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Given that solar and wind are cheaper, get built to schedule and far less likely to have cost overruns, this meme is bullshit.
Sure, nukes are great. But we need clean energy right the fuck now. Spending money on new nukes is inefficient when it could be spent on solar and wind.
The best strategies are rarely single trick. Energy should be diversely sourced.
Correct, but don't forget that renewables is an umbrella term.
If you use solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal and bioenenergy, you're diversified and it's all renewable. Add in storage and there's not much of an issue anymore.
Except having enough rare earth minerals to build all of that for all of the planets energy needs, forever.
Yup, except that part it's a great plan.
Are you really bringing up resource limitation when your point is energy sources that depend on finite fuel?
Besides, the current form of renewables is the best option we have right now, so we should put all efforts into that. Once we find something better, absolutely go for that.
Uranium is actually quite common on earth, hence it not being included in the rare Earth's minerals. Go get a shovel full of dirt. Anywhere on earth that shovel of dirt on average will contain something like a micro or nanogram of uranium. Shit's everywhere.
People just feel like there has to be a catch with renewable energy and latch onto the idea of rare earth metals. Besides cobalt having some use in some kinds of lithium batteries right now, theres not really rare earth stuff going into renewables. Solar panels are silicon and aluminum, wind turbines are simple machines connected to a magnet spinning inside coils of copper, lithium batteries are already being made with iron as the other component.
We already have 30% nukes. Right now we need more solar and wind. I’m not saying shut down nukes. They are good. They are just a waste of money and time to build new when we have cheaper and easier to produce alternatives.
Where is this that has 30% nuclear already?
This, this should be common sense, and I don't understand why it's not.
Okay, so, say I need some energy that's pretty dense in terms of the space that it takes up, say I need a large amount of constant energy draw, and say that I need a form of energy that's going to be pretty stable and not prone to variation in weather events. I.e. I seek to power a city. This isn't even really a far-fetched hypothetical, this is a pretty common situation. What energy source seems like the best for that? Basically, we're looking at hydropower, which generally has long term environmental problems itself, and is contextually dependant, or nuclear.
Solar also makes sense, wind energy also makes sense, for certain use cases. Say I have a very spread out population or I have a place where space is really not at a premium, as is the case with much of america, and america's startling lack of population density, that might be the case. But then, I kind of worry that said lack of population density in general is kind of it's own ongoing environmental crisis, and makes things much, much harder than they'd otherwise need to be.
I think the best metaphor for nuclear that I have is the shinkansen. I dunno what solar would be, in this metaphor, maybe bicycles or something. So, the shinkansen, when it was constructed, costed almost double it's expected cost and took longer then anyone thought it would and everybody fucking hated it, on paper. In practice, everybody loves that shit now, it goes super fast, and even though it should be incredibly dangerous because the trains are super light and have super powerful motors and no crash safety to speak of, they're pretty well-protected because the safety standards are well in place. It's something that's gone from being a kind of, theoretical idiot solution, to being something that actually worked out very well in practice.
If you were to propose a high speed rail corridor in the US, you would probably get the same problems brought up, as you might if you were to plan a nuclear site. Oh, NIMBYs are never gonna let you, it's too expensive, we lack the generational knowledge to build it, and we can patch everything up with this smaller solution in e-bikes and micromobility anyways. Then people don't pay attention to that singular, big encompassing solution, and the micromobility gets privatized to shit and ends up as a bunch of shitty electric rental scooters dumped in rivers and a bunch of rideshare apps that destroy taxi business. These issues which we bring up strike me as purely being political issues, rather than real problems. So, we lack generational knowledge, why not import some chinese guys to build some reactors, since they can do it so fast? Or, if we're not willing to deal with them, south korean?
I'm not saying we can't also do solar and renewables as well, sure, those also have political issues that we would need to deal with, and I am perfectly willing to deal with them as they come up and as it makes sense. If you actually want a sober analysis, though, we're going to need to look at all the different use cases and then come up with whichever one actually makes sense, instead of making some blanket statement and then kind of, poo-pooing on everything else as though we can just come up with some kind of one size fits all solution, which is what I view as really being the thing which got us into this mess. Oooh, oil is so energy dense, oooh, plastic is so highly performing and so cheap and we don't even have to set up any recycling or buyback schemes,
oooh, let's become the richest nation on the planet by controlling the purchasing of oil. We got lulled into a one size fits all solution that looked good at the time and was in hindsight was a large part in perhaps a civilization ending and ecologically costly mistake.
