if i noticed something when talking with outspoken pro-nuclear people it's that you really can't trust anything they say. they are intellectually bankrupt, will use all kinds of shady argumentation tactics, ad hominems, and can't even be bothered to write their own arguments (instead using AI for that)
Why do PWR reactors use boric acid, as opposed to some random salt of boron? Apparently boron salts are often well soluble, from the nuclear POV we only care about boron being present, and I'd expect salts to cause fewer chemical problems due to their closer-to-neutral pH. In fact some random papers (https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/28/034/28034575.pdf) describe tradeoffs involved in maintaining pH as boric acid concentration changes.
There clearly must be some reason why boric acid is preferred over any simple boron salt. What is it?
yeah, the future of online discussions has arrived in the #fediverse as well: found the replies of a guy regarding #nuclear energy to be a bit too suspiciously samey sounding, so I checked with an #ai detector. lo and behold!
(is there maybe a browser plugin to detect this stuff automatically?)
Interesting web comic about nuclear technology and regulation. Especially in the context of current events (AFIK only 3 countries that have had nuclear weapons and ICBMs have ever disarmed... One of them is now being invaded).
"...over 60,000 between the USSR and the US... but thankfully we've got it down to a sensible 5 or 6 thousand warheads each now. It's still plenty to kill everybody on the planet 5 times over, but at least it's not enough to kill us 50 times over, which is where we were in the early 80s." https://dreamland.libsyn.com/generation-x-and-the-nuclear-nightmare
Alarm over nuclear safety lapses on the Clyde
"One incident in 2023 at the Faslane base, near Helensburgh, was given the MoD’s worst risk rating. This is the first time this has happened since 2008.
Remember: fossil fuel companies want people to focus on what uses#energy so we don't talk about the supply side.
They benefit from #environmentalists spending time and energy bickering with one another about whether AI uses too much #electricity, whether to support more #nuclear plants, whether we should mine more #lithium to have grid scale #batteries, and so forth.
That doesn't mean we can't talk about these things, but be #mindful where you spend your energy.
1.) France wants the lead
2.) France still has some scars from being taken by Germans in WWII
3.) the nuclear arms in France cost a fucking lot of money - so at least others (german) should fund it
PS: the US here only has some bombs meant to stop Russian tanks for some days until heavy airlift brings troops from the US to Europe. Thats the Idea.
In #Germany debate escalates about whether the #nuclear phase-out was justified granted its consequences for German economy that are becoming evident now. In the new turn, it is being suggested that the minister of economy Habeck was lied to by his own experts who claimed the phase-out is going to be harmless.^1
At this stage I can only reiterate that since 2011 when the plans were announced hundreds of worldwide climate experts appealed to Germany not to phase-out nuclear, which is one of the few low-carbon and dispatchable sources of energy. Climate scientist James Hansen had been calling German phase-out a “climate crime” and in 2019 hundreds of scientists wrote an open letter to German government asking to reconsider.^2
As I wrote a few years ago, the whole phase-out plan was plagued by cognitive biases, falsified data and excessive optimism about “prospective technologies of future”. The biggest blame however goes to “environmental activists” such as #WWF and #Greenpeace who were absolutely knowingly and cynically lying about both evils of nuclear and benefits of #renewables, convincing many people and pushing the government towards the current failure.^3