I was curious about your point that we only have ~20 years supply. The article you linked doesn’t really defend that estimate, I think it’s actually pointing out that’s the absolute floor of our supply.
It mentions estimates of undiscovered uranium and also multiple pathways to extend that estimate if there was demand to improve the technology or increase our supply. It sounds like realistically we could find the material for powering all of our energy using fission if we had the demand to do so.
The resource size is one I've seen many times in many places, and it seems widely accepted. The linked article isn't the best source, but it's characteristics of others I've encountered over the years.
The general point is that uranium ore is not especially abundant, and tends to be highly localised, which suggests a reprise of petroleum-induced geopolitics.
(Uranium in seawater is far more prevalent, but quite difficult and expensive to access.)
I'm also familiar with the long and tedious discussion of just what "resources" and "reserves" constitute. I'd suggest briefly that much of that discussion fails to reflect that the true benefit of energy resources is the surplus EROEI (energy return on energy input) which results from their use, and that whilst it's often possible to increase the total resource quantity that comes with a corresponding decrease in resource quality in the sense of a far lower EROEI.
Early petroleum finds featured EROEI of 200:1 or greater. That is, 1 unit of energy invested returned 200 units returned. Present finds are closer to 10:1 to 20:1. I'm not as versed on uranium, though I'm finding indications that current ore-based finds are ~10:1 to 60:1. Seawater extraction is all but certainly far lower than that. Generally I'm somewhat suspicious of casual claims that we could vastly increase our uranium supply.
Thorium's a somewhat different animal (or mineral, definitely not vegetable) in that it's 3--4 times more abundant than uranium, and if I recall correctly can be "bred" into fissionable forms more readily. Non-thorium breeder reactors rely on a plutonium cycle, which introduces numerous other concerns (weapons, terrorism, etc.).
Moreover, liquid hydrocarbon is fantastically useful stuff and can be stored, transported, and utilised with immense flexibility and (comparative) safety. Nuclear energy must be converted to other forms, at considerable loss, to be utilised. Grid mains current is useful, but nuclear power plant output isn't especially flexible, and transition to storable forms comes at high costs, limited capacity, or high conversion losses (e.g., synfuel production). Hydrocarbon-powered automobiles, lorries, aircraft, construction equipment, hand tools, portable generators, etc., are all readily produced and utilised. Their nuclear variants not so much.
(I'm specifying hydrocarbons rather than petroleum to note that it's the chemical constitution rather than the origin or creation process which is significant here. I'm something of a fan of hydrocarbon fuels, somewhat less so of fossil fuels, despite their past utility.)
If you want to speculate wildly on maybes then it’s also hard to argue that hydrogen is fundamentally one of the most common elements in the entire universe and it’s not particularly controversial to say that a high tech future society would probably want to use that rather than the vastly less abundant heavier elements.
> It sounds like realistically we could find the material for powering all of our energy using fission
For a while
> if we had the demand to do so.
Maybe two decades isn’t spot on, but come on, you’re really grasping at straws.
It’s fundamentally less abundant.
20 years? 50 years? 100 years.
Sooner or later you’re going to run out, and not on geological timescales.
Tell me it ain’t so?
There are reasons to prefer fission, but “we have plenty of uranium” isn’t one of them.
I’m not sure if only ordering from legit chains helps anymore. I’ve heard (and it’s mentioned elsewhere in this thread) of chains sub-contracting with ghost kitchens to offload the delivery traffic from their real locations. No idea on how they can do quality control with these sub-contractors.
There are several protobuf linters out there, but what I haven't seen is a protobuf linter that integrates with Git to look behind and verify that you haven't accidentally changed protobuf numbers, or reused fields, or etc. Would be handy.
We’ll start being asked for utility bills during interviews and recruiters will screen for people with heat pumps. “Candidate must have updated insulation and new windows”
There's standard rules for car travel expenses, I don't see why not do the same for offices. People don't expense their Dodge Charger's gas bill, they expense standard reasonable fixed rate. Working from home isn't free, offloading all of the cost on employees seems like a use of employee resources without compensation. I'm not dying on that hill and it doesn't bother me at all to pay for it all myself, but it really strikes me as the same thing as use of personal car for business purpose == reimbursement. It's chomp change to me, but it's probably not for many people.
Who's going to background check every candidate's house on order to save up on like, $4000 a year for a very inefficient energy setup?
The worst reality is they will estimate and then cut that expense from your offer. Still, $5000 less for the kind of work offered remote isn't a deal breaker.
Work on revenue-generating projects/products. When push comes to shove, cost centers are cut first. If you work on search ads at Google, you have a lot of job security. I wouldn’t want to work on customer support tools there…
That's a valid approach. Another valid approach is to make sure that you're eminently hireable instead of worrying about corporate politics or job security. If you're that, then leaving a company (voluntarily or otherwise) is no big deal because you can always get job elsewhere.
He’s accused of conspiring to trick voters into using fake voting methods so they didn’t vote. How would you react if someone created a fake voting location and put a full page ad in a newspaper telling people to vote there?
A couple things. First, other people breaking the rules doesn't make it ok for you to do so, and you were by far the worst instigator in this thread. It's not helpful to point fingers at others in such a case. We need you to follow the rules regardless of what other people do.
Second, people certainly shouldn't be posting personal attacks—I tell HN users not to do that all the time: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... If there were personal attacks in this thread that I didn't respond to, that's most likely because I didn't see them. It's certainly nothing personal or specific to you in any way. You've been a great HN user for years! (except for the flamewar comments)
A fine idea. And we all know that people who own land are more likely to be educated anyway, so why not make owning land a requirement to vote as well?
Yes, I support that! Rights comes hand in hand with responsibilities - I don't believe a freeloader has earned the right to steer the country in one direction or another - they should rather steer their life first before playing the rights game!
If society wants an educational qualification for voting it should implement a proper one. It shouldn’t rely on some online scammer trying to confuse and distract.
This is good enough. It's like people who fall for spam and scams - I can't sympathize, really. Evolution punishes stupidity and it's no wonder why all the world is going downhill as this twisted form of democracy does one thing - breeds populists!
This almost happened before when Trump issued an executive order for Bytedance to divest TikTok. Most of the media outlets reported that Bytedance was actively courting U.S. corporations to buy Tiktok. I'm sure there was a lot more going on behind the scenes but I don't think the automatic reaction would be to shutter TikTok.
Yeah I remember reading about Bytedance willing to sell US TikTok and about how US TikTok is a relatively independent entity etc. So definitely not unthinkable but geopolitics have changed considerably since then.
It may not be related to nature. I remember reading research on how sunlight and focusing on distant objects is really important for developing proper eyesight. The current issues with eyesight could be a side-effect of spending more time in doors and only staring at things within 20 to 30 ft.
It mentions estimates of undiscovered uranium and also multiple pathways to extend that estimate if there was demand to improve the technology or increase our supply. It sounds like realistically we could find the material for powering all of our energy using fission if we had the demand to do so.