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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 28th, 2023

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  • South Africa, you can read up on us if you want to learn about a country that really fucked up its energy supply, but that is a different story.

    You do need a baseload, this is not something an argument of saying we do not really need a baseload can wish away, industries that run 24/7 like a smelting operation where if you cannot shutdown, or hospitals or traffic lights, there is a certain percentage of baseload that has to be generated.

    Solar and wind are amazing and I really wish to see these systems play a major role in power generation, but you say the nuclear and coal plants are very inflexible. I do not know who this guy is but Nuclear and coal can very easily ramp up their power generation, both these are basically steam engines, both nuclear and coal can very quickly heat up and generate a lot more steam that powers generators, like an car engine but more accurately a steam train that you give more power to go faster. Solar and wind cannot ramp up on their own, cannot ask the wind to blow harder or the sun to shine brighter suddenly when the system requires it, they need costly backup systems like methane peaker plants or energy storage, be it batteries, pumped hydro, hydrogen electrolysis the list goes on. These things added to solar and wind plants are usually not allocated to the cost of generation, a total cost of generation including these additional backup systems are a better indicator of solar and wind systems cost.

    Now what about waste. I agree coal is messy and is causing global warming and needs to be phased out. But nuclear waste is a solved problem, it has been for decades, the spent fuel is usually stored deep underground where it will never interact with the world again. Solar on the other hand, if it costs about $20-$30 to recycle a panel but like $1-$3 to send it to a waste dumps, what do you think will happen to the solar panels. https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power Harvard business did an article about how solar recycling has really been a point of weakness, where nuclear we have set guidelines on how to environmentally and safely dispose of nuclear waste currently. I am willing to bet you the environmental impact from pollution from nuclear, including all the disasters will be negligible compared to the waste impact from solar panels and batteries currently.

    So my point is not to dismiss solar or wind, really where wind and sunshine are naturally plentiful it will be a waste not to harvest these resources, just like where geothermal resources are available it will be wasteful not to utilise it.

    But nuclear, even with its high initial capital cost and long build time, still does provide energy cheaply and will last for a lot longer than solar panels and wind turbines, nuclear can be easily and quickly ramped up or down depending on the load required.






  • Jeez Biden now has a choice in my opinion, fighting a two-way battle against a united Republican party and the other half of the dissenting Democrats or swallow his pride and pass on the baton to someone that could be more convincing to voters than Trump. Biden was the right choice against Trump in 2020, because he won by convincing voters he was way more capable than Trump. Now in 2024 is he still as convincing.

    Usually a smart person changes course if they see their current trajectory will lead to failure, a proud person will continue their trajectory even if it will lead to failure, and try and try again until they succeed. The proud person might succeed some of the time, the smart person will succeed most of the time









  • I have no issues with the controller either think it was a great addition, were I had a gripe is that it was the only way to operate the vessel, so not an addition but the sum total of controls.

    Like if you were bolted into a vehicle, with no way to interact with the outside except a tiny window and only a game controller, it is a lovely piece of efficient engineering and does everything you need, but if this controller maybe gets damaged for example it’s cable was unfortunately pinched off by someone’s shoe. When you realise at a 1000m the closest thing to a god is that controller working and taking you safely back to surface in time or being stuck and hoping the guy who got you into the mess, that his, only other plan the dissolvable ropes on the weights actually work and you get to surface and get found and unsealed before air runs out.





  • I did know they are already using the technology, so it is so cool for letting me know. Yes some data you do not need to have constant access, like security footage. Maybe 20 years from now a detective asks if you still have footage from that night where the serial nipple pincher first attacked, and boom they solved the mystery and Gotham will be safe again.



  • There are problems with physical medium as well. My father and I enjoy physical CDs, in my opinion they are the best. Yet my father’s collection is over 20 years old so disks are degrading. My collection was destroyed during a house break in, they threw them on the floor and stomped on them, fucking hooligans. So I stopped with physical media such as CDs due to this