I mean it also contains great stuff. Niche workarounds, ways to do something more efficiently than some standard library function does.

You just need a means of telling apart the good and the bad. Because there’s also people smashing their forehead on the keyboard until it happens to be something that compiles. And people repeating urban legends and outdated info. You somehow need background knowledge to tell which is which. AI didn’t invent phrasing some nonesense with full conviction. It is very good at doing exactly that, but we humans also have been doing that since the beginning of time.

Our computer science professor in some programming course at university told us we were not supposed to take advice from the internet or answers from Stack Overflow for half a year… Until we learned the ropes. And could asses for ourselves what’s right and what is wrong. (And I believe that was some C/C++ course where you get lots of opportunuties to do silly things that might somehow work but for all of the wrong reasons.)

I think he was right. There is lots of misinformation out there that isn’t a proper design pattern. And with copy-pasting stuff, you don’t necessarily learn anything. Whereas learning with some method is efficient and works.

And I’m pretty sure I’m not super intelligent, but all of that isn’t really hard. I mean if someone codes regularly, they might as well learn how to do it properly. It takes a bit of time initially… But you get that time back later on. Though… I’d let AI write some boilerplate code. Or design a website if I’m not interested at all how the HTML and CSS works… I think that’s alright to do.

I wouldn’t download / update until this gets resolved. Or maybe look for alternatives, or compile/build it yourself. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the developers fault. Could be something else. But maybe don’t download something that might contain a Trojan.

The IPCC report lists higher lifecycle emissions for nuclear than your numbers. We probably need to take all of that with a grain of salt. But it’s about comparable to some of the renewables.

And even if you want to use nuclear for baseline power, you’re going to have a problem in like 40-100 years once uranium mining gets harder as we’re depleating the resources.

And I mean “theoretically” having storage is kind of a joke, since we’re not generating the waste in theory, but in practice. So we also need the solution to actually exist. And as far as I know it might be a hoax anyways and there might be a good reason why we struggle actually implementing it. Usally people claim the waste can be put somewhere underneath the earth. In an old salt mine or something like that. And the geologists I asked said it’s true that a salt reservoir underneath the earth is stable for 100.000s of years… Unless someone tampers with it. For example breaches it by digging into it, taking the salt out and putting waste inside. Then it’ll become unstable. And we have precedent for that.

So. I’ve heard the same things about long term storage. But it seems to me there is more to it. Until now nobody was able to build a proper one. Sure they claim in theory it’s easy, still they didn’t do it. And geologists have some doubt it’ll work on that timescale in the first place. And looking into the past we also weren’t very successful with putting waste into old mines. A good amount of them has become leaky. Or something happened with the groundwater that wasn’t expected to happen… And I’d rather not have toxic waste mix with groundwater anywhere close to where I live…

I mean that’s just one concern. Mainly I’d like to know what’s the actual cost of containing a large amount of waste for a shorter timespan, and containing a smaller amount of waste for tens of thousands of years. All the maintenance, cost to handle incidents and making sure it doesn’t escape into the environment with close to absolute certainty. Added up for the necessary timescale. Just hoping our grandkids will figure out a way is the same mentality as burning oil and letting them deal with the consequences.

I’d really like to force them (Google in this instance) to pay for it. And as we need a renewable alternative anyways, I’d also on top like to invest in finding solutions to for example recycling of wind turbine parts. And a “smart” grid that handles electricity being not at 100% all the time. At some point we need it anyways, and the sooner we begin, the earlier it pays off.

Yeah, unfortunately it’s kinda hard to find objective information. It’s either the environmental activists, or the nuclear lobby who publish the articles that show up on the first several pages of Google search. I’ve linked some report from the government and scientists in this thread, regarding cost. But the proper studies are hard to read and several hundred pages long. I doubt anyone here will read such things, they just claim something counter-factual without really knowing anything on the subject.

The Kyle Hill videos aren’t objective either. What he visits isn’t permanent storage. And it’s not accounting for all of the waste. I mean the reactor core has to be dismantled at some point, and so has the whole plant. And that won’t fit into the barrels. What he also doesn’t show is the groundwater contamination and environmental damage plus waste from uranium mining and milling. And I mean it’s nice that he shows one shiny and clean temporary storage facility. While the other side shows some corroding barrels at the bottom of the ocean. Or inside of some leaky salt mine. That’s all just framing. His opponents make arguments and dig up numbers that make nuclear fission look bad, while he shows the one facility that looks clean and good on camera. Trying to bullshit his viewers into believing his framing. In reality he just disregards the existence of the other facts, which definitely also exist. He just doesn’t talk about it to make it look a certain way.

