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Why we should NOT build more nuclear power plants now.

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Originally posted by: BrownTown
I am confused by your post, you seem at first to be supporting what I said and then afterwards saying that I am wrong 😕. It would seem the disagreement comes from my statement that the logical fallacies are all for the most part based on "GOOD" arguments, so I will try to further refine that statement. I'm pretty sure I know what I am talking about here, so I think it is likely that the disagreement is in the communication of my points and not in the points themselves.
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Nothing I said agreed with your post. Your post was incorrect. I'm pretty sure you don't know what you're talking about here, as the disagreement is in the fundamentals. For example,
I am simply pointing out that if you look at many of these fallacies (as linked in my sig) that they are very similar to valid arguments. For example the beginning of this whole discussion was because of the "appeal to authority" fallacy. Now can you honestly say that you do not take the arguments of authorities at any higher weight than those of other people. I don't know about you, but when I am at college taking EE classes I pretty much take what my professors are saying at face value. When my EE professor says "V=IR" I do not go and run of to the library to get a second and third opinion, I trust what they say because they have a doctorate in this subject. Now of course the fact that they have a PHD and 20 years of experience does not PROVE them right, that proof comes from experimentation done hundreds of years ago. It would be silly for me to yell out "this professor keeps using appeal to authority therefore I shouldn't trust what he says". The fallacy merely points out that the fact he has a piece of paper saying he has a PHD doesn't 100% prove him right, but it DOES make him alot more likely to be right then a person with no experience in electrical engineering.
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This is demonstrative of your misunderstanding of the fallacies. Facts are facts, period. If I state a fact, I am not making an argument. The fact is true regardless of who says it. There can be no fallacy with regard to reporting facts because even logic is not invoked. A fact is either true or it is not. However, if the professor attempts to draw conclusions from that fact by saying that he is a professor and therefore what he says is therefore true, this is an appeal to authority. If he instead argues/derives why something logically follows, this is not fallacious. I think your misunderstanding stems from the idea that one needs to "believe" in facts, which is incorrect. Facts exist outside the realm of belief. An argument is neither good nor bad, it is logically congruent or fallacious. What your professor is telling you can be derived from first principles using pure logic in the form of mathematical rigor.
 
Perhaps, CycloWizard, it is that I had it backwards here and that you are attempting to argue in terms of formal logic as opposed to a more "conversational" sort of argument. I guess if you are looking at this in terms of formal logic than you are perhaps thinking that a conclusion is only valid if all the propositions supporting it can be shown to be supported by fact. However in real life such formal systems often cannot be directly applied. VERY few things are 100% undeniable "facts", and it is essentially impossible to "prove" an argument based on a logical deduction from first principals based entirely on facts and logic. In the type of argument like is happening here neither I nor Moonbeam nor anyone else can PROVE that nuclear is a good or a bad decision. There are simply not enough undeniable facts to do so. It is easy to evaluate a argument in a class on formal logic and perhaps point out that a students argument is fallacious due to a misinterpretation of the disjunctive syllogism, however it is not nearly so easy to do so in a real life argument. Any "fact" that I am likely to bring up can be shot down by Moonbeam just as easily by claiming a "Circumstantial Ad Hominem" fallacy since the studies or information are coming from a group like DOE or NEI which could be said to have a vested interest in the nuclear power industry. The problem concerning facts needing to be believed comes up because so few things can ever be said to be 100% unassailable facts. Just looking on the internet on any subject will show you 20 different papers all using different data sets to "prove" different conclusions.
 
Originally posted by: smack Down
7. Not necessarily. One could easily build the plants out in the desert. Can't get enough workers? Build a simple private transit system (i.e. light rail) from the nearest big city to the plant. Or, raise wages at your plant. If the pay is good enough, people will come. But really, this is tied back to #6, which is bunk.

I'm sure you already know this but nuclear plants can't really be built in the desert because they require lots of water.
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Nuke plants heat up the nearby water and so are typically built along coastlines or with access to great amounts of water. No, they do not need to be built near large population centers. Look at CA's nuke plants.


