There isn't really any proof that Waymo vehicles are driverless, only that the driver isn't in the vehicle. If you compare a dozen dubiously driverless vehicles to a million collecting data every moment and already doing a pretty good job at autonomy, which do you think will succeed?

The fact that the driver is not in the vehicle does not mean that there is no driver.

Yep, that's it. this has gone on for nearly a week now. It's old news. I'm not really following this any mroe. I moved on. You should too.

Apparently you haven't seen what I've commented on before. I mention nuclear power as a solution every time global warming comes up. I mention nuclear power as a means to not only address global warming but also to lower energy costs, improve energy independence, clean up the air and water, create jobs without government subsidies, produce synthesized fuels and fertilizers, and benefit national security. We don't need the threat of global warming to justify more nuclear power. If there is some evidence that global warming is a hoax then we'd still need more nuclear power.

Don't tell me I need to get on board with nuclear power, I've been on board for years.

I said, "more recent". As in after people got cabin fever from being locked up by COVID-19 for more than 6 months.

That is true. COVID-19 causes fever, fluid in the lungs, and even death. What causes homelessness, poor healthcare, and lack of resources is the government reacting to the spread of COVID-19 with policies that lower incomes and therefore lower people's ability to pay their bills. Even if we leave out the government response there's still people left too ill, or dead, from COVID-19 to work and therefore provide for themselves and those that depend upon them

Of course they existed before 2020, COVID-19 just made it worse. Your ignorance on this appears "unfixable". Are you one of the people that believe COVID-19 is some hoax? That the government made the disease up to give themselves permission to close schools, close churches, and businesses?

Tell me something, what is the root problem that brought homelessness, poor healthcare, a lack of resources, and climate change? I'd really like to know.

I'd like to see a more recent poll, and one that shows how global warming ranks against other concerns. Here's a poll from 2018 that says about half of Americans still think that nuclear power is more of a risk than global warming. That might not be the most precise description on how people feel but still quite accurate.
https://www.pewresearch.org/sc...

I found a poll from 2019 that has a similar outcome on asking if they believe more nuclear power should be used to lower CO2 emissions. About half of the people fear nuclear more more than global warming.
https://www.pewresearch.org/sc...

Agreeing with the statement that the government needs to do more about global warming does not give much indication on how people rank any given issue. It would be interesting to see how global warming ranks against other concerns. I know that such polls have been done in the past. I'm just having difficulty in finding any recent results of such polls. I can imagine that there's a lot of people that believe the government needs to do more to address a great number of issues, in my opinion that's because far too many people have been trained by public education that more government is the solution to a great many problems.

That explains why Japan is returning to nuclear power, even after a major nuclear power disaster in their country.
https://en.news-front.info/202...
https://oilprice.com/Alternati...

And South Korea intends to build more nuclear power plants.
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/e...
https://www.powermag.com/south...

Those last two links show other nations consider the risks from global warming outweigh the risks from nuclear power.

It can make shit worse by hurting the economy. It appears that many Americans agree.
https://www.pewresearch.org/sc...

There's a lot of room on the spectrum on how much renewable energy could help or hurt the economy. Just because it didn't kill the economy doesn't mean it didn't hurt the economy.

I find it just amazing how people can believe that both wind and solar power is cheaper than natural gas, and that we should not end subsidies on wind and solar because if we do then utilities will burn more fossil fuels. I'm seeing nuclear power plants close because they can't compete with tax incentives that favor wind and solar power. Every nuclear power plant represents a huge addition of CO2 into the air in their construction. This sunk cost that will be spread over 40 or 50 years could have been spread over 60, 70, or 80 years. This is also a sunk cost in dollars. Closing them now means we will have to spend more money, and emit more CO2, to build new generating capacity to replace them. That hurts the economy and the environment.

Energy subsidies need to end. As do other government policies that hold back nuclear power. As energy prices rise from these idiotic policies we will see more people become less concerned about global warming. They will want the jobs, energy independence, lower energy costs, clean air, and other benefits a new nuclear fission power plant would bring. The ability to lower CO2 will also come with that but I suspect that this will be not near as important to people as all the other benefits. I expect future polls to show this to be true.

You mean the same conservatives that call government reaction to COVID-19 overblown? They seem rather unconcerned about the virus.

You mean the ones asking to see more nuclear power plants? They aren't afraid of a nuclear meltdown.

You mean the kind that join the military? They don't seem all that afraid.

The scared people I see are those that can't handle the thought that they might have to be responsible for their own safety.

Do you have a smoke detector? A fire extinguisher? Are you afraid of a fire? Of course you aren't afraid of a fire. Because you are prepared for the eventuality of a fire that you lost your fear. The same is from being prepared for anything else. Owning a heavy coat means not fearing winter. Having a refrigerator means not fearing food poisoning.

A firearm is a tool. An inanimate object. Even so I'm seeing people have such an irrational fear of them that they will not touch a firearm that was demonstrated as unloaded. So afraid that they fear visiting states where the carrying of firearms by law abiding adults is legal.

What are liberals thinking if they fear armed law abiding citizens? Are they projecting their own criminal desires on others? Or their own incompetence to handle a firearm safely?

