At this point, I’ll take nuclear over fossil fuels
this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
218 points (96.6% liked)
Technology
59555 readers
3335 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
my man.. this is not being refurbished to replace fossil, this is being built to feed microshit's datacenters and US taxpayer gonna pay for it.
sure nuclear would be great... but this aint for us ;)
My guy, they're going to power it either way on our dime. His point is better it's nuclear than fossil at least.
i don't want key facts why this is happening to be lost in the discourse.
always follow the the money.
also accepting these parasite corpo wins as some sort of win for the peasants is mehh
but sure, cool!
I think you're still missing the point. It's a loss, it's criminal, our government sucks. There is no win here. But AT LEAST it's not another coal mine reopening or a new pipeline. This comment has nothing to do with why this is happening or trying to convince anyone it's a good thing. Slow your attack
sure nuclear would be great… but this aint for us ;)
Yes it is. Every plant that's live, means that things can be done more and more at scale, which drives down the price overall. In this narrow specific case, Microsoft will drive down the price which will make the already appealing nuclear (aside from NIMBY folk who will never give in because of their ignorance) even MORE appealing for baseload handling. Every plant, private or public will increase engineer knowledge and production of parts (increasing scale) which is better overall for nuclear.
And overall, these companies are going to increase their power load regardless. I'd rather new power production go to the better technology that won't actively poison the environment. Driving down the % of power generated by coal/oil should be universally applauded. Even if it's just new implementation of a large workload.
which drives down the price overall.
show me when was last time that price of electric went down for the end consumer?
Microshit gets industrial rates which are lower than what households pay. Why are household paying for microshit's CapEx?
show me when was last time that price of electric went down for the end consumer?
I didn't say price of electricity would go down. I was talking about the price to produce and maintain nuclear plants would go down.
Considering that electricity usage overall is on an upward trend, especially with things like electric cars becoming more and more mainstream. Also with things like inflation being a thing... It would be stupid to think that prices would ever straight up come down. However the cost to maintain more production could stifle/stunt how fast the prices increase.
Also... At my last house. Our electrical company rebated a not insignificant amount of money to each house based on usage for the year due to costs coming down for some stuff. So... about a year and a half or maybe 2 years ago for me personally?
Not sure why you'd expect prices to go down at all though when society/government is also pressuring the electrical companies to install "renewables" by the boatloads as well. There's costs associated with all that. The money has to come from somewhere.
I had this argument on nextdoor a few weeks back. Our local electric utility made some 500million in "profit". But have a mandate to be 60% renewable by 2028, and something like 80% by 2030, which 100% some time after that. If you do the math on how much the coal/nat oil plants produce, and estimate a cost for a solar farm... You realize that while it's a profit this year... it won't be a profit over time, virtually all (the math came out to like 93% of it) needs to get earmarked and put towards solar to get to those renewable mandate numbers. So yes. costs are going to keep going up if people like you act like nuclear getting spun up is a sin.
Edit: clarity
Edit: what is with this trend on lemmy the past few months of picking one specific sentence and ignoring the context of the rest of the fucking post? I even talk about "at scale". It's not hard to look at my post and think of supply/demand economics. Demand being super low because we only have handful of nuclear plants mean that a lot of suppliers just aren't around anymore. As demand goes up, in the short term market will demand price to go up. But eventually demand will continue to increase where there is a supply void and new production will come as long as other factors don't kill it. And Production at larger scales is ALWAYS more economical. This is literally econ 101 type shit.
The money has to come from somewhere.
Crux of my thesis which you ignored
So yes. costs are going to keep going up if people like you act like nuclear getting spun up is a sin.
Yes, cost is going up because people expect mega corps to pay for their infrastructure investment lol
Yes, cost is going up because people expect mega corps to pay for their infrastructure investment lol
So you think that companies don't pay for electricity? That they're not part of the "profits" the electrical company has on the books?
Man... I wish I could just get free electricity for my company. Oh... and I pay higher rates at my commercial space for less usage than I do residentially.
But right! That's companies somehow getting some freebie from "the people".
Oh, and you continue to ignore my point as well, so I'll ask it again... If there are more nuclear plants... thus more production for things used to create and maintain nuclear plants. Will the cost to produce MORE nuclear energy go down?
Microsoft is demanding US taxpayer provide loans to bring this plant online. It has been sitting there for 50 years...
They pay lower rate than the people who pay for the planet.
What sort of clown capitalist regime is this? And why are taxpayers so receptive to such arrangement.
If this is such a good deal, why does not microsoft just pay for its own capital expenditure?
This is just basic capitalism. You keep pointing out to some big picture benefits like a lobby clown in DC asking for money but look US grid capacity will increase and "we" will create jobs 🤡
I am not against nuclear, or infrastructure. I never made that claim. I am against taxpayer paying for some dude's pet project...
