Figure 1. Helicopter taking reading above TMI vent stack. Engineers are taught from day one everything's a trade off, that their job is to balance one desirable (eg performance) against another (eg safety). They must find a way to compare apples with oranges. To do that, they are told they must think quantitatively. This indoctrination is necessary because this way of thinking is not natural to humans. Rational numbers are usually traced back to Pythagoras, a mere 2500 years ago. Much before that, all we had was simple counting.
PART of the argument depends on nuclear being cheaper. The first part about no damage would remain true. Don't understate your case! Mrs. Gorman probably wouldn't understand or care about the comparative cost --> wealth --> health part.
Not really. If nuclear is expensive enough and Vogtle looks like something north of 15 cents/kWh, the decrease in real Georgian wealth relative to gas at something less than 7 cents/kWH could have more health effect than the lack of pollution. Mrs Gorman might not care, but she should, especially if she's a low income ratepayer.
One of my favorite personal stories goes back to Xmas of '73. Xmas of my freshman year, was the first year for new hot calculators. One guy down the hall got a spanking new--and very expensive--Texas Instruments "Electronic Slide Rule." A bunch of guys were in his room gushing over it and I walked in and punched in 2x2. The answer came out. 3.99999. . . I showed it to him and he was just absolutely crestfallen. Of course, I pointed out to him that it was a simple mathematical proof to show that 3.99999. . . . was equal to 4.0000000 or any other finite definition of 4--viz: repeating decimals are rational numbers. (It didn't seem to cheer him up;-) Because of the "Xmas of the Calculators" in our first week of physics in January of '74, someone immediately asked the professor if we all needed to buy calculators. He said that there would be no calculations on any exam with more than 3 significant digits. He went on to say that there is NO REAL WORLD EXAMPLE of a REAL WORLD PROBLEM with more than three significant digits. For years I have thought about that and the older I get, the more I believe that is really close to the mark. So for the remainder of my time as an undergrad, I used a slide rule. Meanwhile, in parallel with that thinking, at Cornell they used to really beat into your head the concept of calculating error propagation. I believe that ONE of the greatest problems with science today is the failure to even genuflect to the concept of error propagation. Even NASA gets screwed up with these concepts as illustrated with the history their preposterous use of pi calculated to the a ridiculous specificity. Layer this in with the fact that the typical scientist simply does not understand the use of statistics, and you get stupid stuff like LNT. Some time ago, a wag calculated that based upon his statistical calculations, every time he crossed the street 20 times he shortened his life by 5 minutes. The failure of the typical scientist to understand error propagation and even basic statistics is one reason that over 2/3 of all published results are non-repeatable, and for the last decade, hardly a month goes by without someone writing an article with a title something like: "Is science broken?"
Sounds like The nrc answering questions at Indian point decommissioning to the ANTI'S in the room just like Arnold leaving a bunch of doubts and confirming the ANTI's fears. This was back in the summer of 2023 and New York will not allow HOLTEC to discharge any harmless Trinitium water into the Hudson. The NRC believes in LNT. Thus any level of radiation exposure is a second to a minute to an hour off of one's life and all radiation exposure causes harm. The ANTI'S love this narrative. With $$$2.3 Billion a year in ANTI'S Spending NUCLEAR is perpetually a FLOP in usa but not in CHINA#1, WHERE NUCLEAR WILL BE CHEAP BY A SUPERIOR CIVILIZATION.
I probably would have just said “relax, your family is gonna be fine lady, next question”
Of course that is why I am not in PR. However at least my answer would have been correct rather than just mealy mouthed BS.
PART of the argument depends on nuclear being cheaper. The first part about no damage would remain true. Don't understate your case! Mrs. Gorman probably wouldn't understand or care about the comparative cost --> wealth --> health part.
Max,
Not really. If nuclear is expensive enough and Vogtle looks like something north of 15 cents/kWh, the decrease in real Georgian wealth relative to gas at something less than 7 cents/kWH could have more health effect than the lack of pollution. Mrs Gorman might not care, but she should, especially if she's a low income ratepayer.
One of my favorite personal stories goes back to Xmas of '73. Xmas of my freshman year, was the first year for new hot calculators. One guy down the hall got a spanking new--and very expensive--Texas Instruments "Electronic Slide Rule." A bunch of guys were in his room gushing over it and I walked in and punched in 2x2. The answer came out. 3.99999. . . I showed it to him and he was just absolutely crestfallen. Of course, I pointed out to him that it was a simple mathematical proof to show that 3.99999. . . . was equal to 4.0000000 or any other finite definition of 4--viz: repeating decimals are rational numbers. (It didn't seem to cheer him up;-) Because of the "Xmas of the Calculators" in our first week of physics in January of '74, someone immediately asked the professor if we all needed to buy calculators. He said that there would be no calculations on any exam with more than 3 significant digits. He went on to say that there is NO REAL WORLD EXAMPLE of a REAL WORLD PROBLEM with more than three significant digits. For years I have thought about that and the older I get, the more I believe that is really close to the mark. So for the remainder of my time as an undergrad, I used a slide rule. Meanwhile, in parallel with that thinking, at Cornell they used to really beat into your head the concept of calculating error propagation. I believe that ONE of the greatest problems with science today is the failure to even genuflect to the concept of error propagation. Even NASA gets screwed up with these concepts as illustrated with the history their preposterous use of pi calculated to the a ridiculous specificity. Layer this in with the fact that the typical scientist simply does not understand the use of statistics, and you get stupid stuff like LNT. Some time ago, a wag calculated that based upon his statistical calculations, every time he crossed the street 20 times he shortened his life by 5 minutes. The failure of the typical scientist to understand error propagation and even basic statistics is one reason that over 2/3 of all published results are non-repeatable, and for the last decade, hardly a month goes by without someone writing an article with a title something like: "Is science broken?"
Sounds like The nrc answering questions at Indian point decommissioning to the ANTI'S in the room just like Arnold leaving a bunch of doubts and confirming the ANTI's fears. This was back in the summer of 2023 and New York will not allow HOLTEC to discharge any harmless Trinitium water into the Hudson. The NRC believes in LNT. Thus any level of radiation exposure is a second to a minute to an hour off of one's life and all radiation exposure causes harm. The ANTI'S love this narrative. With $$$2.3 Billion a year in ANTI'S Spending NUCLEAR is perpetually a FLOP in usa but not in CHINA#1, WHERE NUCLEAR WILL BE CHEAP BY A SUPERIOR CIVILIZATION.