Originally posted by: techs
2)Pollution. American air has gotten much cleaner over the last 30 years with only limited efforts to clean coal emissions. With only moderately more effort we can increase electricity production while still producing less emissions than we do now.
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Ok, and nuclear power reduces emissions even further. What's the point? You're saying we're doing a good job with reducing emissions so there's no reason to jump to nuclear because "coal is not that bad." Like it or not, coal is DIRTY and is like poison compared to nuclear power emissions. I don't believe your reasoning with pollution gives nuke power a negative.

BTW OP, please read about Three Mile Island. There were enough failsafes built in that everything should've been ok, but a string of errors led to the partial meltdown. Throw out the human error and you have to admit the plants themselves are quite safe.
 
BT: Moonbeam, I really do want to sometime learn exactly what you background is, and no it is not just to try to devise better ways to attack your arguments, I want to understand how it is you have come to your beliefs.

M: Hehe, it's not just to devise better ways to attack my arguments but that in good part? I am a nobody. Socrates showed me that in story where he discovered, having been called the wisest man in the world, that indeed he knew one more thing than anybody else. Do you know the story? He was indeed the wisest man because he knew that he knew nothing and nobody else knew they knew nothing. I am a nobody and I don't know anything either. Sometimes, however, I forget.

BT: Even when I disagree with people here 98% of the time I can at least see where they are coming from, but the nature of your arguments are somewhat of an enigma to me. All this talk of "self hate" and fancy language is very different from the vast majority of posters here.

M: I don't see my language being fancy at all. It says what I think. As to being an enigma, well as I say, paradox is resolved at higher levels of understanding. You can't resolve paradox if you lack the higher understanding, right. Problem one is that hearing this, people immediately become defensive. "Hay, he says I don't have enough understanding. Well I'll show him." And if somebody is willing and interested as you express here, the problem is still not easy. How do you put an old head on young shoulders, as they say. The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. I can but point.

BT: On one side it seems to me that you are just a troll who gets kicks out of making nonsensical arguments and watching as people are completely confused by your fancy language and condescending attitude.

M: I will sometimes be as direct with fools as they are with me.

BT: On the other hand it always possible that you actually DO believe what you are saying at which point there are two further possibilities, namely that you are just stupid, or that you have a very different background than most everyone here.

M: I do believe what I am saying. I point by flustering assumptions. I am saying not there but here. Be modest and don't assume. Neither of those alternatives is right, in my opinion. My background is similar to yours, but it has taken me perhaps to different places. I fought a war against the Nothing and won. I know that makes no sense but it's a long story and I have told it ad nauseum here before. I was taught by profoundly wise people. But I didn't learn much. 😉

BT: Now I really am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that you are not a troll and that you are an intelligent person, but your refusal to provide and background information on the foundations of your arguments makes it hard to understand where you are coming from.

M: Thank you. Perhaps something in what I say resonates with a part of you you long for. Who is to say? But it is not the lack of background that makes me hard to understand. It is your lack of awareness as to what you feel. I know you don't understand that remark either. I was blown away by what I found within. I could not believe it.

BT: How do you expect us to understand your arguments if we have no understanding what underlying beliefs are influencing them?

M: Long ago I sought meaning. I set out to prove the good. I completely failed and found only hopeless empty misery. At the moment I completely took in that everything was totally without meaning I suddenly saw that my need for meaning was itself without any meaning at all. In a split second I went from the deepest anguish to peace. I no longer have any underlying beliefs. I lost them all. Everything that can be taken was taken but that which one can't lose and that is ones real self. The self and the universe are in love.

BT: Clearly our difference of opinions on nuclear power (as well as a whole host of issues) are not simply incidental differences, but are based on vastly different views of looking at the world. Now, we have told you where we are coming from here and if you would do the same it might actually make people on this forum better able to understand and respond to your arguments as opposed to simply considering them silly and dismissing them out of hand.

