United States Politics Thread 46

[Travis B.]

Thanks for those replies, everyone. On a different note, the more I read about nuclear energy politics, the more it seems that anti-nuclear sentiment is becoming ensconced in the left, leaving only some conservative elements to support nuclear energy. Since the science is clearly on the side of nuclear energy, this means we are developing a situation in which it's the right that is following science, and the left that is denying science. This doesn't undo the continual climate change denial and fossil fuel subsidies of the right over the last several decades, but it's a strange development nonetheless.

I've seen anti-nuclear sentiment heavily associated with the left, even though it makes no sense at all considering the left is the part of the political spectrum least associated with climate change denial.

[Nortaneous]

I was implying that you associate progressivism with "authoritarian personalities", i.e. that progressives gravitate towards whichever movement holds more power, as if the right weren't authoritarian despite everything we have seen about them (cough cough attempting a coup).

ah, yes, authoritarians, defined by their disdain for legitimate authority,

[Moose-tache]

ah, yes, authoritarians, defined by their disdain for legitimate authority,

Well, yeah.

[Ares Land]

Thanks for those replies, everyone. On a different note, the more I read about nuclear energy politics, the more it seems that anti-nuclear sentiment is becoming ensconced in the left, leaving only some conservative elements to support nuclear energy. Since the science is clearly on the side of nuclear energy, this means we are developing a situation in which it's the right that is following science, and the left that is denying science. This doesn't undo the continual climate change denial and fossil fuel subsidies of the right over the last several decades, but it's a strange development nonetheless.

That's because the questions surrounding nuclear power are entirely political:

• who gets to do the risk assessment? how can we trust them? Is the risk assessment process transparent?
• are the nuclear installations safe? Who defines the procedures? Are these followed? Who checks they are followed and how much can we trust them?
• Who gets to decide how, when and where to build power plants? Worst case scenario, people in the surrounding areas might have to evacuate entirely and permanently. Shouldn't they get a say in the process? (I mean that's one of the cases where NIMBY feels legitimate.)
• How about terrorism? Aren't nuclear plants ideal targets?
• How about geopolitics? Where's that uranium coming from anyway? The US gets it from domestic sources. In France we import it -- not always from very safe or very democratic countries.

There are, in addition, economical questions:

• What's the total cost of nuclear power, taking into account the entire process: including safe operation, taking care of the waste and dismantling them once they can't be maintained? (The last one is a particularly sore point. I don't think we even know how much dismantling reactors will cost in the end, especially the more experimental ones.)
• Do we even need that much power? We seem to be wasting an awful lot of it, so shouldn't we reconsider the risk assessment?

FWIW, while not denying that nuclear power helps a lot in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, I'm generally dubious. In France our power plants are aging.
They're generally of a design similar to Fukushima which does means that a similar accident is possible. Security has been ramped up, but not enough. Having a security level consistent with the feedback from Fukushima isn't economically feasible. The newer European Power Reactors spent two decades in (horribly expensive) development hell. Building and operating one is, also, very expensive.
A French-built EPR reactor showed signs of trouble in China lately; the designers and our own nuclear security have offered no satisfying explanation.

I'd be convinced by a civil nuclear program that would offer satisfying answers to all the questions above; but I don't think such a program would work economically. Renewables may turn out to be cheaper in the long run!

[Moose-tache]

Having a security level consistent with the feedback from Fukushima isn't economically feasible.

Literally the only thing Fukushima needed to avoid disaster was to not build the backup generators in the basement next to the ocean on a fault line. Does France not have this capacity?

[Ares Land]

I'm an engineer by trade, and I've learned to dread such phrases as 'the only thing you need' or 'you just should.' It's never as simple as that. As it happens, the noyau dur upgrades (basically, failsafe backup generators resistant to a major disaster) that have been required by the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire are still going on. The total budget is 10 billion. And not all of the suggested measures will be implemented.
Besides, the issue is perfectly obvious in hindsight. Everybody's finding obvious issues with Fukushima after the fact but the obvious problem was, evidently, not obvious to Tepco or their regulating agency.

[Raphael]

Q: What's the difference between the nuclear power industry and a mugger?

A: The mugger says "Your money or your life!"; the nuclear power industry wants both.

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

[Moose-tache]

I'm an engineer by trade, and I've learned to dread such phrases as 'the only thing you need' or 'you just should.' It's never as simple as that. As it happens, the noyau dur upgrades (basically, failsafe backup generators resistant to a major disaster) that have been required by the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire are still going on. The total budget is 10 billion. And not all of the suggested measures will be implemented.
Besides, the issue is perfectly obvious in hindsight. Everybody's finding obvious issues with Fukushima after the fact but the obvious problem was, evidently, not obvious to Tepco or their regulating agency.

