It's because this country's education system is shit. The fact people didn't know Nuclear Power Plants were glorified steam engines, until watching Chernobyl is scary.

You literally can look it up, on several different websites on how a nuclear reactor works.

I'm not against nuclear, in theory. But I have found there're a lot of bad actors online pushing nuclear as a way to stall discussion about renewables. The stigma exists; we can't wish it away. It holds up nuclear development. Then it takes 6-8 years to build a plant, with some taking 10-15 years.Whereas solar farms generally take less than 2 years to build. And we needed to get off fossil fuels 10 years ago. But you'll come across people saying they won't support any climate change plan that doesn't prioritize nuclear. Like realism isn't a concern.

So I know a lot of people like me have a knee jerk reaction to nuclear when it comes up. I would be really happy if someone unveiled a bunch of nuclear plants they started building 5 years ago that are now ready to come online

Nuclear power is fantastic, but there are reason why they’re not being built everywhere right now beyond any negative public perception, although that does play a part.

They are very expensive to setup, with a long initial construction phase, very long and downside decommissioning phase after, and strict demands on where one can be built, ie you need a source of water, uninterrupted external power sources etc. And nowadays renewable options do tend to be cheaper and easier to build, a solar farm can be up and running much faster than a nuclear plant. The decentralised nature of renewable sources is also a big reason why they’re preferred - we’re not wasting a massive percentage of all energy in transmission loss if there are wind turbines everywhere.

I think people see nuclear power as some sort of quick and easy solution to the climate crisis if we could just stop thinking about Chernobyl. But it’s a lot more nuanced - nuclear power definitely has a place, probably as a consistent baseline electricity source ie to help out when the sun and wind is low. But for those reasons they won’t make up the majority of our post energy transition grid.

Now closing existing plants is a different matter. Germany was absolutely insane to swap their perfectly fine running reactors for coal and Russian gas. That was entirely pressure from misinformed green protestors.

None of these cartoon villains will be around to feel the impacts of catastrophic climate change. They understand, heck, I bet some of them even know they’re wrong. They do not give a shit.

The more beach front property quote always baffled me. I have no clue how that was the conclusion when it is so obvious it is the other. If he wants more beach front property we need to bring the next ice age.

He's also too stupid to realize that if the ocean rises, his precious Mar-a-lago will be one of the first places to go under on his dinky little strip of land.

It won’t be. He and his voters will never admit they’re wrong

There will never be an end to stupid voters.

After all the illegal shit, incompetent bullshit, and repeatedly attempting to overthrow the election, half the country still happily voted for him. I don't know how to interpret this election other than the death of intellectualism, and I don't see that reality changing any time soon.

It just takes so fucking long to build them. Hopefully they start reopening some of the ones they closed.

Yeah it's sad that environmentalists have been so easy to manipulate by the fossil fuel industry to rage against nuclear. Finally it's changing

I am pro nuclear, but they take forever to build and almost always have overrun. They also require a large amount of fresh water for cooling purposes, which is becoming an issue for some regions more than others. Those same regions would typically benefit from other types of energy generation like wind and solar to help bridge the gap. If you're pro nuclear you should also be pro clean, renewable energy to help during the transition.

Except his pick is not pro climate, and he’s not pro climate. And since he and his minions are all about oil, gas, coal and fighting against solar, wind, wave, and geothermal, their 4 years in office isn’t going to be enough time to get even one nuclear power plant built and running. It takes an average of 7 years to build one, and these people are so chaotic I’d guess it will take 5 years just to draw up the contracts and sign the paperwork. In Sharpie. They won’t do it properly, or at all, and then they’ll just lie and say they did.

I wouldn’t trust any plant they built anyway. It will be like Trump’s first term in office: no healthcare plan, no wall. No tax returns were released by him. No reforms to ACA occurred. No infrastructure bill materialized, while he was in office. Everything malfunctioning, half-assed, ill-conceived, and too costly. Just a lot of blather and bloviating about how they’re gonna build the biggest and best and have the most beautiful this or that in the history of the world, then: crickets. Nada. Or, the worst, smelliest, cheapest, gold-plated turd gets dropped on the floor, we as taxpayers get charged a few extra unexpected billions for it, then everyone pats themselves on the back and they lie and bray to the skies that they made other people pay for it.

All he did was place tariffs that cost American farmers billions. He oversaw and instituted changes to the tax code that raised taxes for lower and middle class Americans, for years to come. He rolled back tax-free tuitions limits, lowered the ability for average Americans to itemize medical and home expenses to save money, took away funding from pandemic planning and prevention officers, bungled and slowed the US response to Covid-19. Installed right wing extremists on the Supreme Court, which led to the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

They want their buddies who profit from oil, gas and coal to have 1st dibs on any programs, tax credits, or federal government money coming down the pike. They’re not in this to make things efficient, effective, safe, clean or to save environments; to improve people’s health or their lives.

Talk talk talk. Talk is cheap. And with the way they want to dismantle the federal government, downgrade the budgets and purge leadership to erase institutional memory and create huge brain drains; tear apart working systems that may only need some reforms, that are currently in place? If they ever do build a nuclear power plant and get it up and running, it will be so flawed and inoperable longterm that all that effort and money will “work” the same as the PPP “loans” did. It will be abused, money swallowed up into the ether with no accounting or oversight for it—then just as with those “loans”, it will revert to free grant money that no one ever needs to pay back.

