It's not that it's a "lost technology". I think the United States today does not have the organizational capacity needed to bring new reactors online. Remember, it takes ten years to build a reactor - minimum. What capacity the public sector had built has been stripped out over the last half-century of neoliberal policy. And these are government structures that were already designed, from day one, to be as sluggish and unresponsive as possible. Congress can't even stop buying tanks when the pentagon is the one asking!
The private sector has become fully financialized -- the people making decisions have no real comprehension of production. They're spreadsheet dorks. Even with these advancements in "artificial intelligence" (programming with statistical mathematics, really), they're still laying of droves off people because profits last year didn't grow as much as expected. I don't see them underwriting a decades long project anytime soon.
It's not 'doomerism' to look at these institutions and recognize that they are coasting on momentum.
Yes the capitalist system is unproductive, no that does not mean the United States is not a leading nuclear power. So shit gets privatized, we got oil lobbyists out the ass pushing for less nuclear power, we aren’t building nuclear power plants as fast as China. Do you expect the United States to no longer have nuclear power in ten years? What about 100? I don’t expect the United States to be the world leader forever but unless there’s a great calamity that wipes out the United States nuclear power is still gonna be a thing here. How long do you think we are going to have India or China beat in production for examples? How long until you think a populous country like Nigeria has a nuclear power plant?
Let’s just remove all currently existing nuclear power plants and start over. By the end of 2030 the US would probably shit out a couple nuclear power plants because it can throw money at the problem. Or do you think some calamity is going to wipe the US off the map? To you every loss the United States makes is irrefutable evidence that it’s doomed to fail and every good decision it makes to is a fluke and its fall will come eventually. You’re a doomer, or maybe not since you think that a widespread collapse of the nuclear power industry in the United States would be a good thing.
I'm a little confused. I never said that the US does not currently have nuclear power, or that it will somehow "loose" its existing plants. I just don't think the US is gonna successfully implement a new nuclear programme. That doesn't mean I think nuclear power is bad.
It's not that it's a "lost technology". I think the United States today does not have the organizational capacity needed to bring new reactors online. Remember, it takes ten years to build a reactor - minimum. What capacity the public sector had built has been stripped out over the last half-century of neoliberal policy. And these are government structures that were already designed, from day one, to be as sluggish and unresponsive as possible. Congress can't even stop buying tanks when the pentagon is the one asking!
The private sector has become fully financialized -- the people making decisions have no real comprehension of production. They're spreadsheet dorks. Even with these advancements in "artificial intelligence" (programming with statistical mathematics, really), they're still laying of droves off people because profits last year didn't grow as much as expected. I don't see them underwriting a decades long project anytime soon.
It's not 'doomerism' to look at these institutions and recognize that they are coasting on momentum.
Yes the capitalist system is unproductive, no that does not mean the United States is not a leading nuclear power. So shit gets privatized, we got oil lobbyists out the ass pushing for less nuclear power, we aren’t building nuclear power plants as fast as China. Do you expect the United States to no longer have nuclear power in ten years? What about 100? I don’t expect the United States to be the world leader forever but unless there’s a great calamity that wipes out the United States nuclear power is still gonna be a thing here. How long do you think we are going to have India or China beat in production for examples? How long until you think a populous country like Nigeria has a nuclear power plant?
Let’s just remove all currently existing nuclear power plants and start over. By the end of 2030 the US would probably shit out a couple nuclear power plants because it can throw money at the problem. Or do you think some calamity is going to wipe the US off the map? To you every loss the United States makes is irrefutable evidence that it’s doomed to fail and every good decision it makes to is a fluke and its fall will come eventually. You’re a doomer, or maybe not since you think that a widespread collapse of the nuclear power industry in the United States would be a good thing.
I'm a little confused. I never said that the US does not currently have nuclear power, or that it will somehow "loose" its existing plants. I just don't think the US is gonna successfully implement a new nuclear programme. That doesn't mean I think nuclear power is bad.