I'm thinking that what liberals fear most are themselves.

grow our food.

Indeed.

COVID-19 causes climate change?

I already did. ITER.

Sure. Since the growth in US population is primarily from immigration then let's lower the quotas on immigration until we reach some sufficiently negative population growth.

We'd need other nations to do the same. But not all the nations are seeing population growth from immigration. They will need different means. I won't tell them which means to choose but for the USA the seemingly obvious place to start is immigration control.

I'd blame it on a lack of experience and a lack of economy of scale.

If you want to see nuclear power get lower in cost then create a means to have economy of scale and plenty of experience. France tried this by building a bunch of the same reactor all over the country. That worked until they found a flaw common in all the reactors that cost a lot to fix, and they stopped building them meaning they lost all their experienced workers.

Let's try this, and a nation like the USA is one of the few big enough to try. Start with as many nuclear reactor designs that look like they might work. I don't mean go crazy and pick 100, or pick only 2. Perhaps 12. Get companies to build one of each. After they finish evaluate them as best you can on costs, safety, and so on. This is going to be quick-n-dirty because until they run for a few years there's still plenty of unknowns. The worst 1 or 2 of them aren't built any more. This makes the one and done reactors expensive to run but it's finished, (presumed) working, and so will still pay itself off in time. The remaining are then repeated, but this time build 2 of each. Evaluate again, drop a design, build 4 each of those remaining. After a while there will be something like 3 or 4 very solid designs of nuclear reactors on the market. Each had to compete on costs and safety, and there's experienced crews to build more at low costs. Costs will stay low because the competition remains, people will simply gravitate towards the best value.

Because the USA has a market for potentially as many as 1000 gigawatt scale nuclear reactors, and new reactors are likely to be smaller than the old gigawatt ones, this means a lot of people can keep building nuclear reactors to maintain experience. And the market might settle on just 2 or 3 designs for a while but there needs to be new designs introduced once in a while to allow for innovation. It's new designs that incorporate what was learned in building the old designs that will lower costs more than anything. But it will take years of building what are just moderate updates from designs out of the 1990s to get the experience we need to innovate.

Why should they? The reactors exceeded their government required specifications for earthquake survivability. The wall to contain the tsunami met government spec. This was a tsunami that was not expected to ever be seen. The people on site acted admirably. There was only one suspected death from radiation, the victim was well cared for while ill, and the family compensated for the death. The people working there knew of the dangers. Other deaths on the site were from the flood, not the reactor. Again, any fault on flood victims will be difficult to pin on anyone because they met government safety requirements.

Deaths from the evacuation can't be blamed on them since they can argue the evacuations were unnecessary given the levels of radiation beyond the borders of the power plant.

There's people that die from industrial accidents, storm damage, and so on at solar power facilities, wind farms, hydroelectric dams, or whatever else you can think of as an energy source besides nuclear. I don't see these people going to jail. Not every death is the result of a crime. That's not blaming the victim either. Accidents happen where there's no way to find fault with anyone.

I keep having people bring up that nuclear power just costs too much to try. Well, if that's where it ends then we'd never get anything new. Go back to the drawing board and try again. Don't make it a half-assed effort in building anything new. Give it an honest chance to prove that the design can come in on time and budget. It can take three or four budget busting efforts to work out all the problems. If global warming is half the problem that it is claimed to be then it is in our best interests to give nuclear power a try.

Oh, and there is no one nuclear reactor. If one reactor project goes over budget that should not reflect on different project. This is no different than claiming a 2020 Tesla S is unsafe because of what was seen with a 1972 Ford Pinto.

Carbon generating activities like driving to work?

An engineer, lawyer, and other information workers can find ways to work at home at least part of the work week. Someone working in a factory, restaurant, sales, shipping, or whatever, can't.

Speaking of shipping, what happens to the prices of food, clothing, and building materials when fuel costs go up?

Here's an idea, let's not raise taxes. This looks more like an engineering problem to me than a political one. Taxes will encourage engineering solutions, that's not being disputed. We don't get engineering solutions just because the government created a greater incentive. Let's not forget that engineering solutions use fuel too. If people want to take a train to work instead of drive then there's going to be a lot of fuel burned up to build a train track. Higher costs can make that train project too expensive to be viable. Government subsidies can help but that's going to have to be paid back in taxes somewhere else.

There's plenty the government can do besides raise and lower taxes. One such thing is find ways to lower regulatory costs. Take that train example. Can there be ways to assure safe travel on the train and keep government interference to a minimum? Make that happen. Then look at other regulatory costs.

I doubt it. The working poor is driving a beat up Escort to work while the wealthy drives a new Tesla, natural gas car, or works from home. Drive up fuel costs enough and the wealthy just find ways to not buy fuel. The poor aren't going to buy an electric car, increased fuel prices would drive up EV prices and the rich just buy them all up.

Any fossil fuel tax will hurt the poor disproportionately. The poor pay a greater percentage of their income on fuel than the wealthy. Raise that cost and it takes a bigger bite out of the poor than the wealthy.

Because they are old enough now that life beat some of the stupid out of them? Just a theory.