A realistic understanding of their costs and risks is critical.
What are SMRs?
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SMRs are not more economical than large reactors.
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SMRs are not generally safer or more secure than large light-water reactors.
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SMRs will not reduce the problem of what to do with radioactive waste.
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SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power for facilities, such as data centers, bitcoin mining, hydrogen or petrochemical production.
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SMRs do not use fuel more efficiently than large reactors.
[Edit: If people have links that contradict any the above, could you please share in the comment section?]
We sure can’t slip anything by you, can we? Curses…
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Basically, Warl0k3 thinks Diplomjodler’s argumentation is a conspiracy theory. In his comment, he ironically takes the position of a nuclear bro who finds out that his devious plan was discovered.
This exactly!
(But jeeze, way to concisely summarize my point without a three-paragraph-long comment. Showoff.)
Well, thanks.
Otoh, I withheld judgement on your opinion for a reason: I can think of at least one example of a German pro-nuclear pro-coal anti-renewables shill who has rather recently turned into a pro-nuclear anti-climate-change shill.
[Addendum: In fact, in Germany, associations like Nuclearia (pro-nuclear), Eike (anti-renewables), Vernunftkraft (anti-wind power) are all linked, including in their financing through the Heartland Institute.]
I understand that the situation might be a little different in other countries, but the whole worldwide civil nuclear field was born out of the military-industrial complex and is still very connected in governments, much more so than solar/wind energy companies are.
I’m of the opinion that a technology should be evaluated on it’s own merits, otherwise people start to point out that the field of modern engineering as a whole is the product of the military industrial complex and it gets all reddit-comment-thread-y. I’m not about to argue that there’s no astroturfing or outright propaganda in the energy industry (because I don’t like looking like a fool or losing arguments because I’m clearly wrong…) though. I wholly agree that it’s a hugely manipulated issue, and the mountains of evidence supporting that idea are so large that they threaten to bury you and I and the rest of this comment thread in an avalanche of carefully documented conspiracy and related rat bastardry.
However, I do take issue with painting all proponents of a particular thing as being some kind of fake ‘smoke screen’. While I’m sure some percentage of commenters are serving any number of nefarious agendas, they can take their attempt to de-legitimize an entire opposing perspective by painting them all as “shills” and kindly fuck right off. That’s trump-supporter shit, and furthers absolutely nothing except to divide voters on an incredibly important topic. That style of wedge-driving is the kind of thing you find in The Foundations of Geopolitics and is what the ‘smokescreen’ people actually do use to drive potential allies to infighting instead of coordinating an effective campaign for energy reform.
(Not that I think the above poster actually is some nefarious shill, but it’s a somewhat amusing juxtaposition)
It’s a satirical comment made to highlight using mild terms that the comment in question is highly suspect. The implication is that I myself am a member of the ‘smokescreen’, which is an implied but nonspecific organized group of people engaging with this topic in bad faith so as to shift the narrative in some unfair way, and that I am confessing that the above poster has figured out our secret motivations and because of that, foiled our evil scheme.
This is, of course, an absurd assertion on my part. I’m not a member of the shadow government. There is no shadow government. The regular government is plenty evil enough as-is. Trust me on that, I’m a member of it.
To dismiss an extremely effective and proven technology like that is fine, if you provide any evidence to support your position. But that comment is, to put it politely, “horseshit”. To call out just one aspect that irked me, it embodies the extremely tired trope of making a claim while not demonstrating any evidence that said claim is true, then asserting their claim as an obvious and correct conclusion. The issue in specific is that they failed in any way to establish how advocating for an alternative source of power would somehow empower the petrochemical lobby.