[mirko22]

We could have had nuclear airplanes and clean nuclear energy decades ago but here we are burning coal to power our EVs and acting like air traveling is something to be ashamed of…

Jokes aside, I don’t see how this should work, people with lowest income wont be able to travel yet everyone else will Pay the ticket and go on their marry way. People pay 20$ to select the seat, they will pay 20 more in some made up tax to get where they want to go…

[netsharc]

> people with lowest income wont be able to travel yet everyone else will Pay the ticket and go on their marry way.

I was discussing with an older friend the other week, we stumbled on the realization (maybe it's obvious) that progressing up the well-being ladder means consuming more energy and CO2, compare living in an unelectrified village with bathing in the river, and just sitting around with your friends for entertainment; with a villa with a hot shower, TV, and food flown from all over the world.

We were also discussing about how sad it is that when he was a travelling young man, he could still visit the "authentic" places, i.e. places with huts and no electricity, paved roads, or cars, but as time goes on those places now have brick buildings, TV, air-conditioning and asphalted roads, which is what the people living there wanted and got.

Now the poorer people of the world are screaming about the rich west saying "You've enjoyed all the luxuries and now you want to make it more expensive because 'save the planet', the one you ruined gaining all those luxuries? Not with us!". Even the working class French screamed about proposed increase of gasoline taxes...

[OfSanguineFire]

It’s normal to enjoy development if you come from a less privileged country. But it sometimes happens that consumers in those countries specifically demand examples of development that are more polluting than others, purely for the sake of social status. Think being able to buy a perfectly decent modern, fuel-efficient car, but instead buying a low-gas-mileage SUV because that lets them look like a big man to their community.

Suggesting to those consumers that they avoid the mistakes that the West made, and just leapfrog straight to the modern, efficient tech, is a bit like suggesting average Americans take public transportation: “What, you want me to do something poor people do?”

[flangola7]

>Nuclear airplanes

I zealously shill the values of nuclear power 7 days a week, but unless we discover a physics revelation nuclear airplanes are a horrible concept.

There are no forms of nuclear power production existing or theoretical which don't involve health-hazardous amounts of radioactive material. Even hydrogen fusion reactors activate the housing walls with neutrons. Miracle on the Hudson would have been much less miraculous if it meant terabecquerels of activity floating downstream.

[mirko22]

As far as I know, in the 50ies the molten salt reactors where researched exactly with long range airplanes in mind.

My point is that for decades we didn’t invest enough into nuclear research in fear of nuclear weapons that all we are doing now is trying to put a band aid on the severed hand.

But maybe I just read too much Assimov…

[JumpCrisscross]

> people with lowest income wont be able to travel yet everyone else will Pay the ticket and go on their marry way

Yes? Presumably that will create latent demand for other modes of transport (or local leisure).

[datadrivenangel]

It took me a minute to see the /s.

Nuclear power is a great idea. With heavy heavy heavy shielding that is. Maybe even worth using it to synthesize fuel for airplanes. But don't stick it on a plane.