Reply To: turn heat into electricity
The Focus Fusion Society › Forums › Aneutronic Contenders › Billy's Cheap fission alternative › Reply To: turn heat into electricity
zapkittyWhile I appreciate your forthrightness, asymmetric, and I will attempt to respond in kind I’m afraid your view of the future of fission has a serious flaw… you will not be allowed to choose the final usage parameters or the siting requirements of any new breeder technologies.
asymmetric_implosion wrote: I agree that siting needs to be better but accidents will only tighten regulations leading to stricter siting requirements.
The people who make those decisions have been and will be chosen by the <1%, and that varied assemblage of oligarchs will continue to select the people who will make those decisions and the politicians and officials who will implement those decisions. They will make their selections according to their needs and requirements. And the <1% consider their needs and requirements in a very different light than the rest of us…
Case in point: the NRC and Jaczko. Obviously there will be different sides to that blowup but no amount of “he said/she said” will change the fact that even post-Fukushima BWR reforms are going nowhere slowly… and will continue to go nowhere slowly… and it’s not an accident.
Not an accident. The <1%, through their political tools, feel free to reject even obviously needed reforms of regulations governing decades-old technology… so who now is going to tell them that they can't build the new plants wherever the profits will be greatest? Who now will tell them they aren't allowed to build the new tech as cheaply as humanly possible… or cheaper? Who now will tell them that they must not skimp on safety measures even when those measures entail additional costs? Not the engineers… engineers are not allowed to make those kinds of decisions without "guidance." The sort of "guidance" that got us Fukushima.
Even aneutronic fusion will not be immune to this effect, of course, but the inherent safety advantages that come with aneutronic power will mitigate even the most improbable worst-case event into something the neighbors can live with.