I think what we can agree on is that nuclear energy has a lower carbon footprint than fossil fuels. But in turn it generates hazardous waste. And it’s not renewable either. And the barrels in the video won’t last 5.000 years or 30.000 years. It’s going to be expensive handling all of this for tens of thousands of years. And nuclear fission energy already is more expensive than renewable energy, even without the storage factored in. It’s definitely an expensive and problematic option. And nuclear fission is temporary anyways. There is a limited supply of uranium on earth and it’s not even that much. Peak uranium is currently predicted to be at about 2035. (That might change. And Uranium 235 isn’t the only thing that can be used for nuclear fission, afaik.)

I’d say all of this says we should avoid relying on nuclear fission, starting now. Claiming it’s carbon neutral definitely is a lie. And if someone generates waste, they’re responsible to treat it. Energy price needs to factor in the 40.000 years of storage. Doing inspections on all of the barrels every few years for tens of thousands of years, topping up the helium inside, transferring the waste into new barrels every few hundred years once they become defective… Clearing leaky salt mines and transferring the waste into a new one. Making sure it never gets into the groundwater. Handling accidents and incidents. I think that has to be paid now by the people who actually use that energy. The cost of our current energy can’t be burdened upon the future thousands of generations of people. That’s why I’m opposed to it. Because how it currently works is: Generate “cheap” nuclear energy and let the taxpayer pay for the majority of the issues with it, while companies get their energy subsidized that way. All the problems with storage will have to be dealt with by future generations. We currently don’t have any good idea for permanent storage, but that isn’t stopping us from generating even more waste. We’re “investing” in a technology that is known not to last us into the next century, because the fuel is most likely used up by then. And we do all of that while we have better and cheaper options available. Those come with way less issues. They’re already cheap and there will be a massive payoff if we invest in them. But somehow we’re opposed to that?

And I think the perspective in the YouTube videos is very naive. Alike a 4 yo who thinks beef, chocolate and vegetables come from the supermarket. And the packaging vanishes in the trash bin and that’s it.

Actually, it’s billions of public dollars. And if we don’t find a proper permanent solution, it’s going to become more: https://sustainability.stanford.edu/news/steep-costs-nuclear-waste-us

Btw, wind turbines aren’t made of concrete, the towers are metal tubes. But the blades are problematic, since they’re made from fiberglass. And solar panels aren’t concrete either. While - if I drive past a nuclear power plant, those are really huge concrete structures. And the problematic things about hydro plants are the reservoirs. It’s flooding a vast area to build a new reservoir and changing the flow in the river that destroys ecosystems. The plant itself isn’t that bad. So ideally you build it into an existing flow of water or use tidal energy instead of building a new dam. And that concern wouldn’t apply. I’m not an expert on north american geography, but I bet there are some opportunities left for power plants with a lesser impact on the ecosystem.

For over a century, the standard way we’ve been disposing of hazardous materials […]

Until 1994, one standard way of disposing of radioactive waste was throwing it into the ocean. There are at least 90.000 containers that got dumped along the shores of the USA alone. (Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altlasten_in_den_Meeren#Atommüllverklappung )

I’d agree that “No solution is perfect” qualifies for the history of nuclear energy.

The question is, why do we look at recycling solar panels, but compare that to nuclear and ignore that these have to be decomissioned and dismantled, too? And the whole process of mining uranium etc. While it may be true that the depleted uranium is low in volume, that’s far from being the actual amount of waste in the end. You’d have to compare the entire lifecycle of the plant to the entire lifecycle of a solar panel. (And solar isn’t the best option anyways.) Also who’s paying for 40.000 years of storage of those 3 cubic meters? The power companies certainly aren’t.

Lol. Seems the nuclear lobby is here and down-voting everyone who likes progress.

I read renewable energy is way cheaper than nuclear energy. And it comes with a low carbon footprint and without nuclear waste. (We have some actual historical numbers in the World Nuclear Report P. 293 which show nuclear is pretty expensive compared to renewable these days.)

So the solution is pretty obvious. Sign a contract over a few billion dollars with renewable energy instead of nuclear. It’ll be cheaper anyways. And has the added benefit that it’s available now. Whereas the SMR startups still have to figure out a few engineering challenges. And we’d avoid all the nuclear waste that’ll become a problem for future generations. And I mean it’s not that uranium or the other ores are super abundant anyways. Nuclear fission is a temporary solution in the first place. And not a particularly good one.

