After 48 Years, Democrats Endorse Nuclear Energy In Platform (forbes.com) 385
It took five decades, but the Democratic Party has finally changed its stance on nuclear energy. In its recently released party platform, the Democrats say they favor a "technology-neutral" approach that includes "all zero-carbon technologies, including hydroelectric power, geothermal, existing and advanced nuclear, and carbon capture and storage." Robert Bryce writes via Forbes: That statement marks the first time since 1972 that the Democratic Party has said anything positive in its platform about nuclear energy. The change in policy is good -- and long overdue -- news for the American nuclear-energy sector and for everyone concerned about climate change. The Democrats' new position means that for the first time since Richard Nixon was in the White House, both the Republican and Democratic parties are officially on record in support of nuclear energy. That's the good news.
About a decade ago, a high-ranking official at the Department of Energy told me that a big problem with nuclear energy is that it needs bipartisan support in Congress. That wasn't happening, he said, because "Democrats are pro-government and anti-nuclear. Republicans are pro-nuclear and anti-government." That partisan divide is apparent in the polling data. A 2019 Gallup poll found that 65 percent of Republicans strongly favored nuclear energy but only 42 percent of Democrats did so. The last time the Democratic Party's platform contained a positive statement about nuclear energy was in 1972, when the party said it supported "greater research and development" into "unconventional energy sources" including solar, geothermal, and "a variety of nuclear power possibilities to design clean breeder fission and fusion techniques."
Since then, the Democratic Party has either ignored or professed outright opposition to nuclear energy. In 2016, the party's platform said climate change "poses a real and urgent threat to our economy, our national security, and our children's health and futures." The platform contained 31 uses of the word "nuclear" including "nuclear proliferation," "nuclear weapon," and "nuclear annihilation." It did not contain a single mention of "nuclear energy." That stance reflected the orthodoxy of the climate activists and environmental groups who have dominated the Democratic Party's discussion on energy for decades. What changed the Democrats' stance on nuclear? I cannot claim any special knowledge about the drafting of the platform, but it appears that science and basic math finally won out. While vying for their party's nomination, two prominent Democratic presidential hopefuls -- Cory Booker and Andrew Yang -- both endorsed nuclear energy. In addition, Joe Biden's energy plan included a shout-out to nuclear.
About a decade ago, a high-ranking official at the Department of Energy told me that a big problem with nuclear energy is that it needs bipartisan support in Congress. That wasn't happening, he said, because "Democrats are pro-government and anti-nuclear. Republicans are pro-nuclear and anti-government." That partisan divide is apparent in the polling data. A 2019 Gallup poll found that 65 percent of Republicans strongly favored nuclear energy but only 42 percent of Democrats did so. The last time the Democratic Party's platform contained a positive statement about nuclear energy was in 1972, when the party said it supported "greater research and development" into "unconventional energy sources" including solar, geothermal, and "a variety of nuclear power possibilities to design clean breeder fission and fusion techniques."
Since then, the Democratic Party has either ignored or professed outright opposition to nuclear energy. In 2016, the party's platform said climate change "poses a real and urgent threat to our economy, our national security, and our children's health and futures." The platform contained 31 uses of the word "nuclear" including "nuclear proliferation," "nuclear weapon," and "nuclear annihilation." It did not contain a single mention of "nuclear energy." That stance reflected the orthodoxy of the climate activists and environmental groups who have dominated the Democratic Party's discussion on energy for decades. What changed the Democrats' stance on nuclear? I cannot claim any special knowledge about the drafting of the platform, but it appears that science and basic math finally won out. While vying for their party's nomination, two prominent Democratic presidential hopefuls -- Cory Booker and Andrew Yang -- both endorsed nuclear energy. In addition, Joe Biden's energy plan included a shout-out to nuclear.
About damn time (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope the rest of the West can copy the French model; settle on a design and replicate it with the same experienced construction crews across the country until we've got a zero carbon grid.