M: I can speak but can you hear? It is important for you to be understood. I know that I can't be understood. I can only point and only really when somebody like you seriously asks. To me the world is completely upside down so I am upside down in your world, no?

BT: Are you for example a major in philosophy?, are you one of the people who thinks "the man" is out to get us?, did you read perhaps too much Nietzsche and thinks they are now some man who has transcended those of us with the "herd mentality"?, perhaps you were an engineer at some point and became disillusioned with your employment.

M: This is what poped into my head:

I want to live,
I want to give
Ive been a miner for a heart of gold.
Its these expressions I never give
That keep me searching for a heart of gold
And Im getting old.
Keeps me searching for a heart of gold
And Im getting old.

Ive been to hollywood
Ive been to redwood
I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold
Ive been in my mind, its such a fine line
That keeps me searching for a heart of gold
And Im getting old.
Keeps me searching for a heart of gold
And Im getting old.

Keep me searching for a heart of gold
You keep me searching for a heart of gold
And Im getting old.
Ive been a miner for a heart of gold.
 
Originally posted by: BrownTown
Perhaps, CycloWizard, it is that I had it backwards here and that you are attempting to argue in terms of formal logic as opposed to a more "conversational" sort of argument. I guess if you are looking at this in terms of formal logic than you are perhaps thinking that a conclusion is only valid if all the propositions supporting it can be shown to be supported by fact. However in real life such formal systems often cannot be directly applied. VERY few things are 100% undeniable "facts", and it is essentially impossible to "prove" an argument based on a logical deduction from first principals based entirely on facts and logic. In the type of argument like is happening here neither I nor Moonbeam nor anyone else can PROVE that nuclear is a good or a bad decision. There are simply not enough undeniable facts to do so. It is easy to evaluate a argument in a class on formal logic and perhaps point out that a students argument is fallacious due to a misinterpretation of the disjunctive syllogism, however it is not nearly so easy to do so in a real life argument. Any "fact" that I am likely to bring up can be shot down by Moonbeam just as easily by claiming a "Circumstantial Ad Hominem" fallacy since the studies or information are coming from a group like DOE or NEI which could be said to have a vested interest in the nuclear power industry. The problem concerning facts needing to be believed comes up because so few things can ever be said to be 100% unassailable facts. Just looking on the internet on any subject will show you 20 different papers all using different data sets to "prove" different conclusions.
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The problem here is that your approach to logic is wishy-washy, while logic is rigid and follows absolute rules. The fallacies are the definitions of those rules or, more specifically, ways in which the rules of logic are broken. No one in this thread is trying to prove anything with 100% certainty. They are simply trying to persuade other people that their viewpoint is better, as with any thread here. I called out someone because the manner in which they attempted to persuade others broke the rules of logic, indicating that the argument is invalid. Confusion has arisen on your part because you confused the statement of fact with an appeal to authority (e.g. in your previous post where you used the example of a professor teaching about Ohm's law). If I give an incorrect fact, you would certainly point it out (at least, you would if you were aware of its inaccuracy). Why shouldn't I then point out the fallacy in someone's argument?
 
The most telling practical world arguement against the present style of Nuclear Power plants, to me, was the refusal of the insurance companies to insure them until the damages they would be liable to were capped at a half mil. iirc. Those guys don't see it as a safe investment.

When you get a dead zone the size of Chernoble here, that's a lot lawsuits. And Chernoble was totally operator error, something that not even the best designs can make up for.....

I think part of the lure of Nuclear is that it's big, expensive, shiny, and centrally controllable in the corporate manner. Something like solar cells are not condusive to business model of the major power companies and vendors. So they will not do much with it. But a big plant, that they understand.
 
Originally posted by: Arglebargle
The most telling practical world arguement against the present style of Nuclear Power plants, to me, was the refusal of the insurance companies to insure them until the damages they would be liable to were capped at a half mil. iirc. Those guys don't see it as a safe investment.
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considering there is very little history of nuclear accidents for the insurance industry to study, i don't blame them. insurers are all about numbers, and there aren't any for the nuclear industry.
 
