compostgoblin

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago (3 children)

The solutions look a lot different for the real loneliness epidemic than a “male loneliness epidemic”. You fix the first by creating more walkable cities, more third places you can be without needing to spend money, and giving people the time and money they need to go out, do things, and socialize.

The proposed solutions for the “male loneliness epidemic” seem to be a lot more like shitty men saying “women need to lower their standards and be okay with being my therapist/mom/girlfriend, while I change nothing about myself”

[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Littering, especially cigarette butts. Nothing sends me into a blind rage faster than seeing someone flick a cigarette butt out their car window. Not littering is SO easy, the bar is on the floor, and yet so many people just don’t care at all.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I am a trans woman who was raised Catholic, so I feel similarly. I’ve had to do so much work in therapy just to get to a place where I can accept myself for who I am. A lot of those old beliefs were baked in deeper than I realized.

I carry a lot of resentment towards my (very devout) parents for raising me in the church, but I also recognize my experience is not emblematic of every person’s experience being raised in a religious household.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Oh, not too bad. Feeling annoyed with my hair, today. I’ve been growing it out, and it’s about shoulder length now. However, when I started to grow it out, I did it with an undercut. Now I’m trying to grow the undercut out to have all my hair the same length, and it’s at an awkward stage right now. I can’t really put my hair back, because the disconnect is too stark and the undercut is awkward length. But my hair gets greasy after like a day, so wearing it down means I have to stay really on top of washing it. Not the end of the world to deal with for a few months, but just kind of obnoxious

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Gang stalking is not real. I recommend reaching out to a therapist as a first step. If there are other resources you need, they’ll be able to help you get them too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Gilchrist? No, he’s the current lieutenant governor.

Mayor Duggan running as an independent is going to make things interesting - I have a feeling he’s going to drag down whoever the Democrat is more than he will the Republican, unless/until he drops out. Barring anything there, I think the Republicans being in charge nationally is going to be a boon for state-level Dems - the backlash to Trump 1.0 was a big part of the blue wave in 2018 when Whitmer was elected the first time around.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 4 months ago

Right now, nothing, really. There’s a lot of confusion and volatility at the moment, so I’m trying to keep a cool head rather than react blindly. I’m going to keep my head down at work, keep contributing to my 401k like normal, not make major unexpected purchases, and maybe re-up on some bulk staples. If shit keeps getting worse, I’ll adapt from there

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Pass. Anyone the Dems field will be better than him. I’d be perfectly happy with Gilchrist or Benson

[–] [email protected] 204 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Honestly? Sounds like a pretty decent life path

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Ah shit, is there a ban on politics questions? Sorry. I’m almost always on mobile, so I miss stuff in sidebars a lot

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

When I started my most recent job, I insisted on getting a separate work cell phone. I don’t have any work stuff on my personal cell, and I don’t bring my work phone or laptop home unless I think there’s a snow storm and I’ll need to work from home. Otherwise, it all stays sitting on my desk. If there’s an emergency or I’m out sick, my boss has my personal cell number, but I otherwise keep a pretty rigid wall in between work and home - it helps a lot

 
 
 

A Michigan nuclear plant is looking to make history not once but twice over: First by restarting a reactor shuttered in 2022 and second with newly solidified plans to build the nation’s first small modular reactors.

Holtec International — the nuclear company best known for decommissioning shuttered plants and manufacturing the canisters that store spent fuel — bought the Palisades nuclear plant on the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan a month after utility giant Entergy took the financially troubled single-reactor facility offline.

Last year, the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office finalized a deal to give Holtec $1.52 billion to bring the 55-year-old, 800-megawatt pressurized water reactor back online. The company wants to plug the facility back into the grid by the end of this year.

Now Holtec plans to nearly double the electricity output from Palisades by building two of its own small modular reactors, or SMRs, at the site.

On Tuesday, top executives gathered at the facility in Covert Township, Michigan, to unveil blueprints for adding a pair of its proprietary SMR-300s and announce Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. — the South Korean firm already working with the Florida-based Holtec to develop its 300-MW units internationally — as its partner in the debut U.S. project. Completing the reactor would be a first not just for the country but the company. While Holtec has disassembled reactors, it has yet to build one, much less its own design.

“If we can’t do it, I don’t know who else is going to do it,” Rick Springman, the president of Holtec’s Global Clean Energy Opportunities division, told Canary Media ahead of the event. ​“I really think we can be the horse America can ride to a clean-energy future and to enable AI and everything else we want to do in this global competition.”

First, Holtec will need the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval of its reactor design.

So far, the U.S. federal regulator has only approved one SMR, Oregon-based NuScale Power’s 50 MW unit. The first plant designed around NuScale’s reactors, a 720 MW station built on property owned by the Idaho National Laboratory to provide power to ratepayers in Utah, was scrapped in November 2023 amid rising costs.

2024 marked a breakout year for nuclear power in the U.S., as Congress passed new legislation to streamline reactor regulations, Microsoft put up $16 billion to reopen the mothballed unit at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island, and SMR developers lined up major deals with Amazon and Google.

Yet no SMR developer got the green light from the NRC to become the nation’s second certified design.

“Most of our competitors are essentially offering the technology but don’t want to take any risk,” Springman said.

In other words, those developers will design and license the technology and make money off the intellectual property, he said, but utilities and construction firms must provide the financing, time, and materials.

“You have this stagnation where no one wants to stand behind the project,” Springman said. ​“Enter Holtec. We can manufacture the parts, build the plant, and arrange the financing for the project. We can also manage the spent fuel … and we can decommission the plant at end of life. We can do the entire spectrum of the project. There’s no U.S. company that can offer all of that.”

 
 
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