Usually greenies (of whom I am one) have no perspective on high-grade nuclear waste and how much tonnage it actually is, and what would be required to safely store it. The only real roadblock to executing the plan for its long-term storage is misguided nimbyism.
Hooray! (Score:2)
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Better nuclear power is possible. The problem with initial designs, bloody engineers, they can not help themselves, it's their nature, they tried to extra as much power as possible as fast as possible and hence running the system on the edge of catastrophic failure.
Instead they should have been focused on how to extract energy from the reaction, as slow as is reasonable for an extended period of time with the same fuel load. The design function should be that the nuclear engine should fail (wear at, before
Re: About damn time (Score:2)
Thank you, I agree 100%. The French model is the only way to make widescale nuclear work in the country. Combine that with big research projects on storage, superconductors and Gen VI reactor prototypes and breeder reactors and we could really have a grid for the future.
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But how much baseload is actually needed? In other words, how much electrical demand is perfectly price-inelastic?
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But how will even the Democrats bring Hollywood on board? Perhaps this will happen only when the Thwaites Glacier lets go and a rapid three-meter jump in sea levels makes their beachfront homes worthless.
Meanwhile, Trump's lack of technological awareness has done nothing to move nuclear off dead center. He could have opened Yucca Mountain, not as a 'dump' but as the input buffer for a planned waste recycling facility. Perhaps the Democrats sense an opportunity here.
SMRs! (Score:5, Interesting)
Small Modular Reactors radically reduce the cost of nuclear power and can be used as drop-in replacements for boilers. The fact that they only generate enough power for a large city is also a bonus because you can drop your reliance on an interstate power grid which isolates the city and increases security. The SMR undergoing review is designed so that it cannot meltdown without deliberate sabotage.
SMRs can be mass produced and shipped around the country on trucks, the only thing holding us back are fools who are scared of technology.
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Sprinkling small reactors in highly populated areas all over the country is idiotic. The main thing that you achieve is a drastic increase in the attack surface for terrorists and saboteurs.
Re:SMRs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Who says that SMRs have to be sited one by one and scattered all over the place? The greatest economic value of an SMR is that factory-built technologies cost a lot less than site-built. Truck the SMRs into existing nuclear sites like Palo Verde in Phoenix, wherever there is room to build within a security perimeter already in place. One crew can then efficiently watch over a batch of reactors at once.
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The OP said it. He wanted to save on the cost and hassle of electric wire.
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It's not quite that simple though is it? For a start none of the designs are actually proven yet, and all rely on ideas that have proven to be failures at larger scales such as molten salt or gas cooled reactors.
Construction time is around the 500 day mark for more advanced designs like the Rolls-Royce 440MWe unit, and of course the factory itself isn't just a normal factory. It has to have nuclear material storage and handling facilities, and high security. Think aircraft manufacturing but bigger and with
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SMRs are a bad idea. You can get enough qualified personal to maintain 100 reactors. You simply won't get enough qualified people to maintain 10000 reactors.
Then you still need containment buildings and security to protect against terrorists. Both are costly.
We won't need qualfied people to run 10000 reactors or to protect them from terrorists.
All we do is add running the reactors to our AI defense bot.
It would be a simple re-training to get it to handle the reactor security and operations simultaneously.
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You simply won't get enough qualified people to maintain 10000 reactors.
Here's the thing, they do not require on-site maintaince. They run until they run out of fuel after a decade, you pull them out of the ground and replace them with a new one. The used reactor can be refueled, refurbished or simply recycled. If anything goes awry, the reactor simply turns off. It's designed to always fail safely.
Then you still need containment buildings and security to protect against terrorists. Both are costly.
Containment buildings? It's in the fucking ground. You can't blow it up either because that would just trigger a fail-safe and shutdown the reactor.
Re:SMRs! (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the thing, they do not require on-site maintaince.
There's no such thing as an "unmaintained commercial reactor". There's a plethora of operations that non-nuclear people typically don't even know about. I gave an example: water treatment for reactors is done using ion exchange resins, and they become violently radioactive after a while and have to be replaced with lots of precaution.