Jesus Christ, why are you people trying to reason with or analyze Moonbeam? It's simple, he's a flowery moonbat who thinks our problems can be solved without violence. Because he thinks that, he's better than us.

There, I summed up Moonbat for you.
 
Originally posted by: Arglebargle
The most telling practical world arguement against the present style of Nuclear Power plants, to me, was the refusal of the insurance companies to insure them until the damages they would be liable to were capped at a half mil. iirc. Those guys don't see it as a safe investment.

When you get a dead zone the size of Chernoble here, that's a lot lawsuits. And Chernoble was totally operator error, something that not even the best designs can make up for.....

I think part of the lure of Nuclear is that it's big, expensive, shiny, and centrally controllable in the corporate manner. Something like solar cells are not condusive to business model of the major power companies and vendors. So they will not do much with it. But a big plant, that they understand.
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The Chernobyl disaster was gross operator negligence combined with a number of engineering shortcomings designed into the plant to save money. A simple steel and concrete containment building (like what is required in the US) would have kept the core from blowing itself across the Ukrainian countryside.
 
Originally posted by: Nebor
Jesus Christ, why are you people trying to reason with or analyze Moonbeam? It's simple, he's a flowery moonbat who thinks our problems can be solved without violence. Because he thinks that, he's better than us.

There, I summed up Moonbat for you.
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Now now, Nebor, just because you are a primitive reptile who can only think with his reptilian brain and respond to life with flight or violence and just because I have evolved as far beyond you as an chimp is beyond a snake doesn't mean I think I'm better than you. No, THAT feeling comes from YOUR disgust at your OWN appalling emotional dwarfism in comparison to the light you see shinning in me and how insignificant and empty you feel in that comparison. You simply have a horrible, much deserved, and well earned case of self hate.
 
Originally posted by: ElFenix
Originally posted by: Arglebargle
The most telling practical world arguement against the present style of Nuclear Power plants, to me, was the refusal of the insurance companies to insure them until the damages they would be liable to were capped at a half mil. iirc. Those guys don't see it as a safe investment.
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considering there is very little history of nuclear accidents for the insurance industry to study, i don't blame them. insurers are all about numbers, and there aren't any for the nuclear industry.
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Additionally, the size of a nuclear power plant is very large and its resulting liability is also very large, there is not enough granularity there to insure them appropriately. I'm not sure the size of the biggest insurance firms, but a nuclear plant costs ~5 Billion dollars and a nuclear accident like Chernobyl might cause 50 billion dollars in losses to different people, there is simply no private company that can withstand a 50 Billion dollar loss and therefore there is no company which is willing to insure them. It is not the fact that they are so unsafe that nobody is willing to insure them it is the fact that no company has the resources to insure them. That is why the US government provides the insurance because the government is big enough to actually take a 50 Billion dollar hit and still be standing. And just to point out, its not like the government is just doing it for free, the nuclear operators PAY into an account to insure their plants which is managed by the government, so far they have paid tens of billions and not seen a dime back.
 
Originally posted by: BrownTown
Originally posted by: ElFenix
Originally posted by: Arglebargle
The most telling practical world arguement against the present style of Nuclear Power plants, to me, was the refusal of the insurance companies to insure them until the damages they would be liable to were capped at a half mil. iirc. Those guys don't see it as a safe investment.
Click to expand...

considering there is very little history of nuclear accidents for the insurance industry to study, i don't blame them. insurers are all about numbers, and there aren't any for the nuclear industry.
Click to expand...

