Anyone see a link with Boeing?
I can still see the face of that CEO telling everyone (including families of the deceased) that their planes were OK.
At least this one knows they screwed up!
I just asked Chat GPT if it is taking over the world and it said "no"
"No, as an artificial intelligence language model, I do not have the capability or intention to take over the world. My purpose is to assist and provide helpful responses to the best of my abilities based on the information available to me."
There, that solved it!
...increase needed
I never liked this 'baby outlook' at all. Made stupid and limited on purpose.
... the improvement needed
It's like seeing the Romain Grosjean accident and still opposing the halo because "it's all about freedom"
And that message is the one these Universities are refusing to support.
And who can blame them?
There's two separate threads in this argument, and they're entangled in an unfortunate way.
I agree. The fact that any 'law' we 'find' may later be transcended by a more precise one does not mean that:
* There is no final law
* The old law is useless
Indeed, we know that Quantum mechanics is more exact than the laws of Newton. Still the laws of Newton are used every day. We still use the law of Archimedes, which has not changed since its inception more than 2000 years ago.
So, even if quantum mechanics may not be the final word in the description of fundamental behaviour of matter they will most likely still be used in the future.
And this does not mean that e.g. the Maxwell equations *may* actually be the last word in the description of the behaviour of electromagnetic fields.
A climate change denier. Still?? After all this time??
The Wright Brothers were told several times, in no uncertain terms, that what they were already doing was simply impossible.
And your nitpicking on the term 'climate' does not make a global rise in average temperature impossible.
Nor does it means that this rise in temperature 'cannot' impact the ALL the climates in ALL the regions worldwide.
Hence a global climate change...
None. But some are back to normal.
Wind Turbines, you can't put the god damn things every where.
That's an original argument, considering the amount of requirements needed to plan the location of a nuclear powerplant (far from population, sufficient cooling nearby, no flooding risk...)
We have to get off the oil but there are other possibilities to make it work besides lithium ion + electric motor.
And Toyota isn't seriously investing in any of them...
Eggs in one basket is indeed not a good idea.
But there is also something like market evolution.
If you are behind the market (like Toyota currently is) there is a do or die moment coming up...
Loosing the biggest and most profitable market is 'a winner'?
I agree that in many parts of the world ICE will still be used for quite some time.
Then again: we (Europe, Asia and North America) will need to get rid of quite a bit of ICE cars in the coming decades...
If you would ask if Toyota is planning to give up on their main market (Europe, Asia and North America) in favor of this market that is winding down, I'm sure they will say: "No we will do both".
Unfortunately: without putting absolute priority on closing the gap with the other manufacturers with regard to EV's and battery technology loosing that main market is only a question of time...
I'm not a liar.
I just gave my recollection of the events which is that the choice for closing Doel 3 and Thiange 2 first is due to the issue with the defects. These are the only reactors with those defects (see the report of the nuclear watchdog) and are the first to close.
Coincidence? Possible but I remember differently.
This Wikipedia article is under the same impression.
In my mind the choice wat taken at the time (which was before we could safely evaluate the impact of those defects) based on the uncertainty of the longevity of these reactors.
You may not agree with the choice of the Belgian government at the time, or you may think that the choice was taken on a different basis, but that does not make me a liar.
In short: yes we do...
As another comment already remarked: we do have a big LNG terminal so we should be fine.
And as also remarked elsewhere: the decision to close this power plant was taken long before by the previous (mostly right wing and certainly not Green) government.
The idea was to close even more power plants but these plans have been changed. So there ARE some more of your beloved nuclear power plants working for a bit longer.
But why close them in the first place?
First en foremost: cost. Keeping them running increases the cost of electricity for everyone. Due to a complex interplay of regulations and market forces everyone pays extra for the electricity of nuclear powerplants. Just like the today prices of electricity are heavily influenced by the gas prices even when you buy 100% wind energy. And yes, before anyone remarks it, this has to do with the base load capacity.
Another issue with nuclear power plants also has to do with base load capacity: since nuclear power plants cannot power up and power down at will (the current power down has been planned for months and will take a week to complete) it follows that nuclear power is the first in line to deliver power. This means that if the base load of a nuclear power plants in the network is very high it starts to be economically unviable to deliver wind or other renewable energy to the grid since these power sources would only serve to fill the 'gaps' in power demands. And this despite a lower price for these forms of energy.
This means that as you try to transition to more renewable energy you have to take nuclear power (at least partially) out of the equation.
Next: clean-up. There has been considerable discussion about who has to pay for the costs of the dismantling of the power plant. In the discussion about a possible prolongation it has also been made clear that the costs must be carried by the owner. In that powerplay the government has made it clear that when they were threatening to close some of the power plants they meant business. And recently a law has been passed that establishes the responsibilities of the power plant owner in the clean-up process. Certainly this issue is not fully resolved but at least there is some movement in the right direction.
Lastly: why these reactors? Because serious defects have been detected during a recent (a few years back) safety check.
This is the theory that Jack built. This is the flaw that lay in the theory that Jack built. This is the palpable verbal haze that hid the flaw that lay in...
