In July 2015, the Welsh Government issued a written statement in the Klingon language. Following a formal questioning of the Economy Minister Edwina Hart regarding the funding of research into UFO sightings around Cardiff Airport by Member of the Senedd Darren Millar, a press officer in the Minister's office issued the reply:

jang vIDa je due luq. ʼach ghotvamʼeʼ QIʼyjH-devolved qaS
which was translated as: "The minister will reply in due course. However this is a non-devolved matter."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Ok - first things first: please try not to be so defensive/perjorative/exasperated - I think we are basically on the same side in wanting to replace fossil fuels with something that provides cheaper and more abundant energy for the UK?

Could we agree for example on an independent source of data? Maybe something like:
https://www.iea.org/data-and-s...
Or would you suggest an alternative source?
I wasnt aware of third-generation reactors as a separate category so I appreciate you informing me about them. For anyone else who happens to be reading this and is interested here is a wikpedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
They do seem to be better, but who knows in the long term? We shall see. Im not really old enough to be capable of recycling arguments from the 80s. I was more thinking of the seeming debacle that is Hinkley Point C:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
What are your thoughts about that? How can we avoid the problems it encountered? What is the difference in the technology/political/economic environment now as opposed to when that was commisioned/designed?

What do you think of the information provided in a page like this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

P.S. People who campaign for the environment are generally very well-meaning. They are not your enemy.

Im sorry to hear it sounds like you feel a bit aggrieved in your tireless crusade for nuclear power? Im glad though that you have steeled yourself with plenty of cold, hard incontrovertible data that proves that the nuclear option is the sole solution available? Seriously though, if you genuinely have everyone's best interests at heart then I sincerely wish you more power! I am certainly not an expert (are you?) but here is my quick attempt at providing some links with counter-arguments:

'wind and solar will power datacenters more cheaply than nuclear, study finds':

https://hardware.slashdot.org/...

'The report, prepared by independent expert bodies CSIRO with the Australian Energy Market Operator.. finds firmed renewables, including transmission and storage costs, provide Australians the cheapest power, at between $83/MWh and $120/MWh in 2030, when they account for 80 per cent of variable generation"':

https://www.minister.industry....

'The most significant environmental drawback of nuclear energy is the generation of high-level radioactive waste. This waste, comprising spent nuclear fuel and byproducts of reactor operation, remains hazardous for tens of thousands of years. Currently, there is no universally accepted permanent solution for its disposal.':

https://iere.org/why-is-nuclea...

'uncertainty around a disposal option for nuclear waste critically undermines its grand ambitions to deploy fleets of small modular reactors (SMRs)':

https://www.newcivilengineer.c...

'One nuclear power plant takes on average about 14-1/2 years to build, from the planning phase all the way to operation. According to the World Health Organization, about 7.1 million people die from air pollution each year, with more than 90 percent of these deaths from energy-related combustion. So switching out our energy system to nuclear would result in about 93 million people dying, as we wait for all the new nuclear plants to be built in the all-nuclear scenario.
Utility-scale wind and solar farms, on the other hand, take on average only two to five years, from the planning phase to operation. Rooftop solar PV projects are down to only a 6-month timeline. So transitioning to 100% renewables as soon as possible would result in tens of millions fewer deaths.
This illustrates a major problem with nuclear power and why renewable energy -- in particular Wind, Water, and Solar (WWS) -- avoids this problem. Conventional nuclear, though, doesnâ(TM)t just have one problem. It has seven. Here are the seven major problems with conventional nuclear energy':

https://www.oneearth.org/the-7...

'"the other problemâ of nuclear energy: not only is it neither renewable nor clean, itâ(TM)s very dangerous (there have been several hushed up incidents; while a single reactor creates up to 30 tons of high-intensity waste that nobody knows what to do with. And just as importantly, it distorts electricity markets.':

https://medium.com/enrique-dan...

https://www.energysage.com/abo...

(youll love these links - from your favourite tree huggers!):

https://foe.org/blog/is-nuclea...

https://www.greenpeace.org/int...

- expensive, slow, waste, cost etc:

https://ceo-na.com/ceo-life/en...

- pre-existing waste problems:

https://www.scientificamerican...

https://www.theguardian.com/en...

https://www.theguardian.com/bu...

- future unsafety because of climate change:

https://theconversation.com/nu...

- corruption:

https://thebulletin.org/2021/0...

https://www.ewg.org/news-insig...

https://archive.beyondnuclear....

https://www.middleeasteye.net/...

https://www.nirs.org/nuclear-p...

https://www.opensecrets.org/fe...

https://hardware.slashdot.org/...

https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/t...

I am not claiming that renewable energy is not without problems, but I dont think people should claim that nuclear isnt either:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/d...

Of the two solutions I would rather go for the one that is ostensibly safer (as it is news for nerds - when it comes to the future of humanity - shouldnt we err on the side of the federation rather than the Ferengi? ie. play it safer rather than look for short term profit?). If we are to gain 'experience' in any field I would argue that it should be in renewable energy and eg. battery technology, grid infrastructure. I am not anti-technological solutions or nuclear per se, but I dont see it as the best/only option, all things considered.

