Might be better news if the world wasn’t on fire one minute, and besieged by hurricanes the next minute.
this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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Oh don't be such a downer! I least we have...
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Ummm...
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- sobs uncontrollably -
There there. Little comfort, but least you have a clever username.
And the nuke fanboys will still be fantasising about building a couple of thousand new nukes.
To be fair a couple thousand nukes could solve the cliamte crisis too.
Nothing counteracts global warming more effectively than a nuclear winter!
Why not both ?
I don't think I've seen any long term scenario with only nuclear and no solar energy.
On the other hand adding a bit of nuclear in the mix can really help to reduce the amount of solar panel needed.
The simulation done for France show that 13% of nuclear in the grid can roughly divide by almost two the amount of solar, batteries and thermal power station needed compared to a 100% renewables energies simulation.
The amount of Batterie and Solar between M0 (100% renewable) and M23 (87 % renewable and 13 % nuclear with a Fokus on solar over Wind) is almost the same tough.
Where do you see a dividig by two?
M0 uses 26GW of batteries and 208GW of solar panels.
M23 uses 13GW of batteries and 125GW of solar panels.
Battery tech isn't at the point where solar can support us during the night and on overcast days. Nuclear is still the most efficient, reliable, and safe form of power production, and modern reactors not built near areas of great geologic activity are very unlikely to cause any kind of nuclear accident.
Geothermal is great steady state load option that is also renewable, with no nuclear downsides. New systems use oil/gas drilling tech to dig large closed loops anywhere that output power in the 10MW range.
This is sick as fuck, I hope this actually ends up being viable because this blows other solutions out of the water. Genuinely did not know about this and I'm willing to bet most others don't either.
Batteries are already cheaper than nuclear.
The point is that it's simply impossible to build enough nuclear reactors in time to have a meaningful impact on climate change. Even if somebody read crazy enough to put up the money for it. Which nobody is, so the whole discussion is pointless anyway.
It's less about building new and more about not shutting down old. But building new nuclear would also be a great deal better for the environment than building more coal- and natural gas-burning power plants, even if deployment is over a longer timespan. Solar panels only last a few decades, by the time the nuclear plants are done being commissioned the first waves of solar panels being installed today will already be too old. We don't need enough built to singlehandedly cover our energy needs, we just need enough to price out fossil fuels for good. Nuclear is supplemental to renewable.
And about putting up the funding, the whole point is to sway public opinion so public funds get used how the public wants them to be used. Nobody is relying on private investors to make the change carbon-free electricity while coal is still the cheapest option for reliable power.
There are other ways to store energy than batteries.
No, the definition of a battery is a device that stores energy. Not all batteries are electrochemical cells, but any way you store energy is a battery.
Nuclear is the future!
No, really, if we start work today we'll generate our first new nuclear electricity in about 25 years!
What's better, quickly manufactured and deployed renewable capacity every year for 25 years, or just burning coal at the same rate until we get our reactors approved, planned, constructed, certified and ready to go in 25 years?
The solar panels still win out both economically and environmentally.
So let’s just stick with them rather than try that failed experiment again.
The point is to wait those 25 years so the fossil fuel industry can still maintain their profits. That's what all the disinformation about nukes is about.
What about investing billions in renewables energy, installing solar panels and wind turbines everywhere over 25 years, closing existing nuclear plants and still have one of the dirtiest electricity in Europe because we are still buying coal like there is no tomorrow ?
This is the path chosen by Germany.
Solar and nuclear are not competing energy, they are complementing each other and we should use both whenever it's possible.
I don't understand the anti nuclear position when the real issue is fossil fuel, especially coal.
Well, Germany is one of the biggest industies and economies in Europe. Germany has been emitting the most CO2 of all EU countries in 2000 and in 2023. Nuclear has never played a major role, but solar and Wind has exploded over the last 25 years, while coal has stayed stable. So the growth in demand over the last 25 years has been covered almost completely by renewables.
France is by the way on the forth Position if it comes to CO2 pollution in the EU. But to be fair they ennited about 10 % in 2023 while Germany contributed about 25 %. And on a per capital base Germany is doing pretty bad to, so it defnetly has to transition away from coal.
That won't be towards nuclear tough. Germany will further expand it's renewable Sector and some day get rid of its coal. Are they to slow with that? Absolutely. Is nuclear the answer to that? No.
Investing 25 years into nuclear allows the fossil fuel industry to continue existing for longer, which is why they're pushing nuclear.
Besides, the path France took is having to shut down their nuclear plants due to a lack of cooling water, caused by extremely hot and dry summers. Nuclear is becoming an increasingly unviable alternative, until we figure out fusion at least.
Meanwhile solar and wind are becoming increasingly more viable by the day.
France is shutting down some reactors during the hot summers. The reactors being shut down are the one that reject water directly into the river after passing through the cooling circuit. They shut down to avoid rising the river temperature, the river are already hotter than they should be so they try to mitigate this ecological issue.
Most of the reactors use cooling towers that don't have this issue since the water is not sent back.
Then they also do that because July and August are the month with the lowest electrical consumption anyway and solar is going strong. So closing few reactors will not have any negative impacts. In winter on the other hand all the reactors needs to be functional.
I don't understand the last part of your message about fusion, in this case fusion does not change anything. Fusion would use even more water so the problem would be even worst.
On the other hand climate change is impacting renewables every too. Storms are getting stronger and less predictable which can cause some serious damage on solar panel and wind turbines. Having a reliable electric production in the context of climate change is not trivial.
I absolutely agree that we should build nuclear as well as renewable.
But the argument is one or the other, the people advocating for nuclear are advocating in bad faith to undermine renewables, few to none are advocating for both.
I personally seeing mostly the opposite, people advocating for renewable trying to undermine nuclear.
On the other hand I don't see anyone pushing a nuclear scenario that does not include a lot of renewables too.
You're either not paying attention or just being dishonest now mate.