99% Invisible

This article fails to present a fair view and it's too shallow to be taken seriously.

I have had the opportunity to be involved with a big player in the mid-C power market and it quickly showed me that the real challenges are different than what Reddit armchair experts identify.

tl;dr: just head over to [MIT's EN-Road Climate Simulator](https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/en-roads/), move the Nuclear dial to maximum adoption, and see what changes. You have gone from 4.1 degrees of temperature change to 3.9C. The 0.2C that is almost negligible compared to other solutions like reducing methane emissions.

The US's Green New Deal is a comprehensive document not only about climate protection but also about social injustice. The US does need something like this Deal and making a case for a "Nuclear New Deal" does not address the same issues. The internet appears to think of nuclear energy as this misunderstood miracle that the interest groups and politicians have killed.

I do think nuclear has an important role in lowering electrification costs when the carbon pricing goes up and we do need to start looking at SMRs and nuclear fusion much more seriously; below I will try to balance some of the article's points.

Before I start, I'd like to highlight that to my understanding, the biggest sustainable energy challenges come from the demand side not the supply.

> when wildfires broke out the following month, a blanket of ash blotted out the sun in some places, cutting the state’s solar energy output by one-third.

Under the wildfire circumstances many of the energy generation plants, including nuclear, may need to adjust. Solar is 20% of california's generation, so the roughly 7% cut is significant but [was not the culprit as someone pointed out](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/08/why-renew...).

Solar has an important advantage over nuclear in a disaster: it is decentralized. Independent communities can rely on their own solar power while they connect to the bigger grid as well. This creates resilience in case one of them is cut.

> Energy in California is incredibly expensive for ratepayers

Some reasons for this are environmental restrictions that stops California from buying relatively cheaper hydro power, inefficiencies in PG&E, and just generally not enough ratepayer anger.

> Reactors from civilian plants don’t blow up like atomic bombs and nuclear waste isn’t a glowing toxic ooze.

The reactors work under extreme safety considerations. Prior to Chernobyl the scientists [did not hold the concern](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3d3rzFTrLg) that a reactor is capable of making such disaster. The problem is that like most engineering we need to see what happens to fix it, and the sensitivity around nuclear increases the cost of that. The waste does glow, just not in the visible spectrum.

> elements such as uranium and plutonium have such long half-lives, the radiation they emit is low enough to safely hold in your hand.

You probably do not want to do that for a prolonged period. Also, the big issue is not only with the direct radiation but with the particles getting into the body.

The article mentioned half-lives, it is long enough that [we can't quite comprehend what to do about it](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years/). That is true even for Thorium, though relatively much better.

The idea behind our green movement is not leaving a problem for the next generations. The nuclear energy at the advancement level of today does not guarantee that.

There've been numerous previous discussions of Project Cybersyn. More are welcomed!

Project Cybersyn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn) 1 year ago -- 114 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24764727

Project Cybersyn, a 1971-73 Chilean Experiment in Computer-Assisted Economy (http://www.damninteresting.com/nineteen-seventy-three/) 9 years ago -- 67 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4682951

Cybersyn and Allende’s Semi-Automated Luxury Socialism (https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/cybersyn-and-a...) 2 years ago -- 105 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21673423

Project Cybersyn (1971) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn) 8 years ago -- 36 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7398245

Project Cybersyn: Socialism Through Cybernetics (http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/project-cybersyn/) 5 years ago -- 58 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12641425

Project Cybersyn: real-time computer control of a planned economy (1970-1973) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersyn) 12 years ago -- 33 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190508

Project Cybersyn and the Origins of the Big Data Nation (2014) (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/planning-machi...) 1 month ago -- 39 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29930098

Project Cybersyn and the origins of the Big Data nation (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/planning-machin...) 7 years ago -- 13 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8417882

Project Cybersyn (2016) (https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/project-cybersyn/) 1 year ago -- 8 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24443238

... and a few others with < 8 comments.

> This is so pedantic! Of course people know why they're angry.

I've yet to see a single yellow vest giving an articulated speech about why things are bad and how to fix them. You don't go far by screaming "this thing is broken I'll burn things until someone fixes it"

> And the climate crisis. And education reforms promising even more brainless indoctrination. And the National Universal Service which is a nicer name for militarist/fascist propaganda aimed at children. And racist anti-immigration laws in which Macron doubled the maximum retention time for undocumented people (45->90 days). And police violence destroying the sense of community in whole districts. And health care workers slowly being pushed to suicide by an administration that wants to close down public hospitals to ensure a new economy for private health.

Welcome to capitalism, have a seat while we fuck the world up.

> Burning rich people's shit is literally the most peaceful we can do in times like these, given the pace at which they're killing us.

What's the real plan though ? What happens after "burning rich peoples' shit" ? Nothing, because yellow vests don't want to get into politics, and not getting into politics means they're just screaming and burning shit until they're bored of doing that. The 60s were much better in that regard because thinkers still existed back then with people like Vaneigem or Debord.

> yet has ~10% extreme poverty,

The difference is that if you're poor in the US you live in a tent in skidrow [0] or the like, if you're poor in France you get a (shitty) flat and enough money to eat and dress yourself, you can still go to school and get medical treatments, &c. And btw most EU country have higher poverty % than France. [1] The question isn't really how many people are poor but how do you treat them.