They run until they run out of fuel after a decade, you pull them out of the ground and replace them with a new one.
A commercial nuclear reactor will not last for a decade. Modern top-notch PWRs have a fuel cycle of 18 months to 2 years. You can push it a bit more with some clever design, but not much.
If you NEED longer cycles (for submarines or for spacecraft) then you have to use highly-enriched uranium. And this is not feasible for commercial reactors.
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Uhh... Can you spell: "nuclear non-proliferation"?
Again zero scientific basis.
Re:SMRs! (Score:4, Funny)
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Then you should have no problem writing out the physics equation that shows nuclear fission of HEU stops working the instant the electricity is sold.
Again zero scientific basis.
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The same is done with cores of nuclear submarines during refueling, the reactors h
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Do you know they spent fuel is only highly radio active for an extremely short period of time?
By "short" you mean "several years"?
Do you know that one that time is passed, the fuel is pretty much harmless?
No. Spent fuel never becomes "harmless". It just becomes a bit less dangerous, so it can be feasibly moved around without killing people.
You also have a very "poetic" knowledge of nuclear reactors, like someone who read a breathless article about k00l SMR reactors but has no idea what reactors actually need.
Do you know, for example, that real reactors require special conditioning for cooling water, including cleaning via ion exchange resins. The used resin cartridges
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That doesn't make sense vs a heat pump which can do both heater and cooling and uses the universal fuel that is electricity
So tell me, how were you planning on generating this electricity?
Good, it's about time. (Score:2)
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Summary:
I disagree with you for {reasons} and you're a big poopy-head!
IDGAF if anyone agrees with me or not, likes nuclear power or not, it's going to happen sooner or later if we are going to survive as a species so get over it.
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The Germans have already gone a lot farther along rthe path of replacing fossil sources with all toy renewables, and look what happened: the most expensive electricity in the world, vast swatches of the sacred Environment paved over with wind turbines, and they still can't get away from the need for baseload power. So as they close down the nuclear part of that baseload, they are having to sheepishly build new coal plants to replace them.
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The price of electricity was mostly because how the Marketplace for power trading was setup .It became very profitable to produce power for export with existing baseload plants because renewable plants could take the load. This has a side effect of causing an periodic oversupply that makes the power very cheap(negative) on the market.
This paradoxically makes power very expensive for everybody who has to pay for the renewable subsidies because the renewable costs are fixed. For instance the price of a kWh i
Re:Good, it's about time. (Score:5, Informative)
Use your fucking enter key. It's right there, and it will allow literally anyone to read that wall of word bricks you just laid upon this discussion.
Nuclear is a dumb investment (Score:2, Insightful)
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TLDR: No idea. It was too long, I didn't read it.
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I dunno... (Score:2)
I just don't know about this. Until there is a proper plan for nuclear waste disposal (and no, a federal plan that will never be accepted by a state is not a "proper plan") I think this is bullshit "kicking the problem down the road" crap. And yeah,sure , you can point to reactor designs that use waste or are otherwise better than the currently used designs but generally speaking these options have been around for decades now and still haven't been used.
In other words, I'd like to see some sort of practical
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So we can point to better designs and solutions to the problems that further advancement of technology presents, but because they have been opposed by political grandstanding and thus not used, they are invalid?
You do know that this article is about a major change in a large political party's views on nuclear power, and thus means they may be getting the fuck out of they way, right?
Science for the Win (Score:4, Interesting)
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The scientific community is overwhelmingly Democrat and overwhelmingly pro nuclear energy. Biden listened to us and became the Democratic candidate.
The one outspokenly pro-science candidate in the party's primary clown car was Yang, who did not receive much support from either the Democrat rank-and-file or the party's cultural power centers like academia and Hollywood. Biden is at least aware that we need to pay more attention to science.
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Re:Science for the Win (Score:5, Insightful)
What party created the pandemic response team, the pandemic playbook, and installed CDC inspectors in China?
