Tom has moved

I have moved to [@Tallish_Tom](https://mastodon.scot/@Tallish_Tom )

Last Notes

2025-04-04 09:00:50 GMT

- reply

I'll give you a maybe/probably on the long term but with more solar than you think. Big Wind will get superceded. But at a longer timeframe than yours (unless we go large with operationally proven nuke tech (unlikely in the West)).
My point remains, North Sea interconnectors are only there because that is where the wind is. Nukes are location independent. Why replace wind when you can supplement it with nukes elsewhere?

2025-04-04 08:34:01 GMT

- reply

But why not replace them? They generate a load of power and are cheap (they'll be even cheaper in 15 years).
More your barges on the coast and have both.
(Unless you point is we _shouldn't_ use renewables at all and go all in on Nukes)

2025-04-04 08:15:12 GMT

- reply

Then I misunderstood, are you going to decomission the wind turbines and replaces them with Nuke barges? or have both?
Also, Yet Another new-tech reactor design? I can pretty much guarantee it wont be ready for significant deployment until the 2040s at the earliest (and at that point it will be expensive).
(How many molten salt reactors are there in commercial operation again?)

2025-04-04 07:24:47 GMT

- reply

Why on erath would you displace infrastructure that is location dependent (wind) with generation capacity that isn't (nuclear).
Build nukes that are proven (large PWR/BWR) in places that they work best (the coast or by big rivers ideally near industrial centres) and have both.
(The planned design life for offshore turbines is 25 years so we'll have to see if your 15 year 'recon' matches engineers' models and decades of real world data.)

2025-03-20 10:52:57 GMT

- reply

While I think Nuclear can be clean and safe I do not trust US style private industry to behave responsibly with this. The oil, coal and mining industries in the US have a terrible record of covering up and abandoning environmental "externalities" to be fixed by someone else.
I have no reason to expect nuclear to be any different.

2025-03-20 10:48:05 GMT

- reply

Fun fact - in 60 years of operation the UK nuclear industry has produced ~30 shipping containers worth of high level nuclear waste (& lots more intermediate).
However like many nations they still do not have a defined nuclear waste management programme being implemented. Not asking for much, just "we are going to _this_ for _these_ reasons and look here is the actual building work going on".
Even if you disagree with their solution at least Finland has implemented one.

2025-03-06 15:29:11 GMT

- reply

It is outrageous that Finland is the ONLY country in the world to actually complete and begin operation of a final waste repository despite most countries agreeing to stop marine dumping in the 70's and 80's (and all by the early 90s).

2025-03-03 10:27:22 GMT

- reply

Surely if he was worried about "brownface" accents he should have cast Hungarian actors? What he did was the voice equivalent of digitally altering the white actor to look "authentically african".

2025-02-28 20:48:49 GMT

- reply

Yeah, I think well see a lot of scams in this space (and honest over-optimists).
For Europe the best approach to Nuclear would be to suck it up pick a standard "classic reactor" and plan to build, say, five a year for the next 10 years with the relevant changes to planning to make sure it happens. That, alongside renewables and storage would get us a long way.

2025-02-28 20:41:12 GMT

- reply

But does it have an operational prototype? Don't they have to go through some technical assesment of an operating reactor as well as the site before going ahead and building a load of them?
Going from no-operating-reactor-anywhere to deploying them to production in three years seems optimistic.

2025-02-28 20:15:37 GMT

- reply

I missed this, have they got a test reactor running somewhere?

2025-02-08 20:04:38 GMT

- reply

Just in case we are talking past each other its: Red, Green, Blue.

2025-02-08 19:43:16 GMT

- reply

I think Green Mars is second?

2025-01-07 09:54:33 GMT

- reply

Seems to be working though? 😞
At least in Europe and North America.
Amazing a few hundred million dollars can buy you in national politics.

2025-01-03 15:45:24 GMT

- reply

Assuming people are cognitive misers & effective cognition is an activity that requires "exercise" (brain plasticity). Then the AI augmented system may "think" better than then a person alone; but the person in the system will think less well.
We'll have to use it to compete but by using it we will impair ourselves.
And we'll be paying big tech for the privilege.

2024-09-07 17:14:47 GMT

- reply

"Good" subcontracting, shares the risk, gives everyone a stake in doing the right thing and encourages collaboration and problem solving. It looks a bit "woke" to many companies so they chose lowest price and threats. Ironically organisations that "waste money" by doing it right are usually more successful than those trying to offload risk, save money and chase the bottom line above all else.
Look at Boeing pre and post the McDonald's management's Trojan horse takeover.
2/2

2024-09-07 17:07:56 GMT

- reply

To be fair subcontracting is not the same as outsourcing and can be done well. Apollo was done well, Heathrow T5 was done well (then fucked up by BA hoping their staff would be willing to do their training on their own time 🤦🏻‍♂️),
and the Madrid metro.
Most bad project subcontracting tries to "outsource risk" (not possible) and ends up in lawsuits and shit shows. Pretty sure this is what happened with Grenfell.
1/2