I recognize that nuclear energy has a big problem with the disposal, storage, and handling of its waste. It is a problem that can be solved to a great degree with engineering. The sticking point has always been the political will to address it. "Not in my backyard" is a powerful force for stopping things.

We've gone past the point that many of the things we should leave alone because they are environmentally poor choices will have to be used. The alternative will be to allow people to die. Since the ones that will be most at risk, will be the economic disadvantages, the poor, and the disabled, I don't think we can just say, "Sorry you're going to suffer and die because that's best for the future."

I know it's not that simple but it is at the core of the "use it or not use" argument. There are poor choices, bad choices, and worse choices. The ones we make need to factor in the loss of life, not the loss of profit. We have the money, we don't have the will to take on those with the money.

That said if we are going to restart a nuclear energy industry we are going to have to pry it from the hands of the vulture capitalists who caused so much harm with their insistence of a right to make a profit on all things while pushing the losses off onto the public. There are things that are public goods and services and should not be expected to make someone money.

The Navy has the expertise and the personnel. I'd love to see them given the job. There are some great ideas for small-scale, localized nuclear power plants modeled after the ones used in naval vessels that I think would be the way to go. Rather than the giant subsidy dumpsters that we have now. I actually have one in my after oil series of short stories, that the St Louis elites privately fund to keep their electricity coming.

https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuc...

Ken, you bring up a few good counters and note the problems with nuclear power that are commonly discussed. Not sure about the "evilily evil" label based on vaguely suggested cover-ups you want to apply to the application of nuclear power by the Navy. The thing is you also proved in one sentence just why governments will try nuclear power against the effects of climate change. This one:

"We need to let attrition occur and the obscene overabundance of human beings to subside naturally, not try to maintain a 'Merican "middle class" standard of living for far more people than is literally possible."

You have confirmed the crazy conspiracy theories half of the population say about eco-activists and green power people. Though you paint it in buzz words to get by the core suggestion. What me to translate what they just heard?

"We need to let a lot of YOU people die so the planet will heal while letting the ones that do survive live in poverty."

There isn't a politician out there who wants to keep their cushy job who will want to be publicly anywhere near your position. Maybe a few will like it or believe in it privately but saying to voters, "Sorry you all just need to let Grandmother die and accept it", isn't a viable way to get votes. Sure, I think we've got way too many people on the planet. I also feel it looks to be taking care of itself. Birth rates are falling and as Greer has pointed out, societies in decline lose populations through illness, poor lifestyle choices, and people refusing to have kids. There are several factors I consider higher on the priority list for a transition during the Long Descent than that.

Society screwed around too long for this collapse to be a smooth transition. We should have started on renewables and the downsizing of our energy budget in the 70s. Now we're going to get smacked hard with shortages and with no alternatives other than completely senseless ones. That includes nuclear power. I don't like using nuclear any more than you do, for the problems you mentioned.

I do think that eco-activists have oversold the fear of it. Every industrial process we use has problems, has pollution, and has factors against it. Or have things we should do differently or in a cleaner way. I blame that on the "profit for me, and you pay the costs" way that Western capitalists do business. If corporations were treated like they should be, not as people but as temporary constructs to perform a specific task, then dissolved, we'd all be better off. That's not going to happen any more than greening the whole Western economy.

The point I'm trying to make is valid. Governments are going to try to use nuclear power, whether its a sound strategy or now. Ones with money saved up, like the Saudis. Ones that can just issue bonds or print money, like the US.

(I have a second major point to make, but I'll put that in a separate post.)

"I mean, seriously, David? WTF? Nuclear power is more than just a money hole; it makes ZERO sense on so many levels that it beggars comparison. I literally cannot think of anything more insane. Slave labor building a pyramid in St. Louis is a good idea compared to nuclear technology!"

While you might think this is going to be addressed to you personally Ken, it's more of a comment to the general Green Wizard community here. I want to clarify a misunderstanding some continue to have about the ways I run this website, the priority I feel the concept that is Green Wizardry has, and the topics we will cover and discuss. These are a distillation of my personal beliefs, private conversations with John, attitudes I've gotten from his blogs (first TADR and now Ecosophia), and the ways I view the Long Descent happening.

The number one principle of Green Wizardry is the concept of "dissensus". As defined as the belief that strength comes from different points of view AND the strength that comes from being willing to hear the other side, even when you disagree with it.

So there will be more of these types of posts. Don't assume when I post them though, I necessarily support the person's opinions.

IMO we as a society have gotten way too far down the "stick out fingers in our ears and say la-la-la" when we hear things we don't like. Beyond the refusal to hear an opposing view, now a significant portion of society actively seeks to ostracize and silence the opinions they don't like.

I spend a lot of time surfing the internet and FB to find opinions and views that run counter to what I believe, some of which, I post here. IMO we need to have difficult discussions. You can't argue about a situation if all you've even been exposed to is one side of it. Beyond the personal advantages of knowing more than just your favored side, reading and learning the facts the other side uses to support their viewpoint. There's a practical long-term advantage for a Green Wizard to knowing both sides of an issue.

Some people get the idea that all Green Wizards in the future of the Long Descent will be lonely hermits off in a paradise of a local earth-centric forest, that well-meaning seekers will come to for bits of lost lore and wisdom. Sure there will be quite a few of us living like that. But as I envision this organization's future there will be just as many Green Wizards in the nasty squalid slums of collapsed cities.

And more than a few walking the gilded halls and castles of the new lords of the Long Descent, as advisors to those in power. They will need to know the downsides as well as the upside of important issues, and while they should advocate for actions that benefit the most, I suspect they will have to often help a ruler to do things that won't.

Net good, even when some are harmed.

I look around my office at the piles of books I've collected, many of which I will never have the time to read, with the intention to get as much of that wisdom into some form that future Green Wizard can use, and see the proverbial "ten pounds of shit, while holding a five-pound bag". The filter I use most often is how will this bit of information benefit the most people in the next 20 years? Not fifty years, nor one hundred. Twenty. That's the span I have left and the time I can directly affect.

Regrettably, that means your question of what to do with the waste that will stay around for 250,000 years isn't what I worry about. It's how do we prevent that same number, 250K of poor people from dying from climate-related heat deaths? How do we adapt to rising sea levels in place? How do we live with the diseases and pests that will migrate northward as the refugees do too?

It's all well and good to say we should be fighting to cut population growth as a global issue but if we ignore the skills and knowledge that the people most affected by overpopulation will need to adapt, then we're wasting our time. Green Wizards becomes just another one of those happy places filled with pretty gardens and unicorns dancing.

Too many times I've seen people who talk green and eco-friendly sit around a table, drinking herbal tea and eating homegrown cookies discussing the broader issues to make themselves feel good while ignoring the cold, hard fact that the people that climate change and the collapse will most affect are the people least likely to have the means to do anything but suffer.

It's gonna get freaking ugly people and I want Green Wizards to be there to make the changes that matter.

Anyway, lol, I have drywall to install.

LOL, yeah I'm really looking forward to getting this basement build done and moved in. Though I wouldn't call it fiddle playing in Rome. Staying here in this rental into my retirement would be a better example.

I'm downsizing my carbon footprint from two households to one, decreasing both of our energy usages by doing a ton of insulating first before thinking about something like solar, increasing my personal food production by putting in a huge new garden AND advancing Green Wizards with a testing and teaching facility that will produce books, tutorials, and on-site classes eventually. Ohh, and using recycled steel instead of virgin wood for the studs.

I do a lot of my construction on Thursday (my day off) and the weekends, so I'm about to go over there now too. I'll reply to the rest of your comments and to Cory's this evening.