It was obvious to the engineers who asked for the funds to not build the generators in the basement and were denied. There's no point saying "well, other things could have gone wrong." There was literally one thing, and everyone with a brain knew what it was. I get that life is complicated, but this issue isn't. Every nuclear incident has been the result of extremely obvious shortcomings due to bureaucratic penny-pinching, never complicated problems that no one could see without hindsight.

Chernobyl: no containment
Three Mile Island: no training for operators on how coolant fluid works
Fukushima: no ackowledgement that water is more dense than air and will thus displace it when given a chance
Next disaster that will be blamed on nuclear energy: probably the government earning revenue by using the control room as a lit match and oily rag storage facility

[Raphael]

Every nuclear incident has been the result of extremely obvious shortcomings due to bureaucratic penny-pinching, never complicated problems that no one could see without hindsight.

Chernobyl: no containment

Wasn't a big part of the problem at Chernobyl that they used graphite as the neutron moderator, which made it possible to have the massive graphite fire without which the whole problem would have been a lot more local and easier to handle?

[Raphael]

Besides, "nuclear power is safe as long as you can reliably prevent human beings from getting basic things wrong" is not the strong argument in favor of nuclear power that some might think it is.

[Vardelm]

"as long as you can reliably prevent human beings from getting basic things wrong"

This is a nail in the coffin for all kinds of activities. I see it almost daily at work.

[Ares Land]

It was obvious to the engineers who asked for the funds to not build the generators in the basement and were denied. There's no point saying "well, other things could have gone wrong." There was literally one thing, and everyone with a brain knew what it was. I get that life is complicated, but this issue isn't. Every nuclear incident has been the result of extremely obvious shortcomings due to bureaucratic penny-pinching, never complicated problems that no one could see without hindsight.

I don't know how obvious the issues are (the design at Chernobyl had other issues; then again the same design operated and still operates in much of the former Soviet Union); but I do think this shows that the questions surrounding nuclear energy are in essence political.

My point is, you can certainly make a case that politics, bureaucracy and penny-pinching being what they are, nuclear energy is potentially too dangerous an option.

Besides, the energy sector has, quietly, underwent a revolution the last ten years. The costs of renewables have fallen dramatically (especially solar energy) and in fact the cost per MWh of renewable energies is equivalent to nuclear now. (As of 2020, solar energy is 54 USD per MWh, compared to nuclear energy's 68 USD per MWh.)
Nuclear is actually getting more expensive (after each accident, bureaucratic penny-pinching looks a lot less defensible so costs go up), not too mention that the failure modes of renewables are a lot less dramatic.

Twenty, or even ten years ago nuclear power certainly looked like the obvious, perhaps the only alternative to fossil fuels. That is no longer true.

[MacAnDàil]

If it helps, I can tell you how it goes in France.
Basically, for France, the theory seems to hold. Generally speaking, people noticed that there were significant minorities (notably, but not only, North Africans) back in the 80s. After that voters generally forgot about communism and lost much interest into socialism.
Much of the far-right's strongholds are strongly working-class places. The FN (now RN) noticed; they used to be racist libertarians, now their platform is well, national and socialist. (Pun fully intended.)

Not as socialist as some people think. They are after all the only party that doesn't want a higher minimum wage. More details (obviously not favourable to the RN anyway):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKHWVzH ... 7OISRUFFIN

Generally a lot of people we'd expect to vote left (if they acted purely on economic self-interest) do tend to vote for the (traditional) right or the far right, claiming concern about immigration, or crime.

While of course there are right wing working class people, I think part of the problem is that many people who would vote left... just don't vote at all. I know some frustrating anarchists among others. Abstention is so much higher among the lower classes.

And of course the sure way to get rid of the left is to play the race or Islam card. According to right-wing rags, any vaguely leftist candidate will surely bring about Soviet-style communism and the Caliphate, not necessarily in that order. So the theory certainly holds to some extent, and it's even a conscious strategy.

That brings a variant of National Socialist tropes of "Judeo-Bolshevism", which Umberto Eco noticed in his characterisation of fascism.

That being said... I think class consciousness is pretty much a myth, and not attainable in practice. There have always been a good number of conservative working class people. Some unity could exist back in the day when big industries dominated everything, but that world is long gone.
Generally speaking, a factory worker in a small town, a supermarket cashier or a public service employee in downtown Paris all have more or less the same income, but little in common besides. I don't think there is such a thing as the working class anymore (and I doubt there ever was in the first place.)