Additionally, the size of a nuclear power plant is very large and its resulting liability is also very large, there is not enough granularity there to insure them appropriately. I'm not sure the size of the biggest insurance firms, but a nuclear plant costs ~5 Billion dollars and a nuclear accident like Chernobyl might cause 50 billion dollars in losses to different people, there is simply no private company that can withstand a 50 Billion dollar loss and therefore there is no company which is willing to insure them. It is not the fact that they are so unsafe that nobody is willing to insure them it is the fact that no company has the resources to insure them. That is why the US government provides the insurance because the government is big enough to actually take a 50 Billion dollar hit and still be standing. And just to point out, its not like the government is just doing it for free, the nuclear operators PAY into an account to insure their plants which is managed by the government, so far they have paid tens of billions and not seen a dime back.
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I don't get it. Nuclear power is totally safe so insuring them would be free money. What company turns down free money? And what nut case would build a nuclear power plant in their area if the damage could be 50 billion, not to mention all the four eyed children born for the next few thousand years?
 
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I don't get it. Nuclear power is totally safe so insuring them would be free money. What company turns down free money?
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Federally regulated insurance companies, whom cannot provide insurance that they can't actually cover. If they were covering the plants when they didn't have the resources, as you suggest, then I'm sure you would reverse your opinion and decry the fact that insurance companies are insuring power plants without the resources to cover possible damages. Ah, to be a liberal...

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
And what nut case would build a nuclear power plant in their area if the damage could be 50 billion, not to mention all the four eyed children born for the next few thousand years?
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Your commie buddies.
 
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Originally posted by: Nebor
Jesus Christ, why are you people trying to reason with or analyze Moonbeam? It's simple, he's a flowery moonbat who thinks our problems can be solved without violence. Because he thinks that, he's better than us.

There, I summed up Moonbat for you.
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Now now, Nebor, just because you are a primitive reptile who can only think with his reptilian brain and respond to life with flight or violence and just because I have evolved as far beyond you as an chimp is beyond a snake doesn't mean I think I'm better than you. No, THAT feeling comes from YOUR disgust at your OWN appalling emotional dwarfism in comparison to the light you see shinning in me and how insignificant and empty you feel in that comparison. You simply have a horrible, much deserved, and well earned case of self hate.
Click to expand...

SELF HATE! FEELINGS! LOVE ONE ANOTHER! ENLIGHTENMENT.
 
Portable nuke power plants

^ They just need keep working on these until they can be scaled down a bit further.

I'd put one of these bad boys in my backyard to replace my gas generator. The tell the power company to F-off for the next 30 yrs.

The NIMBY folks could stick with Duke, ConEd or whoever.

Fern
 
QP: Federally regulated insurance companies, whom cannot provide insurance that they can't actually cover. If they were covering the plants when they didn't have the resources, as you suggest, then I'm sure you would reverse your opinion and decry the fact that insurance companies are insuring power plants without the resources to cover possible damages. Ah, to be a liberal...

M: You don't seem to understand liberal. As a liberal I don't want anything around me that needs to be insured for 50 billion and you literal minded engineering true to stereotypes need to get a sense of humor and irony. The joke, dear Sir is that if nuclear power is safe we don't need insurance and if it's not no insurance is good enough. And since without insurance they can't be built we know automatically they aren't safe.


QP: And what nut case would build a nuclear power plant in their area if the damage could be 50 billion, not to mention all the four eyed children born for the next few thousand years?

Your commie buddies.

M: Exactly, overconfident arrogant butt-headed pig engineers who couldn't see past the slide rule they have up their asses.

 
Originally posted by: Nebor
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Originally posted by: Nebor
Jesus Christ, why are you people trying to reason with or analyze Moonbeam? It's simple, he's a flowery moonbat who thinks our problems can be solved without violence. Because he thinks that, he's better than us.

There, I summed up Moonbat for you.
Click to expand...

Now now, Nebor, just because you are a primitive reptile who can only think with his reptilian brain and respond to life with flight or violence and just because I have evolved as far beyond you as an chimp is beyond a snake doesn't mean I think I'm better than you. No, THAT feeling comes from YOUR disgust at your OWN appalling emotional dwarfism in comparison to the light you see shinning in me and how insignificant and empty you feel in that comparison. You simply have a horrible, much deserved, and well earned case of self hate.
Click to expand...