I am an unashamed globalist (a citizen of nowhere!) so at least I agree with you about not particularly caring about where solutions come from! There are problems IMHO that can only be solved at a global scale and with pooled expertise (and some others only at the local!)

https://www.wired.com/story/ch...

https://e360.yale.edu/features...

https://atlasinstitute.org/chi...

https://carnegieendowment.org/...

I hope we can find some common ground (and avoid swearing at each other and calling each other names - I dont believe that most people have bad intentions around the subject? Good, clear and impartial data is most welcome in making the right decision). I appreciate you taking the time to reply and your efforts to provide facts to back up your arguments!

The arguments against it in short are that it is: dangerous, costly (Im not sure I understand your argument about gaining experience building it out as infrastructure? - seems a bit bizarre - it is eg. Chinese companies that are building it for us as far as I can see?), time-consuming to build, generates impossible-to-dispose-of radioactive waste and is ultimately unnecessary. Why it seems at all popular I can only put down to greed, misinformation and possibly corruption? Renewables are not profitable, nuclear power is - isnt that the real reason?

Subscribe those pesky kids to surveillance school! Hook their neurons up directly to MekaHitler! Just like the matrix, except without the dystopia right?

I agree. I was forced to do exams/essays in cursive and used to be pretty rapid (though not always as legible as Id have liked!) but my facility has badly atrophied over the years.

I was surprised by the findings in those links. I also have no particular attachment to cursive, but cant help thinking it might be a shame if we didnt at least give kids who wanted to a chance to learn it? (maybe even as calligraphy or something? puts me in mind of a Japanese friend I knew years ago who was amazing at brush calligraphy). In one sense we would definitely lose a connection to the past and previous generations. I do still use it occasionally when I want my thoughts to be somehow quieter, a little more concrete/uneditable/potentially private, or as a sketchy medium somewhere between drawing and writing (tablets dont yet seem to have a comparable feel just yet, though Ive not tried eg. e-ink?). Sometimes the lack of legibility to anyone except me is kind of a plus?

I know next to nothing about stenography, least of all any effect it may have on thinking. Have there been studies I wonder? I remember my mum mentioning she learnt shorthand as part of a secretarial linguistics course and that it had occasionally been useful. Id like to think of writing as not only a communication medium, but also a chance to clarify and distill ideas (eg. one of my favs: Politics and the English Language by George Orwell - though I definitely dont always live up to its ideals!). I worry a bit about people 'generating'/regurgitating and consequently not writing - and even more by declines in reading (raised by an English teacher so I cant help it :). Isnt a lot of what we think of as modern perhaps built on different types of literacy? (and the depth of thought it encourages) - perhaps not always 100 percent for the best (in terms of dogma perhaps?) but with undeniable advantages?

Im not sure that speed is always good? (although definitely in certain contexts - most obviously dictation/court proceedings etc). Im always struck by how different different people are! (a truism). I have known students/friends with dyslexia/dysgraphia etc who would have benefitted from being able to more flexibly do things their own way/from being allowed to experiment a bit more in finding more individualised methods that suited them. Maybe computers potentially can/will act as excellent translators between peoples individualised expressions. Im not sure the emphasis on being made to jump through hoops has helped educational attainment over the last couple of decades - at least for some!

In my odd 'career' I have studied/worked at various times in visual arts/writing and as a music/music tech teacher (as well as having done a small amount of scripting and half-arsed programming over the years). They all obviously evoke different perspectives on ideas and problems and offer very different methods of communicating and organising ideas. It can be hard to shift gears and perhaps no lifelong specialization means a loss in capacity, but perhaps there are advantages somehow in being forced to process stuff at a range of different speeds, using different symbols or motor skills, or within certain limitations - maybe it encourages critical thinking/helps in recognizing the limitations of your own framing of events/offers different opportunities to adjust the register of your communication?

Thank you for posting that - I wholeheartedly agree. Your post is a very succinct outline of what I see as absolutely central problems with where the technology seems to be headed. I worry a great deal about the rush to deploy it in contexts where it is not ultimately beneficial or desirable, may disempower or impoverish individuals, or may degrade human communication and societal cohesion.

https://neurosciencenews.com/h...

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/a...

https://www.psychologytoday.co...

â¦offering a variety of options likely suits different students thoughâ¦

What if that was the case? They wouldnt be trying to talk to me then would they? Is that a problem you grapple with blue trane? (good allusion in the name there btw :) I take it youre heavily invested in AI?

https://archive.org/download/l...

Exactly - because we are human beings who (mostly) want to communicate ideas/thoughts/humour/life experiences etc to other human beings. If you called your friend/mother and there was a chorus of bots pumping deafening white noise down the line you would complain to your phone company no? It defeats the purpose of media/communications for meâ¦

https://www.theregister.com/20...
https://www.theregister.com/20...
https://www.theregister.com/20...
https://www.theregister.com/20...
https://www.theregister.com/20...
https://www.theregister.com/20...
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
https://slashdot.org/story/24/...
https://hardware.slashdot.org/...

Super helpful - thanks! :)

https://www.orwellfoundation.c...

Your comment reminded me of a phrase from the essay Politics and The English Language by George Orwell:
prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.