Great conversation. Optimistic for solar, wind and batteries. But I am really much less optimistic for large transmission projects, which are badly needed.
13:26 root causes. Basically, the way our societies reward overconfidence, bullshitting and lying in decision making and in selecting project proposals is detrimental to the selection of other better projects with more realistic delivery and less sexy proposals. 😅 This issue has also been observed in hiring processes. Interviews and current selection systems tend to lead to the hiring of overconfident people, not necessarily correlating with their level of skills or intelligence.
I'm not anti nuclear per se, but have to query the wisdom of going hell for leather down a path of the so-called Small Modular Reactors (SMR), that, at least in the UK, will be located in coastal areas. Since the increasing frequency & severity of climate change induced storms is well modelled & documented, I find it hard to see how its possible to engineer SMRs with sufficient resilience to withstand such climate change driven events without having some sort of Fukushima accident, particularly as these plants near the end of their lives after say, 50yrs, and we may find that coastal erosion & inundation is far worse than the models predicted; here is where the optimism bias discussed in the podcast fits in. Can you just imagine if my concern came to pass? The sheer cost and complexity of shutting down, dismantling and disposal would be astronomical and doesn't that doesn't even take into account the impact on the economy of a large scale energy shortfall should any country find itself in the position of having to do this at the multi plant level.
Another concern, as France has recently experienced, is that cooling systems for nuclear power plants don’t like the hot weather that we are experiencing more and more. Either not enough water in rivers, or not cold enough, and you can’t cool the reactors down and have to turn them down/off…
@@Nikoo033 Exactly. And this isn't just an issue France faces either. Just look how low the Danube and the Rhine rivers ran past year and in previous years.
Great conversation. Optimistic for solar, wind and batteries. But I am really much less optimistic for large transmission projects, which are badly needed.
13:26 root causes.
Basically, the way our societies reward overconfidence, bullshitting and lying in decision making and in selecting project proposals is detrimental to the selection of other better projects with more realistic delivery and less sexy proposals.
😅
This issue has also been observed in hiring processes. Interviews and current selection systems tend to lead to the hiring of overconfident people, not necessarily correlating with their level of skills or intelligence.
Climate policies ought to have a risk register.
I'm not anti nuclear per se, but have to query the wisdom of going hell for leather down a path of the so-called Small Modular Reactors (SMR), that, at least in the UK, will be located in coastal areas. Since the increasing frequency & severity of climate change induced storms is well modelled & documented, I find it hard to see how its possible to engineer SMRs with sufficient resilience to withstand such climate change driven events without having some sort of Fukushima accident, particularly as these plants near the end of their lives after say, 50yrs, and we may find that coastal erosion & inundation is far worse than the models predicted; here is where the optimism bias discussed in the podcast fits in.
Can you just imagine if my concern came to pass? The sheer cost and complexity of shutting down, dismantling and disposal would be astronomical and doesn't that doesn't even take into account the impact on the economy of a large scale energy shortfall should any country find itself in the position of having to do this at the multi plant level.
Another concern, as France has recently experienced, is that cooling systems for nuclear power plants don’t like the hot weather that we are experiencing more and more. Either not enough water in rivers, or not cold enough, and you can’t cool the reactors down and have to turn them down/off…
@@Nikoo033 Exactly. And this isn't just an issue France faces either. Just look how low the Danube and the Rhine rivers ran past year and in previous years.