SELF HATE! FEELINGS! LOVE ONE ANOTHER! ENLIGHTENMENT.
Click to expand...

What, your vocabulary list for the week?
 
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
QP: Federally regulated insurance companies, whom cannot provide insurance that they can't actually cover. If they were covering the plants when they didn't have the resources, as you suggest, then I'm sure you would reverse your opinion and decry the fact that insurance companies are insuring power plants without the resources to cover possible damages. Ah, to be a liberal...

M: You don't seem to understand liberal. As a liberal I don't want anything around me that needs to be insured for 50 billion and you literal minded engineering true to stereotypes need to get a sense of humor and irony. The joke, dear Sir is that if nuclear power is safe we don't need insurance and if it's not no insurance is good enough. And since without insurance they can't be built we know automatically they aren't safe.


QP: And what nut case would build a nuclear power plant in their area if the damage could be 50 billion, not to mention all the four eyed children born for the next few thousand years?

Your commie buddies.

M: Exactly, overconfident arrogant butt-headed pig engineers who couldn't see past the slide rule they have up their asses.
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if it weren't for the overconfident arrogant butt-head pig engineers you wouldn't have all the shit you take for granted right now.
 
Originally posted by: JohnCU
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
QP: Federally regulated insurance companies, whom cannot provide insurance that they can't actually cover. If they were covering the plants when they didn't have the resources, as you suggest, then I'm sure you would reverse your opinion and decry the fact that insurance companies are insuring power plants without the resources to cover possible damages. Ah, to be a liberal...

M: You don't seem to understand liberal. As a liberal I don't want anything around me that needs to be insured for 50 billion and you literal minded engineering true to stereotypes need to get a sense of humor and irony. The joke, dear Sir is that if nuclear power is safe we don't need insurance and if it's not no insurance is good enough. And since without insurance they can't be built we know automatically they aren't safe.


QP: And what nut case would build a nuclear power plant in their area if the damage could be 50 billion, not to mention all the four eyed children born for the next few thousand years?

Your commie buddies.

M: Exactly, overconfident arrogant butt-headed pig engineers who couldn't see past the slide rule they have up their asses.
Click to expand...

if it weren't for the overconfident arrogant butt-head pig engineers you wouldn't have all the shit you take for granted right now.
Click to expand...

Don't be silly. Many engineers are quite thoughtful and hire outside experts to help with potential myopia as well as using their own heads in a more right brained way. Why even I myself have such a gift for mechanics I could easily have been an engineer. At least that what the tests say. I still remember that test and the mistake it contained and the fact that I wouldn't chose the more obvious answer because another was potentially better depending on variables the test didn't clarify.

The question, I'm sure you'll want to know, went like this. There were two pictures. In one two 2x4s are lain across a chasm and a third across the center of those to form an H.

From the center of the H a weight was hung. In one picture the two vertical members were lain flat on the four inch side with the third member crossing it on the two inch side.

On the other the pattern was reversed. You had to determine which of the two designs would hold the most weight.
 
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Originally posted by: JohnCU
wow, i thought dmcowen was the biggest idiot on AT. congratulations!
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I know, Nebor is pretty amazing.
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I'm sorry I'm so OVERCONFIDENT and that I'm such a BUTT-HEAD. I'm just not in touch with my FEELINGS so my SELF-HATE boils over. 🙁
 
Originally posted by: Nebor
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Originally posted by: JohnCU
wow, i thought dmcowen was the biggest idiot on AT. congratulations!
Click to expand...

I know, Nebor is pretty amazing.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry I'm so OVERCONFIDENT and that I'm such a BUTT-HEAD. I'm just not in touch with my FEELINGS so my SELF-HATE boils over. 🙁
Click to expand...

No need to apologize. I like a man who knows who he is and is so very much like me.
 
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