Economics and politics finally have a nuclear bond.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by kach22i

These are all political considerations, and guess which lobbyist spend the most?

Lobbying / Industry: Oil & Gas
https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/in...ent.php?id=E01

I would expect that the largest industries would also have the greatest resources for lobbying. Oil has been so vital in everything we do that the industry is enormous, and has enormous power.

We need to disassociate business and politics. We also need to disassociate politics and career, as politics was always meant to be an act of service, and not an occupation.

This is a big reason why I say that the Ds and Rs are barely distinguishable, as both will entertain lobbyists and neither has any interest in limiting the power of the Executive branch.

We're corrupt as a species, not as certain group identities.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

We need to disassociate business and politics.

Cute.

Adorable.

Let's be serious, they are inseparable.

A couple of years ago CBC Television out of Canada broadcast a what I recall as a three to five part series. It was on the history of oil, started with whaling ended with the North Sea.

The post WWII part with Britain and Iran, and the US with the House of Saud was mind blowing.

The way these coexisting partnerships were orchestrated to rule the world disrupted much of what I thought I knew about geopolitics.

If you are a Canadian resident you can probably view it on line, wish I could remember the name of the series. I have a roof top TV antenna and watched it live.

My point is, the more you know about the history of oil, the more you understand economics, politics and the world today.

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by kach22i

Cute.

Adorable.

Let's be serious, they are inseparable.

A couple of years ago CBC Television out of Canada broadcast a what I recall as a three to five part series. It was on the history of oil, started with whaling ended with the North Sea.

The post WWII part with Britain and Iran, and the US with the House of Saud was mind blowing.

The way these coexisting partnerships were orchestrated to rule the world disrupted much of what I thought I knew about geopolitics.

If you are a Canadian resident you can probably view it on line, wish I could remember the name of the series. I have a roof top TV antenna and watched it live.

My point is, the more you know about the history of oil, the more you understand economics, politics and the world today.

However, innovation needs freedom from some of this burdensome politics to allow movement.

During the 80s, I worked on Star Wars Accelerators. The imposition of federal and local regulation would have made the work improbable if not impossible. We were given a "black box" dictum - they would regulate only what comes out of our black box. Of course, we were out in a desert local in sealed, underground concrete bunkers. Nothing but our air needed to be regulated and checked. This sort of careful hands off attitude is what is needed to make nuclear power innovations possible. A few billion in investment isn't needed if your oversight doesn't bury every step in a mountain of paperwork and regulation because of fear.

Molten salt reactors have been made and run, the biggest hurdle is materials. Much of this is currently being explored by graduate departments in various universities here and abroad. A few hundred million more in granting would see a greater increase in this particular research. The involved and somewhat messy operation of liquid nuclear fuel refining can be done in a "black box" situation with several hundred million more in incentives. Go all in once a technological path comes to fruition. Now you can build modular molten salt reactors by bidding it out. These would only need a few acres to house the reactor and power generators as well as on site waste processing. Security teams would not need to be as vigilant as only when the need to move certain nuclear material after processing is there a window for terrorism.

Once you have a safe nuclear alternative, renewables truly become an option for a growing society.

Now, couple this with chemical storage of renewable electrical energy...

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by kach22i

Let's be serious, they are inseparable.

It's impossible to have untainted politics, but that doesn't mean we can't do anything to make it better. It's clearly possible to have more corrupt politics than in the US, so the same could be said of having less corrupt politics.

Getting rid of career politicians would go a long way. That was never intended to be an occupation in the US, but instead a brief term of service (a sacrifice).

Originally Posted by RustyLugNut

However, innovation needs freedom from some of this burdensome politics to allow movement.

... A few billion in investment isn't needed if your oversight doesn't bury every step in a mountain of paperwork and regulation because of fear.

