"The Why"
The Reality
The Myth
To get to specific solutions, we must first talk about the general problem.
"Starting with the why" is key to unifying all efforts and considerations against one common operating picture.
Despite living in an Age of unprecedented information availability and access, the sheer volume of information prevents depth of understanding and increases ease for misinformation to take root.
To facilitate the exploration of truth, this page is formatted "Myth" -> "Reality"
The Myth
The Reality
The Myth
For each aspect of discussion, I will present common myths on this side.
The idea is to not make "straw man" arguments, but general arguments that capture the "essence" of this viewpoint.
The Reality
The Reality
The Reality
This side is where we build the Common Operating Picture.
The great thing about science is that you cannot fake it. Data presented is rigorously tested, detailed, and reproducible.
Climate Change
The Reality
The Myth
Climate Change outside the academic world remains a hotly contested debate whereas within the academic world the debate centers on not "if" but "what extent" and "how much time we have left".
The Myth
The Reality
The Myth
Opponents to the idea of Climate Change come from 1 of 5 arguments:
- Climate Change is not real
- Climate Change is natural, such as coming out of an ice age
- Climate Change is only a scheme to make money
- Climate Change is not caused by fossil fuels
- Even if it is true, the abundance of fossil fuels is too great to give up; so we can just "deal with it"
The Reality
The Reality
The Reality
The reality of the situation is universally recognized that
- Climate Change IS real
- We are not leaving an ice age, in fact the atmosphere has not been in this condition for millions of years despite 2 ice ages passing in that time
- The cost of dealing with the consequences of Climate Change far exceed any revenue for industries built to address it
- Fossil fuels are the #1 contributor to Climate Changing processes
- Not only are fossil fuels not abundant, but we cannot afford to just live with Climate Change
Nuclear
The Reality
The Myth
Thanks to the incidents of Chernobyl and Fukushima, the mishandling of information and public perception has caused humanity to backslide several decades of progress. Across the world, nuclear power plant construction either stopped or was reversed with plant closures.
The important barrier to navigate is that in many people's minds, nuclear is a hard no. To get on the "Road to 70" we have to look at the barriers to accessing nuclear power production and understand they are artificial - the result of propaganda and poor dialogue, misconceptions and inside the box thinking, and outdated models.
The Myth
The Reality
The Myth
Opponents to nuclear power as a species of power generation would generally comment that:
- Chernobyl was the worst accident in human history
- Fukushima showed that nuclear power is inherently dangerous
- Nuclear Waste is a long term problem caused by nuclear power
- Living near nuclear power plants is bad for your health
- Building nuclear power is too expensive
The Reality
The Reality
The Reality
Nuclear power is the safest form of power generation. Within the United States, there have been zero deaths due to nuclear power since the 1950's.
- Since 1986 events of Chernobyl, the UN estimates that 4000 people have died from radiation exposure. That many people die every day due to cancers caused by fossil fuel emissions.
- From the Fukushima disaster, not a single person has been identified in a peer reviewed scholarly paper as having died from radiation exposure. All deaths were a direct result of the Tsunami water surge.
- Nuclear Waste is a policy issue not a scientific "know how" issue. Canada and France exercise today the concept of nuclear fuel recycling.
- Almost all studies claiming that nuclear power plants point to this French study - where in the abstract it clearly states that nuclear power was not the cause of increased cancer.
- Nuclear power construction costs are artificially high. Nuclear Reactor Commission (NRC) superimposes excessive fees and costly inspections that are irrelevant to the act of nuclear power production.
The Sprawling Menu of Renewables
The Reality
The Myth
So far, we have evaluated that there is a global existential threat due to climate change and have kept on the table the idea of nuclear power. There has been decades of development of many technologies such as solar and wind.
The truth is that there is no "exclusion" principle. An equitable mix of each type of power production is a positive step in the right direction. To get to the right mix of energy we must dive deep to understand their capabilities and limitations.
The Myth
The Reality
The Myth
Some of the myths of renewables are regarding the economies of scale of certain energy methods.
- Solar and wind can replace nuclear power
- Availability of hydro- and thermo-power
- Nuclear power is too reliant on water, which is a scarce resource
- Nuclear reactors take too long to build
The Reality
The Reality
The Reality
The reality is that only nuclear has the ability to keep up with economies of scale required to solve multiple problems simultaneously.
- Solar and wind do not produce power when human activity needs them, and the methods to store their power are limited
- We have built all the hydro- and thermo- power available
- Molten Salt Reactors do not use water but rather molten salts to cool and carry nuclear fuel, therefore can be placed anywhere-- even space
- As fuel for Molten Salt Reactors, the abundance of thorium means there's 5x more available fuel readily available for use
- Small Modular Reactor designs can be tailored to each use requirement, leading to faster construction times