and cons.
@harce @themactep@fosstodon.org
> centralisation
Economy of scale 🤷 We want state-run NHS and public transport because they're the cheapest to run at scale, so why at the same time insist on decentralised energy production, if it's the least effective and most expensive?
@kravietz
@themactep Cuz its a single point of fail, which NHS or public transport dont have. Ie. less countries mine uranium than produce oil.
@harce @themactep@fosstodon.org
But if there's like ~20 nuclear fuel suppliers worldwide then how can we even talk about "single point"?
Most of Eastern Europe for decades had just a single oil and gas supplier, only in 2000's countries like Poland obtained maybe 1-2 additional sources and that was already massive step towards diversification.
Ukraine faced this problem in 2014 after Crimea as it obtained 100% of nuclear fuel from Russia. Since 2015 they have also Sweden and this is diversification.
@harce @themactep@fosstodon.org
In this you are 100% right, but I don't think any country (maybe for very small ones) plans to rely on *literally* single large power plant. UK has 7 of nuclear and dozens of gas/coal spread across the whole island.
Poland is far from that but this is the preference of the society - we at least have plenty of churches to pray in case of an actual blackout 🤷
@harce @themactep@fosstodon.org
This last part I would like to explore further: we as society make choices, and these choices are often trade-offs.
Recent Texas situation a good example: grid operators made specific predictions which didn't account for actually very unusual weather, which resulted in limited supply of energy. People are angry.
Let's imagine grid increases the safety margin (=supply reserves) to cover for unusually cold weather *each season,* but costs money. People are angry.
@kravietz
@themactep
Back to the point of overconsumption and overdependence. The fact that our expectations are not met by the actual conditions of the planet we live on is not the planets fault...
@harce @themactep@fosstodon.org
To be honest, I don't know.
Myself personally I routinely spend months in mountains living in very rough conditions, sometimes literally in a cave, and I can enjoy it. On the other hand, without all the hi-tech equipment made from advanced alloys and synthetics (=much energy) I wouldn't enjoy it and even probably survive.
This is myself. And then there's the rest of the society. So it's complicated.
One thing we definitely need is more and more education.
@harce @themactep@fosstodon.org
Same for Germany: people are scared to death of "nuclear apocalypse", they want all NPP shut down and now. Scared people are angry.
But they still want their energy 24/7, which VRE are unable to supply so if you just shut down NPP you get blackouts. People are angry.
Trade-off: shut down NPP and replace the missing power with fossil gas and coal, which are *perceived* as safe even if the data shows otherwise 🤷
@kravietz
@themactep People not acting in their best self interest, especially long time, is hardly news. But education and actual empowerment are a whole different topic (one I'm very keen on btw)
@harce @themactep@fosstodon.org
To be honest, most people don't care. There's gov.uk and EU websites for public consultations and I personally don't care about 99% topics posted there. Or maybe I put that differently: I would care but there's just too much of that and too little time.
Maybe we should vote on high-level topics that can be boiled down to actual policy decisions.
@harce @themactep@fosstodon.org
On the other hand, if you're in the gov and you *know* option A is better than B (because you got data), then you should educate people about it.
When we started to face the return of measles in Poland due to anti-vaxxers, I once casually asked some vaccinology doctors on a conference when there was any public education campaign about vaccines in Poland - I mean a country-wide one, with banners, radio, TV etc.
The answer was a blank stare and then "well maybe in 50's".
@harce @themactep@fosstodon.org
On the other hand you can see Polish government being extremely active in terms of "education" on many other topics - WW2, "gender ideology" etc. So it's not matted of being totally passive, it's matter of specific choices. I can't explain it, maybe it's reflection of individual preferences of people who run the government, but then again these people were *elected* by 1/3 of Poles.
@kravietz @themactep Yeah, there's a massive difference between education and indoctrination. The reason is why Francisco Ferrer was murdered my the state and church.
@kravietz
@themactep
OK, wording defeated my argument; as for a SPoF I was comming back to the centralisation argument: if there's one-two reactors powering a country it takes 1-2 "incidents" to turn off all power. Same is true for coal in Poland btw since Bełchatów iż something over 40% of power IIRC.