Class consciousness has not necessarily been universal, but that doesn't stop it existing. It has diminshed but the main point I think is - and I think that's the main point Marx was getting at - that solidarity among workers is certainly preferable for worker's rights among other things to bickering and the bosses dividing and conquering. Relatedly, I've already bought Clivages politiques et inégalités sociales and have read a few pages but am yet to read it in its entirety. I plan to before the French presidential election candidates are all decided next year.

Thanks for those replies, everyone. On a different note, the more I read about nuclear energy politics, the more it seems that anti-nuclear sentiment is becoming ensconced in the left, leaving only some conservative elements to support nuclear energy. Since the science is clearly on the side of nuclear energy, this means we are developing a situation in which it's the right that is following science, and the left that is denying science. This doesn't undo the continual climate change denial and fossil fuel subsidies of the right over the last several decades, but it's a strange development nonetheless.

I did not get the idea that there was a scientific consensus on nuclear energy. I would be happy for you to provide any contrary information.

Besides, "nuclear power is safe as long as you can reliably prevent human beings from getting basic things wrong" is not the strong argument in favor of nuclear power that some might think it is.

Indeed. While, the three incidents noted are the three major ones, they are not the only ones and they were so massive and Chernobyl could've been so much more dangerous if it hadn't been contained by some courageous firefighters (I saw it an ARTE documentary).

"as long as you can reliably prevent human beings from getting basic things wrong"

This is a nail in the coffin for all kinds of activities. I see it almost daily at work.

Oh things can go wrong when people make mistakes of course, never as horribly wrong as nuclear power can.

[Raphael]

The statements "workers' solidarity is great when it exists" and "workers' solidarity doesn't really exist" don't necessarily contradict each other.

I think you're partly moving goalposts to make Marx look better, though. The Communist Manifesto asserted (quoting from memory) "All history is the history of class struggles", not "It would be great if all history would be the history of class struggles, because that would advance the interests of the oppressed classes most". Marx was pretty explicit about describing what he saw as unavoidable historical necessities.

[Vardelm]

Oh things can go wrong when people make mistakes of course, never as horribly wrong as nuclear power can.

No argument there!

[Travis B.]

I was implying that you associate progressivism with "authoritarian personalities", i.e. that progressives gravitate towards whichever movement holds more power, as if the right weren't authoritarian despite everything we have seen about them (cough cough attempting a coup).

ah, yes, authoritarians, defined by their disdain for legitimate authority,

Attempting to overturn a legitimate, democratic election both with legal machinations and by force and install the defeated incumbent in power as a dictator surely sounds authoritarian to me.

[Nortaneous]

ah, yes, authoritarians, defined by their disdain for legitimate authority,

Well, yeah.

marinus van der lubbe, right-wing authoritarian

unless you mean to imply that the nazis themselves had a hand in the reichstag fire? i don't think that's still in favor among the relevant historians, but i do think that between the FBI and muriel bowser,

Twenty, or even ten years ago nuclear power certainly looked like the obvious, perhaps the only alternative to fossil fuels. That is no longer true.

yes, and in the US, conservatives could be easily sold on photovoltaic cell solar, and to some extent already are, whereas nuclear is weird technocrat shit. thermal collector solar seems underrated tho, especially in the US where we have plenty of desert. afaik the cutting edge is in Morocco

Attempting to overturn a legitimate, democratic election both with legal machinations and by force and install the defeated incumbent in power as a dictator surely sounds authoritarian to me.

i agree that the russiagate hoax and the anti-trump riots were fucked up

[Travis B.]

Attempting to overturn a legitimate, democratic election both with legal machinations and by force and install the defeated incumbent in power as a dictator surely sounds authoritarian to me.

i agree that the russiagate hoax and the anti-trump riots were fucked up

You're just spewing right-wing talking points here.

[Nortaneous]

Attempting to overturn a legitimate, democratic election both with legal machinations and by force and install the defeated incumbent in power as a dictator surely sounds authoritarian to me.

i agree that the russiagate hoax and the anti-trump riots were fucked up

You're just spewing right-wing talking points here.

did you decide all on your own to get caremad about a gaggle of peasants tracking dirt into the bastille

[Travis B.]

did you decide all on your own to get caremad about a gaggle of peasants tracking dirt into the bastille

Umm they were attempting a coup at the instigation of the then-US President.