I Suggest We Hold on Tightly!!! Taiwan Faces Groundwater Drought, Possibly Cutting Water Supply to Chipmakers

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, asquirrel said:

Eh, Japan has had nuclear power for decades and been fine. Fukushima happened largely due to:

1. Operator greed

2. Regulatory capture (It's common practice for CEOs to take high paying jobs with regulatory bodies after they serve a few years as CEOs. This is bad. Very, very bad.)

3. Lack of upgrades / maintenance / implementation of best practices/lessons learned from other worldwide nuclear incidents. For example, the Fukushima reactors didn't have the hydrogen vent pipes required by law in all US reactors after Three Mile Island.

 

Taiwan currently has no plans to build new nuclear specifically because of Fukushima, but I think that will get rolled back because they figured out pretty quick that they can't just not have nuclear power. They literally cannot afford to lose it.

 

In terms of density, a nuclear site is physically smaller than a coal plant of the same generating capacity, so, if anything, nuclear is a better use of land. Waste storage is a problem until you start building fast spectrum breeder reactors that can burn that waste as fuel. The problem with fast spectrum reactors is that they are also really really good at making nuclear bomb material. Which the world generally frowns on (see aforementioned rant on 'why can't we stop trying to kill each other with radiation...')

 

Great question. So Taiwan is one country, and China is another. I understand China doesn't see it that way, and gets super mad if anyone talks about Taiwan being its own thing, but frankly, they can suck my left nut.

They banned all nuclear power plants in their nation and are decommissioning the ones they have.  You may think it’s silly but apparently they don’t. 

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, StDragon said:

Get ready for another toilet paper shortage.

I dunno.  I read the toilet paper thing was a Japanese meme run amok.  Japanese aren’t real affected by this one.

[StDragon]

20 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I dunno.  I read the toilet paper thing was a Japanese meme run amok.  Japanese aren’t real affected by this one.

Bidet? Nothing says "quality control" like confirmation on paper...

[Gamer4714]

The situation never comes in side of Gamers. I guess Companies like Nvidia, AMD and Intel would have to go for other chipmakers now. So I think what Linus said was right. Even if he did not calculate the wait including natural disasters. So until  2 or 3 years we're stuck with the current hardware in stock

[Rauten]

Wasn't this already reported a while back?  I feel like I've read about this like, a month ago or so.

[thechinchinsong]

On 3/28/2021 at 10:05 PM, asquirrel said:

Eh, Japan has had nuclear power for decades and been fine. Fukushima happened largely due to:

1. Operator greed

2. Regulatory capture (It's common practice for CEOs to take high paying jobs with regulatory bodies after they serve a few years as CEOs. This is bad. Very, very bad.)

3. Lack of upgrades / maintenance / implementation of best practices/lessons learned from other worldwide nuclear incidents. For example, the Fukushima reactors didn't have the hydrogen vent pipes required by law in all US reactors after Three Mile Island.

 

Taiwan currently has no plans to build new nuclear specifically because of Fukushima, but I think that will get rolled back because they figured out pretty quick that they can't just not have nuclear power. They literally cannot afford to lose it.

 

In terms of density, a nuclear site is physically smaller than a coal plant of the same generating capacity, so, if anything, nuclear is a better use of land. Waste storage is a problem until you start building fast spectrum breeder reactors that can burn that waste as fuel. The problem with fast spectrum reactors is that they are also really really good at making nuclear bomb material. Which the world generally frowns on (see aforementioned rant on 'why can't we stop trying to kill each other with radiation...')

I mean a lot about nuclear is good in theory, but its precisely those factors you've listed above that make things complicated for Nuclear. It'll take years, maybe decades for any new nuclear plant to be pushed through nuclear regulations, insurance, contracting, and then finally the actual construction. What many are moving towards are quick deployment of things like solar farms and wind turbines (although in terms of power density, it doesn't apply well to Taiwan). There are small next-gen nuclear plants available, but again, even if construction and deployment are faster for those, they are still quite a ways off due to regulatory and other factors.

 

I don't know how well Taiwan is positioned to take advantage of renewables, but even if Solar is out of the question, it makes sense to me an island nation like Taiwan can rely on a lot of wind and tidal generation a lot quicker than nuclear. Believe, me I'd love it if everyone got on board with the gen 4 nuclear reactors and started building them now, but there are not only social pressures and corruption preventing further deployment, but in many places, renewables can make more financial sense, even taking account the limitations of battery storage.