And which party fired the pandemic response team, ignored the pandemic playbook, fired the CDC inspectors in China, and ignored Covid-19 for 5 months?
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What party created the pandemic response team, the pandemic playbook, and installed CDC inspectors in China?
What party want's to ban GMO's? Which party thinks cell phones cause cancer? Which party thinks homeopathy and magic should be covered by medicare?
The Democrats are only for the science that fits their agenda. The rest of the time, it's extremely anti science.
Holy cow (Score:2)
The irrational fear of the word nuclear is finally starting to be realized for what it has been for decades - irrational. Nuclear energy has been the greenest form of energy we have had since its inception. Until we get pragmatic fusion energy it will remain the greenest form of energy on the planet. No industry on the planet has suffered the sheer amount or regulatory overburden that nuclear has. It simply isn't possible to have carbon free energy without nuclear to provide baseline power. The technology s
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Remember that the flat-earth lobby was always just as contemptuous of fusion as it has been of fission. It's just that fusion was comfortably far away from implementation, so they considered it a more distant threat to the caveman ethic.
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It is not too difficult to look at actual numbers and see that nuclear was *no*t replaced with coal in Germany:
TWh production per year 2010 - 2019
lignite 145,9 150,1 160,7 160,9 155,8 154,5 149,5 148,4 145,6 113,9
coal 117,0 112,4 116,4 127,3 118,6 117,7 112,2 92,9 82,6 5
nuclear 140,6 108,0 99,5 97,3 97,1 91,8 84,6 76,3 76,0 7
gas 89,3 86,1 76,4 67,5 61,1 62,0 81,3 86,7 82,5 91,0
renewables 105,2 124,0 143,0 152,3 162,5 188,8 189,7 216,3 224,8 244,3
Source: https://www.ag-energiebilanzen... [ag-energiebilanzen.de]
Why not repeal the SLoT? (Score:5, Funny)
Repealing the law will bring enormous benefits including super unity efficiency, that is more than 100% energy efficiency, and provide for the reversal of atmospheric carbon accumulation.
Despite all the known benefits, an anti American cabal of scientists, none of them elected by the way, self appointed, affirmed by a mutual admiration society called peer-reviewed journals, has convinced both parties not to broach this subject...
It's an irrelevance (Score:5, Informative)
New wind and solar, backed by gas peakers and hydro, are WAY WAY WAY CHEAPER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE NEW-BUILD OPTIONS. Coal plants are shutting down because they can't compete with new-build renewables. Don't believe me - read this, in that radical lefty rag Forbes [forbes.com].
It's not completely beyond the realms of possibility that these costs may change at some point, but the nuclear industry has had several decades to get its collective act together and has failed.
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Coal plants are shutting down because they can't compete with new-build renewables.
That's not true. Coal plants are shutting down because they can't compete with natural gas. Renewables mainly displace natgas during the day, but they can't provide reliable power. California has a nifty monitoring tool for it: http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOut... [caiso.com]
Re:It's an irrelevance (Score:4, Informative)
You do not understand the graph you are linking. The reason nuclear stay constant while renewables and gas vary, is that nuclear (and coal) are baseloads that cannot be modulated; they need to provide a constant power. Nuclear especially has a bunch of problems with changing operating point, including xenon poisoning, slower neutron sensors at low load and so on.
In terms of cost, gas is usually more expensive than coal [wikipedia.org], though NG prices vary with region and year (currently low in the US). However, it is very practical as gas turbines can be spun up within minutes when demand picks up (if you click the "Demand" [caiso.com] tab in the graph you linked, you'll see it varies a lot).
Fact is that nuclear is expensive and inflexible, and solves no problems except that of politicians who want financing for gigantic construction projects that will never be concluded during their careers (á la Olkiluoto-3). There is a reason why no one believed for a second Iran was developing nuclear for peaceful purposes.
Don't take my word for it: see this recent US EIA report [eia.gov] (Feb 2020), page 7, table 1b, column "Total system LCOE": the cheapest options are onshore wind, solar and geothermal (also NG combined cycle), while nuclear is about double their cost. The only things more expensive than nuclear are niche technologies like biomass or developing ones like offshore wind.
