Elon and Trump make the worst possible argument for nuclear power I have ever heard:
“Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed but now they are full cities again,” the multibillionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX and X said.
“That’s great, that’s great,” Mr Trump responded.
“It is not as scary as people think, basically,” Mr Musk added.
They joked about nuclear power facing a “branding problem”.
“We will have to rebrand it,” the former president told Mr Musk. “We will name it after you or something.”
Nuclear power does have a problem where perceptions of danger greatly outweigh the actual danger.
Trying to make nuclear power sound safe by saying that a nuclear bombing isn’t that bad is not helping. I fucking hate these two dipshits.
Right? I’m not an anti-nuclear person in general (although I think it’s becoming mores superfluous as other methods become more efficient), but “thousands of people died and then they built a new city, so don’t worry” is so fucking stupid.
(although I think it’s becoming mores superfluous as other methods become more efficient),
Yeah, nuclear power plants are expensive and slow to construct. 20 years ago, hell, 10 years ago, I would’ve said “Yes, building new plants or making major expansions is still a good idea.” Now? Renewables are advancing so fast that it’s probably economically unwise to make major investments in nuclear power.
Nuclear energy has insane energy density in terms of MJ/kg (something like 3.9 x 10^6 ) versus chemical fuels (4.5 x 10^1), but it’s grossly inefficient because most of the output is waste heat and “hot” isotopes-- the last things we need. I don’t have hard numbers on hand but I wouldn’t say nuclear is more than a few tens of percent efficiency. Then there’s the capital costs to build, maintain and operate plants PLUS costs to source, refine, transport, and store the fuel, and then transport and discard (contain) waste product. Not worth it at scale.
Versus Solar, Wind and Tidal which are far less energy dense per unit mass of working fluid¹, but enjoy up to 80% efficiency, and are relatively easy to scale.
Nuclear still makes sense, I think, in interior areas like the American Midwest where wind and solar are fickle, and transportation (transmission) costs for tidal would be unsustainable.
¹ Not a fair comparison because solar efficiency is quantized on intensity x area / time, while wind and tidal would quantized on flux density, or (mass / area) x velocity (over time?).
Elon Musk the self-proclaimed engineer is also totally disregarding that a nuclear bomb does a whole lot more than knock down buildings. A tactical neutron bomb might level 4 city blocks but only an idiot would correlate how easy it is to rebuild with relative safety. Nobody would want to be within 200 miles of that
You’d already know that if you hear him talk about something you have knowledge about. He is spewing bullshit so confidently, only a layman would think it sounds logical.
But to hammer it home.
Elon has a degree in Economics. He tried to go for Physics as well but he wasn’t smart enough.
Only 2 year after he left school did he get a degree, when the school received a big donation. He just bought his degree.
Didn’t stop him from claiming he got the degree during those 2 years either. He even got sued for that.
not as scary as people think
This painting/drawing is from artist Kichisuke Yoshimura, who said of it, “Their clothes ripped to shreds, their skin hanging down. On the riverbank I saw figures that seemed to be from another world. Ghost-like, their hair falling over their faces, their clothes ripped to shreds, their skin hanging. A cluster of these injured persons was moving wordlessly toward the outskirts.”
Not scary: some people were vaporized leaving only a shadow, others badly burned as the painting shows, people were maimed and amputated by the blast, and a big part of the city was blown and burned down. Plus the poor souls who would die horribly from acute radiation poisoning over the following days.
And let’s not forget those nuclear weapons were some of the very first ever made. Modern atomic weapons can range from Hiroshima-size to turning a mountain into a radioactive lake range. Thankfully no hydrogen bomb has even been used in anger because that would be a completely different level of horror (and likely the trigger to the end of human civilization).
Many nuclear powers have policies to fire nukes on warning. That means they would shoot back even before the enemy nuke hits them. Shoot when the nukes are confirmed to be incoming.
Republicans love to regularly talk down the World-ending horror that would be using atomic weapons in war. During Bush Jr.'s “war on terror” they were already talking about using bunker-buster nukes and tried to diminish the well-deserved stigma of nuclear weapons.
Renaming them atomic weapons “Musk bombs” sounds hilariously misguided.
some children where at home after the bomb fell and they said a horrific burnt figure on fours came crawling in and died. It was so burnt black and horrifically melted they thought it was a dog. It was their mother.
absolutely sickening these “men” I wish i could just absolutely take it to these pieces of shit and beat them senseless.
He should be strapped to a spacex rocket and sent to the sun. It isn’t as scary as you think.
The SpaceX rocket unfortunately isn’t powerful enough to launch anything into the sun, but yes.
Doesn’t need to reach the sun.
Even exploding on launch is enough.
That said, such an explosion would that be more or less scary than the sun?
I have an idea Elon - how about we bomb your house with you in it? I’m sure after a while some other people will build another house there and move in, so it’s all good, right?
They’re really working on making World War III attractive. That’s not a joke. They long for war.