And investing in renewable will then grow that industry and make the energy even cheaper.

Only downside I see is: you can’t build renewable (and the datacentre) anywhere. It’d have to be for example in Texas for solar, or close to the mountains or some water flow for hydro. Or somewhere windy or at the shore for wind energy. The latter two have the benefit that they’re available during the night, too. And I guess the USA has some minor potential for thermal energy, too. But I don’t consider this a major issue since we have internet pretty much everywhere. They’d just need to lay some more fibre network to the site.

I mean they seem to be still figuring this out… But isn’t the whole SMR harardous waste after it got decommissioned? That depends a bit on the technology used. But that’d be a huge pile of mildly radioactive steel, plumbing and concrete in addition to the depleted fuel, which is highly radioactive. And as far as I know the re-use to get the rest of the energy out also isn’t solved yet. I mean obviously that should be done. Only taking out parts of the energy and wasting the rest isn’t very efficient. Sadly that seems to be exactly what we’re doing in reality.

A nuclear fission power plant generates about as much CO2 as wind turbines if you have a look at it’s whole lifecycle. That’s because just operation doesn’t generate CO2. But nonetheless that power plant is made from materials like lots of concrete. It needs to be built, decommissioned, etc. You need to mine the uranium ore, … All of that generates quite some CO2. So it’s far off from being carbon neutral. And we already have alternatives that are in the same ballpark as a nuclear power plant with that. Just that the fission also generates this additional nuclear waste that is a nightmare to deal with. And SMRs are less efficient than big nuclear power plants. So they’ll be considerably less “clean” than for example regenerative energy. I’d say they’re definitely not amongst the cleanest energy sources we have today. That’d be something like a hydroelectric power. However, it’s way better than oil or natural gas or coal. At least if comparing CO2 emissions.

I’m not so sure about that. We already had to pay a lot of taxpayers’ money to fix bad issues with those storage facilities. And it’s just been a few decades with at least tens of thousands of years to go. That could become very, very expensive. And nasty to deal with for future generations.

I’d say just burying your waste where no one can see it isn’t a good solution. Neither is just dumping it into the ocean. And knowing a worse alternative doesn’t make it right.

You’re correct, burning yet more oil and coal and putting that CO2 into the atmosphere isn’t a viable option either. That’d ruin the climate and be unhealthy for us.

“clean energy”

Don’t nuclear power plants produce waste which is highly problematic because it’s hazardous and radioactive? I wouldn’t call that clean. And SMRs generate even more waste than big nuclear plants.

Meh. You’re right… However… Most things will run either Doom or Linux (or both). And nobody cares whether they have been designed to do it, or not. 🐧

I have Linux (OpenWRT) running on a router with 64MB RAM and 16MB of flash storage. And it works flawlessy. Also have Linux on a second WiFi router, my TV (LG WebOS), one phone, a laptop and a computer. (And I forgot about the Raspberry Pi and the VPS.)

Sure. I think there are some areas where self-hosting is kinda mandatory because other solutions don’t fulfill my requirements. But I don’t think a password manager is part of that. It stores the passwords encrypted in the cloud anyways, $0-$10 a year isn’t much and I think Bitwarden has a good track record and you’ll be supporting them. Self-hosting is a nice hobby and I think integral part of a free and democratic culture on the internet. But it doesn’t have to be every tiny tool and everyone. Do it if you like, otherwise it’s fine if you support open source projects by paying a fair price if you want convenience and they offer a good hosted service.

Lots of people like and recommend Bitwarden. I think followed by KeePass on second place.

I self-host stuff because I can, because I learn something while doing it and it gives me control. And I’m running that server anyways, so I might as well install one more service on it. If you don’t want to spend your time managing and maintaining servers and services, go for the official (paid) service. That’ll do, too.

If you’re worried about your internet connection going down, either use a VPS in a datacenter or just use software that syncs to your devices. I think Bitwarden does that, your passwords will be available without an internet connection to your server. They just won’t get synced until the server is reachable again.

You’re right. it’s uBlock or some other addition that removes the pre-roll ads. But googling for Sponsorblock is a good start to find such apps. I even got some patched youtube app for my TV… So it’s no ads for me and not even sponsored segments. Not on the computer, not on my phone and neither on the TV.

try sponsorblock or uBlock. Or some other third party apps. I’ve decided the inconvenience of watching youtube in a browser (with addons) outweighs the inconvenience of watching several long ads. At least for me.