> very similar in some regards to the USA.

I don't think you're being fair here. Public pensions and public healthcare puts France miles ahead of the US (and most other countries) for the average citizen. And that's not even taking into account vacations days, min wages, mandatory holidays, working hours, unions, parental leaves, retirement age, police brutality, &c. The US is only a better place if you're in the top 10%.

> Representative democracy is the structure that failed us in the first place. Never again: we won't stop fighting until we have a direct democracy without a ruling oligarchy.

Tell me how the US is better again ?

Sure we can do better, we always can, but look around, besides maybe Switzerland and a few northern countries, which are doing slightly better in some aspects, I don't think France as anything to complain about.

[0] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-containment-plan/

[1] http://www.lefigaro.fr/economie/le-scan-eco/dessous-chiffres...

Here's my playlist. First the good ones that are actively in my queue (in general order of recommendation):

- The Memory Palace: http://thememorypalace.us/ (these are stunningly good historical stories)

- On the Media: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/otm/

- Reply All: https://gimletmedia.com/reply-all/ (this is the one I expected to see on every list at hackernews, and don't)

- The Gist: http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/gist.html

- The Daily: https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-daily

- 99% Invisible: http://99percentinvisible.org/

- Economist Radio: https://radio.economist.com/

- New Yorker Radio Hour: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/tnyradiohour/

- Planet Money: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/ (not the juggernaut of content they once were)

- This American Life: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/

Shorter series (or just defunct or really rarely updated) that I can recommend to this crowd:

- Zachtronics Podcast: http://www.zachtronics.com/podcast/

- Revisionist History: http://revisionisthistory.com/ (should be starting a new season soon)

- Mystery Show: https://gimletmedia.com/mystery-show/

- A Life Well Wasted: http://alifewellwasted.com/ (great videogamey series)

- Containers: https://www.flexport.com/blog/alexis-madrigal-containers-pod...

- S-Town: https://stownpodcast.org/

Listening at 1.8x for most of these shows forces me to pay attention, and let's me consume more content. The exception is for The Memory Palace which deserves to be heard exactly as Nate makes it (1x).

> If someone taps you on the shoulder, they are performing an immoral action by grabbing your attention?

My boundaries aren't so strict when it comes to my personal space. People usually have good reasons to call my attention when they tap my shoulders. I just don't get advertised to when I turn around to greet them. Usually they want to ask me a question or simply socialize.

People don't like to be rude. They don't like to bother others without good reason. They want the social activity to be a positive experience so that they will be accepted by others. That's the social norm and it protects me from abuses such as random people tapping me on the shoulder for idiotic reasons such as advertising. You'd have to be some kind of sociopath to think it's okay to tap someone on the shoulders and start pushing products at them the second they turn around. Mercifully, people that bold just don't seem to exist in my social circles.

> you have an irrationally radical take on this

Radical? OK. Nothing wrong with being radical. Compromise is the root of all evil.

Irrational? No. I spent a lot of time thinking about this. If you want to claim I'm irrational, you need to refute everything I've said to the point it looks like I'm babbling incoherently.

> But to say that advertising as a whole is immoral seems overblown.

Not at all. Advertising is by definition information people didn't ask for. It's noise, to be filtered. It's audiovisual pollution.

> What constitutes an ad?

Information I did not seek out. For example, when I open this web site, it's because I want to read and post comments. I don't come here to look at products. If HN starts sending me ads for products I'll block them.

> Can I put a yellow label on my can of beans I sell, or is that too vibrant and might catch your eye in the supermarket?

If I go to the supermarket, it's because I want to buy products. If I open an app store, it's because I want to see apps. It's okay to show me the stuff.

The key point here is I asked for it. I don't even consider it advertising in that case. It's just the information I wanted.

> Show Should all products and signage be black/white to protect your delicate attention span?

In my country there's laws in certain cities to that effect. I think it's pretty great.

https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secret...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa

There is relatively well-know presentation from 1997 by late American Airlines captain Warren Vanderburgh [0] called "Children of Magenta" that talked about the risk of crew being too dependent on the guiding magenta-colored lines of the autopilot on their screens:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ESJH1NLMLs

* https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the-magen...

* https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/sp/2015/05/msp2015050...

Some of the pros and cons of cockpit automation:

* https://www.skybrary.aero/articles/cockpit-automation-advant...

Generally automation exists on a spectrum, and the pilot should be able to select the level depending on the circumstances:

> In Van’s presentation he describes three levels of automation:

> *The pilot manually flying the aircraft.

> *The pilot using the flight director, autopilot, and autopilot modes to fly the aircraft for a short period of time. For example: Heading select, Flight Level Change, Vertical Speed, Indicated Airspeed, etc.

> *The pilot using the FMS to command the autopilot to fly the aircraft for hours at a time.

* https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/09/stepping-down-in-automat...

Another thought is that if one-pilot planes are allowed, to insist on more training for pilots: if the computer/autopilot can handle the more mundane stuff, then more hours could be spend by pilots in simulators being (virtually) thrown into strange situations (perhaps taken from real-life incidents) to deal with. There are (IIRC) already per-mont flight hour restrictions on pilots, so reduce those by some ammount and move them to the simulator.

[0 https://obituaries.gloucestertimes.com/obituary/warren-van-v...