Good Lord, we’ve had the MMR vaccine since what, the 60s? What’s wrong with people?

I guess the problem is there aren’t so many people today who still remember a pre-vaccine world. I asked my dad about it. He got the mumps when he was a kid. Missed a year of school and had to retake the 3rd grade. He also sustained permanent hearing damage.

The idea is that an insurance company deals exclusively with one or several pharmacies in exchange for lower costs. Steve Morgan, a professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and an expert on pharmacare systems, said that “we don’t know exactly how much of the savings that are generated get passed on to the consumer at the end of the day.”

Oh I have a pretty good idea about that…

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Somehow I’m already seeing ads on Prime. Must be some channel my wife subscribed us to?

Bear in mind that there is going to be nimby opposition to pretty much any new power project. I’ve seen it where I live with wind farms, for example, and it unfortunately does work, leading to delays, downscaling, and outright cancellation. I guess the thing is that with nuclear or hydro, you tend to run into a few colossal battles to get the things built, whereas with wind, you’re looking at hundreds of smaller clashes. Solar seems a little less contentious, but it’s also the least reliable energy source, meaning you will have to look at large-scale energy storage projects which, again, will attract a nimby element.

Cutting/deferring carbon taxes is such a bad idea. It sends the wrong message. There should be no exemptions. This is the cost per tonne of carbon. Period.

If there is a segment of the population who suffer disproportionately due to the tax, you compensate them by providing a larger share of the rebates. This already happens with rural residents who have higher costs and fewer options in terms of transportation.

Now let’s say you lived down east and took out a loan to replace your oil furnace with a heat pump. You figured an increase in the rebate that would come with the promised carbon tax hike would help you pay it down. But then they decide to defer the tax (and therefore the rebate) instead. It’s a betrayal.

Personally, I have a fair amount of faith in the CANDU design. The fact that they can operate using unenriched uranium is itself comforting relative to light water designs, and they employ a number of passive safeguards that would have prevented a Fukushima or what have you.

That said, I think we as Canadians tend to forget that most of us live near the border and there are nuclear plants on the other side as well. For example, where I live, the nearest plant is on the other side of Lake Ontario in upstate NY, as opposed to Darlington or Pickering as you might expect. And it might as well be the sister plant of Fukushima in terms of its design.

At any rate, though, I am generally supportive of building more reactors if done right.

Aw man. He’s one of these artists I was just getting back into recently. I didn’t know about all his collaborations with fellow indigenous performers until a couple of weeks ago, but there’s some good stuff in his later albums!

I was pleasantly surprised to discover our local Costco has a bike rack! It could be oriented more towards employees than customers given its location closer to the employee entrance, but I’ve always thought of it as a car-oriented place given their bulk sales focus. I have been there by bike to pick up small items like pharmaceuticals, batteries, etc. and it’s nice to not have to fight for a parking spot on a busy Saturday.

Good read. Thanks for posting this.

Omg I can’t believe that is an actual product. Though tbh I know some people who would buy it.

Once upon a time, I drove to the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia. It’s a radio telescope observatory in the middle of nowhere. Around the facility is a no radio/wifi/cellular zone to help reduce noise the telescopes would pick up. But when I got there, I noticed there was a village nearby full of literal tin-hat-wearing conspiracy types who make pilgrimages there to be in emf-free paradise. It was such a strange juxtaposition. You have some of the brightest minds in science coming to the observatory, and right next door, the bat shit crazy…

Reminds me of the lady who was taping up signs on lamp posts trying to get 5G banned in the neighbourhood.

I guess from a physics standpoint, one would expect an SMR to be somewhat less fuel efficient in that a nuclear reactor is essentially a furnace and the surface area to volume ratio favours a larger design to retain the heat. SMR proponents like to spin this as a “feature”, however, in that they would be less likely to meltdown and that safety trumps efficiency in reactor design. Another point they claim from the safety standpoint is that if you had say a dozen SMRs replacing a single traditional reactor, you could routinely take one off-line for inspection/maintenance without a huge hit on power generation.

I don’t know enough about this and most of what I read is anecdotal though, so take it with a grain of salt. There may still be a case for them in northern communities, many of which are off the grid and use large diesel/gas generators? I guess it would depend on how well SMRs can follow load, which has tended to be a problem with nuclear power.

I’ve heard there is talk of adding new reactors at the Bruce site, though it’s basically only that at this point. Talk. Do you think they would not be of the CANDU/heavy water design? That would be unfortunate. I’ve always felt we had good tech but abysmal management in the nuclear sector.

Sounds about right. But I worry about the nimby backlash to all this. Where I am in eastern Ontario, there is already blowback (if you’ll pardon the expression) to wind power, let alone more traditionally contentious options like nuclear and hydro dams.