Re:It's an irrelevance (Score:4, Informative)
I think it is more accurate to say a combination of natural gas and renewables have been replacing coal. When you pair them together, you can get something that can approximate baseload power (i.e. natural gas spinning up and down quickly as renewables naturally go up and down). Even better when you have a big battery to cover the gaps between renewables falling and gas spinning up. Natural gas also has the added benefit of being able to scale up quickly to match increases in demand which neither coal nor nuclear (in its current state) can do.
However, nuclear can be designed to be load following - the French ones certainly do that to an extent. And they can also be paired with batteries or other short term storage options to provide that ability as well. Given that they have predictable output, designing a system to store the excess energy will be fairly straightforward. Basically, every system that can be built to support renewables can be used with nuclear at a much smaller scale to provide dispatchability for nuclear.
Also, LCOE is know to have one significant flaw which is that it does not value certain attributes such as dispatchability at all. This is obviously not true in practice, and renewables, for better or worse, have that variability, which is a negative. It is not a coincidence that NG use has been growing in some places together with renewables. NG provides the dispatchability / storage that renewables lack.
Therefore, all other things equal, dispatchable > constant non-dispatchable > variable non-dispatchable.
In practice, you have a fairly predictable energy demand, with spikes or lulls in demand that can be driven by environmental factors e.g. a cold snap resulting in heating demand shooting up.
With dispatchable (e.g. NG) you don't need storage. You just produce more when needed, and less when needed and this match the spikes and lulls in demand.
With constant non-dispatchable, and fairly predictable consumption, you have a fairly predictable excess of energy that can be stored on most days, and you could then have a reserve to take care of predictable shortfalls in output (relative to demand) as well as an additional reserve to deal with unpredictable demand fluctuations.
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Re: It's an irrelevance (Score:2)
The article you linked includes a disclaimer stating that its central claim, that wind and solar are less expensive than coal, is invalid because it does not include reliability in power pricing.
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Biden/Harris + nuclear power... (Score:3, Funny)
I am more and more convinced that the Democrats have zero interest in the presidency.
Brighter than a thousand sons of Trump! (Score:4, Insightful)
Happy for nuclear to compete on it's own merits (Score:3)
There are no long term waste storage facilities in the US right now, so that seems like a bit of an issue. Trump's last effort to get Yucca Mountain back up and running included an ask for $150 million. Ongoing costs will hit the taxpayer too. That part needs to stop and it needs to be 100% funded by a tax on the energy generated. So if generators can provide all of the required security and waste management including long term storage and do all of that without taxpayer ponying up great wads of cash then sure. Let them try and compete with other power sources and see what happens [not being sarcastic].
democrats environmentally minded ? (Score:2)
environmental groups who have dominated the Democratic Party's discussion on energy for decades
Is that why there are MASSIVE subsidies for oil?
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
I hope they've got some fine-print on fission. (Score:2)
Absolutely nobody in his right mind has anything against nuclear power per se. Nuclear Fission however has proven itself to be a considerable risk with often times bad management of that risk. That's the reason Germany is moving out of it. Once traveling wave, contained micro reactors, fusion or something else is hot again I assume us back in the nuclear game.
The US should head for solar big time. That would be a good move. Staying in nuclear fission is a very stupid and dangerous idea.
Wait, what? (Score:2, Informative)
> Trump is such an incompetent fucktard that the republican party doesn't even have a platform this year.
I don't know whether you're talking about the Republican party platform [ballotpedia.org] or the 2nd term agenda [donaldjtrump.com], both of those exist, so that's a pretty silly thing to claim.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's missing is "new". The RNC has just reused the old party platform from 2016. You could look at that as either good or bad. Some might think the old platform was perfect and needs no change at all, whereas others will realize that so much is different today than they were four years ago.
I know people thought about this. if anything the Republican Party is organized and disciplined so it's not the sort of thing to be overlooked. Perhaps they were worried that if they changed even one word that there might be a loud outcry from the guy at the top ("it was perfect, so perfect.").