It would be nice if something caused all the mountains of law and regulation to be lost and we had to start over (which is inevitable by the way). We'd all be standing around asking what laws we need, and we'd start with don't kill anyone, don't take their stuff, and don't make libelous claims.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

It's impossible to have untainted politics, but that doesn't mean we can't do anything to make it better. It's clearly possible to have more corrupt politics than in the US, so the same could be said of having less corrupt politics.

"Corrupt" is a point of view, though. What's the fundamental difference between oil companies lobbying for what they want, and environmental groups lobbying for their preferences?

Government isn't really the problem here, it's the symptom. Until you get a large part of the population to change their ideas of what they want, you're not going to get anywhere.

[redpoint5]

Corrupt in the sense that we're making decisions based on marketing manipulation rather than cold hard objective data.

There will always be debate about what is good and what is bad, but let's at least start with the facts. Marketing is all about getting us to forget about facts and make impulsive emotional decisions.

I'd rather us make bad decisions based on not analysing the facts properly instead of disengaging reason altogether.

Our genetics will probably need to shift for us to value reason over emotional reaction.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

"Corrupt" is a point of view, though. What's the fundamental difference between oil companies lobbying for what they want, and environmental groups lobbying for their preferences?

Government isn't really the problem here, it's the symptom. Until you get a large part of the population to change their ideas of what they want, you're not going to get anywhere.

Did you seriously just ask; What's the difference between a for profit at any cost with no morals international corporation, and a nonprofit grass roots organization where people sacrifice their time and sometime lives for the betterment of us all and for a better future?

Let's be clear, most regulations are there to protect the public, not to stifle innovation.

Striking critical sections of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 with the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act lead to the 2008 Great Recession for instance.

There are course exceptions to the stifle/innovate rule as when a corporation lobbies to excludes competitors products (ie Monsanto and why we could only get one kind of mango for decades).

Most Americans do not want the air and water quality of Mexico City and China, that is a fact.

2016
How Mexico City slashed air pollution levels by half
https://www.chinadialogue.net/articl...levels-by-half

Don't take this next link too seriously, as China is getting only worse according to CBS This Morning a couple of days ago.

https://chinapower.csis.org/air-quality/

Chinese leaders face the difficult choice of prioritizing either economic growth or environmental and social welfare. For the past several years, Beijing has a made a concerted effort to reduce high concentrations of air pollution across China.

Regulations and laws are there to protect people, but can be misused to protect corporations, products and existing technologies.

I am not for deregulation, I an not for more regulation, I am for better regulation that does not overburden and sniffle innovation.

Take something we hear about all the time. Autonomous vehicles, they test them in and around Ann Arbor, MI so I see more of them than most. The idea that a whole car is being driven blindly but manufacturers are not allowed to rely on remote viewing rear view mirrors is absurd. That would be like legalizing machine guns and still have on the books laws outlawing Bowie knives.

Rational regulation, not political or commercially motivated regulation, that is what I am for and I think most of you are also for.

[oil pan 4]

I saw that china in 2017 installed something to the tune of 17 gigawatts worth of good enough for china coal plants where all the fly ash and sulfur goes out the smoke stack.
It's going to get worse before it gets better.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

I saw that china in 2017 installed something to the tune of 17 gigawatts worth of good enough for china coal plants where all the fly ash and sulfur goes out the smoke stack.
It's going to get worse before it gets better.

I remember reading a few years ago that China was adding a new coal fired power plant every week.

Don't know how large they were or if it's stemmed at all recently.

Clean coal, don't make me pee my pants laughing.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

I saw that china in 2017 installed something to the tune of 17 gigawatts worth of good enough for china coal plants where all the fly ash and sulfur goes out the smoke stack.
It's going to get worse before it gets better.

From a Western perspective maybe but not for the reality of China. The vast majority of rural Chinese heat and cook with coal stoves. A new coal plant supplying electricity to a city is far better than a town full of people cooking over a coal stove.

China's coal consumption is actually going down not up even with all the new coal fired electrical plants. It peaked in 2013.