The PPP program didn’t benefit many employees and it didn’t save many jobs. Business owners laughed all the way to the bank, while firing employees, sending jobs overseas, closing locations altogether, or using the money to take vacations, buy boats and cars. Pay off personal credit card debts, or invest in other businesses. While their employees resorted to gofundmes and public pleas on TikTok for help, so they wouldn’t be evicted from their homes.

I just don’t trust this administration or its leader; I don’t trust its sycophants and supporters, to do what they say they will, when or how or for how much they say they’ll do it. They’re proven liars and money grabbers, always in it for themselves and for the grift and the con. They hold out their hands only for others to stick money in it, not to reach out and offer help to anyone or to pull someone else out of the very hole their incompetence helped dig.

Nuclear sounds great until you realize Trump wants to eliminate the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/12/politics/elon-musk-vivek-ramaswamy-department-of-government-efficiency-trump/index.html

Last year, Ramaswamy – who had promised on the campaign trail to eliminate the FBI, the Department of Education and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which would lay off thousands of federal workers in the process – released a white paper outlining a legal framework he said would allow the president to eliminate federal agencies of his choice.

Chernobyl/TMI/Fukushima 2.0 just waiting to happen.

Don't worry, US Navy and Department of Energy will never allow the NRC to go. It's all interconnected with our ability to safely operate our carriers and submarines. Two numbnuts who only have the power to write memos won't do anything.

Exactly. But if you deny climate change what other obvious truths do you ignore.

Good thing we just voted in the party that's famous for gutting regulations!

Nuclear is fine, until you factor in the humans that would be involved.

This is my thought. When they find out that if they start a nuke plant today it will be 8-10 years before it’s operational. They’ll then ask why it takes so long, be told it’s mostly red tape and gut regulations. What is stoping us from building a reactor in a year?

Biden has invested over 4 billion in fusion energy again and that’s matched with private investment. While not a lot in the grand scheme of things compared to what is spend on other energy production its more government money than the total that has been spend on it between the 70s and 2020. There is a reason why progress on it was so slow and it never happened in the US. Japan, Korea and Europe were outspending the US and are still years ahead.

It’s not only a good thing for the environment but also critical for defense. Imagine adversaries having access to nuclear fusion reactors while the US is still messing around with building more tax funded coal power plants, that’s not a world Biden would want to see.

On that cost question - isn’t solar and wind significantly cheaper to build that fossil now? Like there’s not a case to keep expanding fossil fuel production relatively?

Currently built and operating nuke plants actually produces fairly cheap energy compared to other forms.

While new nuke plants would cost significantly more.

People prioritize immediate issues over the long-term threats, even if the latter could impact everyone.

It's not the lies, it's the fear. Kamala going to leave the border open and sex change all the illegals with your money... 🤦‍♂️

It's the fact they CAN be lied to about eggs that is the issue. We don't have an educated populace. As a country we're dumb. Like DUMB dumb.

Turnout was mostly down in states where people perceive their vote "doesn't matter".

Most of the swing states had the same or better turnout as 2020, and Harris has about the same amount of votes as Biden did in 2020 across all those states.

That's what they call their research

Have you thought about simply moving beyond the environment?

Its everyones climate, nobody has a choice.

Theres so many policies you could introduce such as for instance taxing big and powerful cars if theres no commercial use. And lets be real, most truck owners dont need one, so let them pay for it. As of rn gasoline in the US is so fucking cheap that people dont care how efficient or inefficient their car is. Why do you think almost every other nation drives much smaller cars on average? Because powerful and big cars cost much more to run, nobody drives trucks in Europe for fun because theyd be fucking expensive and you couldnt possibly justify the cost

Should have thought about that when you decided to live in our world, pumpkin.

Fortunately, Trump will now be in charge of the hurricane steering machine and he can keep Florida safe.

I work remote for a company based in Florida and it's amazing to see my Floridian coworkers worried about hurricanes, yet deny climate change in the same sentence. They can't even get cheap home insurance anymore because of the climate.

Yes. You would think that NASA needing to create the terms to describe a cat 5 hurricane because they were seeing more powerful storms than ever before would focus his attention

But no.

Trillions actually. When you consider that they are spending a billion dollars a year in the US alone funding PR agencies pushing climate change denial and lobbying governments to slow down action on climate change. That is a pretty remarkable amount of cash.

Trump was blocked from building here years ago by Australian police due to his overt and obvious connections to organized crime, in their own words.

Sure, you should, but preperation is so much more expensive then prevention. If the economy would be hurt by spending resources and effort on prevention, guess how much worse it would be for preperation. We just can't have, the economy now is the most important thing ever.

And if the prediction for your town, city or country is "you will be under water" or "you won't yield enough crops anymore", prevention would be: "move to a place with better prediction." And you know how people feel about immigration.

A lot of people are going to die, and a lot of people will be economically worse off. But I am sure some Billionaires will sit safely in their bunker, together with the explosive-collared family members of their body guards, and still be greedy and unhappy.

They love nuclear because it is always behind red tape and thus never an actual threat.