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Well, technically it's supposed to say what the party's ideals are and what it's upcoming legislative goals will be. Without the party platform you wouldn't know the difference between then all. Supposedly you could listen to the speeches of your local candidates to figure it out but the less time spent listening to politicians the better. Also the local pols don't always stand toe to toe with the party platform.
Yes, it's propaganda, but it's also the primary way to know what a party stands for. It's al
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Without the party platform you wouldn't know the difference between then all.
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but it was impossible to say which was which."
I mean except for the fact (Score:5, Interesting)
But I mean, besides all that what _has_ Rome done for us?
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Admit it, you pick what policies seem smart after first seeing which are Trumps, not the other way around. A ton of people on both sides praise or condemn Trump loudly fort he same economic policies they condemned or praised Obama for.
I don't think those words mean (Score:2)
As for Obama, he only had very lose control of Congress for about 2 months before the Republicans took over. Look it up. Senators come and go, retire and die, that sort of thing. As a result the Dems were in charge just barely long enough for Pelosi to ram the ACA through with a ton of compromises and nothing else.
The GOP is actively trying to destroy our democracy. There's no shortage of evidence of that. It's gotten to the point where even Pelosi's called them Enemies of t
Re: Wait, what? (Score:2)
Also goes to show they haven't accomplished anything of note. Only nebulous concepts and tweaks. They're only plan is to be an opposition party, even when in power.
Re: Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Very much this. The 2016 platform was drafted after the GOP had been out of the White House for 8 years, during which there was tremendous economic growth, and no 9/11, Katrina, financial crisis, or Covid-sized catastrophe.
Now, after almost 4 years controlling most-or-all of government, Republicans have failed to replace Obamacare with something better, created a trillion dollar deficit with the Trump friends and family tax plan, watched as 170k Americans died, and 10% became unemployed. A coherent party platform would have to acknowledge that these things happened, and attempt to address them. This would require competence and taking responsibility . . .
So the GOP puts out the platform from 2016, when a platform from January would be laughably out of date--and Trump supporters (true to form) deflect the point by modding +5 the anon who "owned the libs"* by pointing out that the recycled 2016 platform is technically a platform.
* "libs" now includes everyone who isn't sucking Trump's cock--or at least having their wife do it while they watch.
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The hilarious thing is that if you read that platform, the current president has violated most of the statements of it. I have a feeling they just couldn't get together a quorum of sycophants with enough brain cells to rub together to come up with a cohesive document that didn't sound like something published by The Onion. So they just said "four more years!" and had another Trump family member deliver a speech of lies.
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Okay then. (Score:5, Insightful)
So your first link declares:
RESOVLVED, That the 2020 Republican National Convention will adjourn without adopting a ...
new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention;
RESOLVED, That any motion to amend the 2016 Platform or to adopt a new platform, including
any motion to suspend the procedures that will allow doing so, will be ruled out of order.
So that means that the 2016 platform is what they are continuing on with. Great. Let's have a look at the hum-dingers in that document [gop.com] that is completely at odds with this President's behavior:
We believe our constitutional system — limited
government, separation of powers, federalism,
and the rights of the people — must be preserved
uncompromised for future generations
Really. So I guess when there was all that railing against Obama executive orders they actually gave a damn, but now that their guy is in there, separation of powers, federaism, and rights of the people can go fuck themselves? After all, this President is sending federal thugs into states that don't want them there to violate due process and imprison without just warrant.
Americans have earned and deserve a strong
and healthy economy.
We had one, and it was flushed down the shitter by a feckless President who hoped for miracles instead of doing what the rest of the world did - suck it up for a few weeks of lockdown, encourage mask wearing, testing, and contact tracing. They succeeded, we are still failing, and the economy will only get worse for it.
Our standing in world affairs has declined
significantly — our enemies no longer fear us and
our friends no long trust us
Typo aside, our friends trust us even less now, and our enemies still no longer fear us because we have a President who cuddles up to tin pot dictators.