Microsoft is demanding US taxpayer provide loans to bring this plant online. It has been sitting there for 50 years…
... You understand so little.
Here you go.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/26/1104516/three-mile-island-microsoft/
In March, the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan got a loan guarantee from the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office to the tune of over $1.5 billion to help restart.
Constellation signs its largest-ever power purchase agreement with Microsoft, a deal that will restore TMI Unit 1 to service and keep it online for decades; add approximately 835 megawatts of carbon-free energy to the grid; create 3,400 direct and indirect jobs and deliver more than $3 billion in state and federal taxes
Nowhere is it Microsoft demanding anything. It's the owners of the power plant itself that got the LOAN (loans get repayed btw... in case you've forgotten what the word means). And it's easily identified that the workforce increase in skilled labor means more taxpayers paying more money to taxes. And look at that! the added state and federal revenue will 2x the loan amount YEARLY.
So can you answer the fucking question now?
Oh, and you continue to ignore my point as well, so I’ll ask it again… If there are more nuclear plants… thus more production for things used to create and maintain nuclear plants. Will the cost to produce MORE nuclear energy go down?
Edit: to drill the point home though... let's say government bad, lets spend little as possible (which I'm generally whole-heartedly for)... 1.5 billion to make 3,400 high paying jobs for 30+ years... That's a fucking no brainer spend. You should WANT this spending. There's lots of shit to complain about with the government. Providing a loan that will be paid back that will make THOUSANDS of highly skilled jobs... This ain't it chief.
So if project fails, taxpayer pays? thank you, daddy
Nice set up ;)
Do you think feds would have provided this loan guarantee if microshit did not lobby?
Clown capitalism at work.
Oh, and you continue to ignore my point as well, so I’ll ask it again… If there are more nuclear plants… thus more production for things used to create and maintain nuclear plants. Will the cost to produce MORE nuclear energy go down?
I trust you bro... i expect further hand outs to be demanded from taxpayer as this project progress.
Something about that nuclear plant in GA, at least that was an earnest try.
again i have zero problem with this refurbishment. my issue is taxpayer subsidy of corpo's capex.
If project so good, why can't they fund it themselves. Why are we socializing this risk for Microshi data centers?
Just feds should just build and operate nuclear plants themselves, they fucking pay for all of it anyway.
But nahh, we pay for them, then they price gouging households with high rates while providing subsidies for industrial use.
One day taxpayers will wake up to this extractive regime, i guess until then got to keep highlighing how silly this arrangement is in a country that can't provide a basic social services to taxpayers lol
Always check the money flow folks, that's where the real story is.
Not with this administration overseeing things
Didn't microshit ask feds to give them subsidized loan for this project?
These parasites never want to play capitalism, they always need state to pay them lol
But we can't have maternity leave 🤡
FT asking 
is insane. I'm happy to pay for quality journalism but that's simply out of reach for most Americans. I'd love to know how their management determined this was an appropriate price.
It looks like the $75/mo rate is for their "premium" package. Their standard one is $39/mo.
It looks like that's on the high side, but not radically so compared to typical American newspapers.
https://www.thepricer.org/newspaper-subscriptions-cost/
Digital Pass Subscriptions
Local/regional papers – $10 to $30 per month
Example: Seattle Times Digital – $7.99 per month
National publications – $15 to $50 per month
Example: The Washington Post Digital – $39.99 per month
Also, note that FT is British, not American.
Because the people who can afford and are willing to pay are a certain demographic.
It’s all about personas and marketing testing!
FT is global capital's preferred fake news outlet along with WSJ and CNBC.
That price is targeted for companies who play people who are part of the club, they will pay.
It is not for the plebs beyond reading the headline. They don't care if you read it.
They couldn't get it right before enshittification has gripped everything.
The companies involved, the industry, and the regulators currently can't be trusted; this project should be killed.
You would rather power it with natural gas? Because that is what would largely power it otherwise. The datacenter does not turn off at night.
Or .. maybe the datacenter shouldn't use so much power to produce something of extremely questionable worth to our species. 🤷♂️
Awesome. Your next step should be: getting appointed to the hooded and robed "council that decides the intrinsic worth of every human endeavor and inculcates this via subliminal carrier wave to the whole species".
Make that "maybe" come true kiddo!
when taxpayer money pay for this shit, they have a right to have an opinion on it...
when microshit starts paying its own bills, we can take pull this bravado of yours ;)
nahh mate... you are gonna pay for it ;)
Yes.
Good I hope the Pennsylvanians hate it.
Why would Pennsylvanians hate carbon-free power?