People want and expect an America that is the
most powerful and respected country on the face
of the earth.
Still most powerful, absolutely NOT the most respected. Not even close, largely due to the woeful neglect shown to the State Department. Any career diplomat worth the salary they draw fucked off to the private sector over the last 3 years because they couldn't live with the policies being put forth by this administration.
The President and the Democratic party have
dismantled Americans’ system of healthcare. They
have replaced it with a costly and complicated
scheme that limits choices and takes away our
freedom
And this President and the Republican party tried to dismantle that scheme with an even more costly system: nothing. Still waiting to hear about the replacement for Obamacare that is going to be so great.
The President and the Democratic party have
abandoned their promise of being accountable to
the American people.
That's a laugher. Pot: "hey kettle, you're black!" Kettle: "It is what it is."
They have nearly doubled the size of the
national debt.
Can't be outdone on that, can we? So let's double it again in only 4 years this time. But wait, I thought Mexico was going to pay for the dumbass wall that does nothing?
The President [...] defies the laws of the
United States by refusing to enforce those with
which he does not agree.
Sounds familiar. So when your Attorney General is found to be in contempt of Congress, why isn't he being handcuffed and popped into a Federal prison? Oh, selective enforcement, that's right. Hey, where are those tax returns by the way?
And this means returning to the people and
the states the control that belongs to them. It is the
control
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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More oddities... I have to agree with them on this, but it seems like a curious position to take: "The huge increase in the national debt demanded by and incurred during the current Administration has placed a significant burden on future generations,”
Then there are direct attacks against Trump: "Whatever their disagreements, presidents of both parties had always prioritized America's national interests, the trust of friendly governments, and the security of Israel. That sound consensus was replaced w
Re:The Republican Platform (Score:4, Insightful)
Works for Fox News.
Re: The Republican Platform (Score:4, Insightful)
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What isn't? The cable networks are just the propaganda for Boomers and GenX who haven't cut the cord yet. The rest of us get our propaganda from the internet. I recently culled everything overtly political from my consumption, because fuck them all.
Re:The Republican Platform (Score:5, Informative)
"I recently culled everything overtly political from my consumption..."
Um, you missed this thread.
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It's a confirmation network
But aren't they all?
No, they aren't.
I am center-right, but I listen to NPR when I am driving and they have changed my mind on several issues.
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And quenda is a prime example of a LIV (Low Information Voter)
It is cute that you just assume I am American.
Re: The Republican Platform (Score:3)
Ah the deplorable argument that worked so well for Clinton.
Re: The Republican Platform (Score:4, Informative)
Mostly bullshit...and I'm not a Trump supporter.
The percentage of both parties who believe in gay marriage has jumped over the last twenty years. While Dems are more strongly in favor, roughly half of Republicans agree according to Pew.
Your comments on brown and non-christians isn't backed by anything more than your opinion.
The majority of Republicans I've heard next to no one who is a Trump supporter who is asking for anything but LEGAL immigration. Follow the rules, but don't allow unfettered illegal immigration.
Re: The Republican Platform (Score:3)
Mass H1bs brought in to compete with American workers - most of whom did not have to deal with the corrupt and expensive college system in the USA- is an example of legal immigration that flouts the intent of the law.
Most of these H1bs have commodity skills Americans could be trained to do, but aren't, partly because salaries are depressed as a result of the competition.
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Large numbers of Trump's followers think gay, brown people or non-christians are deplorable.
Really? How large? I know conservatives who opposed gay marriage, but when quizzed really just wanted it to have a different name, like civil union.
Much as I loathe Trump, I'm a bit sick of hearing his voters demonised as racist and sexist.
Re: The Republican Platform (Score:4, Insightful)
I know conservatives who opposed gay marriage, but when quizzed really just wanted it to have a different name, like civil union.
That's still prejudice against it, and also almost certainly bullshit. Who gives one fuck about what it's called? They opposed it, period. Their excuses for doing so are uninteresting, as that's all they are — excuses. Further, if they make excuses while they oppose it, not only are they liars, they're also cowards. They lack the courage of their convictions. What a bunch of wimps.
Much as I loathe Trump, I'm a bit sick of hearing his voters demonised as racist and sexist.
Trump has proven time and again that he and his policies are racist and sexist. So it is physically impossible to support Trump without being racist and sexist. That might not be your excuse for supporting him, but you can't support him without being those things, because supporting him IS supporting those things.
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Educated? In the real-world it's experience, skills and common sense that count for more. The electrician, welder, plumber, farmer and auto mechanic have skills that will always be in demand.
That's right, it's hard to conceive of less than 60% of the population being employed in farming.
Re: (Score:3)
The thing about trades is that almost anyone can learn them well enough
But almost no one does. It's not worth worrying about multi-generational changes when picking a job. Do something that pays well enough and isn't obviously on its way out. The fact that other people mught choose to pile on in a decade or two matters very little.
Short of going into business for yourself and being extremely lucky
It's actually fairly common for senior tradespeople to have their own business. Where you have to be smart beyond the trade is to grow that business to where you have employees - a "two-truck" business. But, really, where are you going to find s
Re: About time (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot more fear than problems. You can pull statistics that show about 50,000 dead in from health issues associated with living near just one old coal plant, but the deaths associated with nuclear or its waste just don't exist. The screams about Fukushima are a good example, final death count? 1 person. Meanwhile 18,000 people died in the earthquake that caused it. Or 18,000 hospitalized in global warming linked heatwaves
https://weather.com/news/news/... [weather.com]
there, and thats not even getting started, on track to kill billions before done.
Re: (Score:2)
The total confirmed death toll from Chernobyl was in the dozens, man, dozens of people! Nuclear is scary!
Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear has several really bad and likely unsolvable problems: 1. It is exceptionally expensive. And that does not even include the decommissioning and waste storage cost. A lot more expensive than renewables plus storage and that is just the base cost.
Only the lawyers are expensive.
2. It is exceptionally inflexible and can do only base-load. In fact, you need > 30% non-nuclear in a power mix to make it viable at all.
MSRs can load follow just fine. Also, we need nuclear for base load as nothing else can fill that demand other than fossil fuels.
3. It has really bad uptime. This makes 1. and 2. a lot worse. Even if you had 100% nuclear energy, you cannot use a large part of it because of 2. and because a large part is not even running because it (again) broke down or needs maintenance.
Nuclear has far and away the best uptime of any energy technology. Now you are just making things up
4. The waste-storage problem. Still unsolved and people make more of that dangerous crap? Also refer to 1.
Unless you have a completed storage facility that for some reason you won't use
5. A pretty bad safety track record. This massively increase its cost. Ever wondered why you cannot insure a nuclear power plant?
So pretty stupid to use it one would think. So why then do we have it? Simple: A lot of people are getting rich off it and a lot of people cannot do numbers and in addition see it as a fetish for "power" (in the political/military sense).
In actual reality, using it makes the problem far worse. The "fear" angle may be misplaced, but it is not the primary problem anyways.
Nuclear has the best safety track record of any energy technology. Nothing in your post was anything other than pure fud. I'm starting to think that people like you don't want to solve global warming.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
> Nuclear has the best safety track record of any energy technology.
Depends on how you look at it; Deaths related to the nuclear industry can to a great extent be hidden in statistics; Lots of things cause cancer, including radiation exposure, but it's hard to prove conclusively that someone who lives near or works in a uranium mine got cancer because of the uranium mining operation.
You also need to consider secondary effects if you want to make a fair comparison. For example, should deaths and injuries
Re: (Score:2)
. Had the heavy water dropped below the top of the rods by the slightest amount the globe wound have faced an extinction level event never before seen.
That is a ridiculous statement from a fear-monger. Nothing about that is true.
Re: (Score:2)
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=sunflowe... [lmgtfy.com]
Evidence? I can't find any for your claim.