The global leader in solar and wind is China. As a result those things are now communism and we can't have them.
Global leader in nuclear is also China. They are actually building the reactors that cannot meltdown, but you also can't make weapons from them, and they can run on the nuclear waste we have already produced with the crappy cheap reactors we use. We designed the reactors that China is now building 60 fucking years ago, and just shelved the design.
Real patriots demand private investment in carbon capture only.
How is China so good at handling energy
They don't have to care about things like cost of the projects, NIMBYs, ecological or historical damage, or regulations
Renewables are cheaper per kwh, but it's yet to be seen if they're cheaper when you get to higher grid renewable percentages and need to involve massive grid storage.
In the US we already have something like 30% which alleviates pretty much all the storage concerns. For our dollar right now, solar and wind are the best place to invest.
Agree, but the leadtime is very long, so where's the best place to invest in 10 years? Hopefully the grid is much more renewable then.
Funny that you call them "Nukes". You really don't like the nuclear power plants if you call them the same as nuclear weapons.
dude I say nuke when I microwave things
That's the fun part about being in a place where you can hold a discussion. Some people don't agree with you, but they can still see the benefits of the option you are talking about or even agree that they are a great solution for now.
The funny this is that I was a nuke person for a long time, until the facts changed. Nukes were really great fifteen years ago. But solar and wind have surpassed them in terms of cost so my opinion changed. Good shit.
Windmil blades need to be replaced far more often than anything even half that expensive at nuclear facilities and require huge costs in chemicals and transportation. Off shore blades need even more frequent replacement. The best gelcoats in the world arent going to stave off salty air and water spray for long, and as soon as water gets in one small spot, the entire composite begins to delaminate. You don't pay as much down the line with nuclear and you dont have to worry about offsetting the carbon output of manufacturing new blades so frequently.
No, you just pay out the nose up front.
If I had money to invest in the energy sector, I don't know why I should pick nuclear. It's going to double its budget and take 10 years before I see a dime of return. Possibly none if it can't secure funding for the budget overrun, as all my initial investment will be spent.
A solar or wind farm will take 6-12 months and likely come in at or close to its budget. Why the hell would I choose nuclear?
Perhaps making the highest monetary ROI isn't the only thing to consider when it comes to energy generation during a climate crisis?
Then we just move the problem. Why should we do something that's going to take longer and use more labor? Especially skilled labor.
Money is an imperfect proxy for the underlying resources in many ways, but it about lines up in this case. To force the issue, there would have to be a compelling reason beyond straight money.
That reason ain't getting to 100% clean energy in a short time. There is another: building plants to use up existing waste rather than burying it.
Wdym skilled labor? I mean, nuclear mostly take bog standard constructions and the experts cannot be "repurposed" for renewables as well.
Nuclear is nothing bog standard. If it was, it wouldn't take 10 years. Almost every plant is a boutique job that requires lots of specialists. The Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design was meant to get around this. It didn't.
The experts can stay where they are: maintaining existing nuclear power.
Renewables don't take much skilled labor at all. It's putting solar panels on racks in a field, or hoisting wind blades up a tower (crane operation is a specialty, but not on the level of nuclear engineering).
I mean, it seems normal for big structure constructions to take 5 years at least..
About bog standard construction, I meant not standardized nuclear, but that many parts of it is just constructions
And 5 years is what nuclear projects have promised at the start over the years. Everyone involved knows this is a gross lie.
I guess you are talking about US, since 5 years is standard from beginning constructions.
Are solar and wind really "clean" energy? Everyone in this thread seems to ignore the costs of these methods.
Every modern wind turbine requires 60 gallons of highly synthetic oil to function, and it needs to be changed every 6 months. That's a lot of fossil fuel use.
Lithium mining for batteries is extremely destructive to the environment.
Production of solar panels burns lots of fuel and produces many heavy metals. Just like with nuclear waste, improper disposal of these toxic elements can be devastating to the environment.
Of course, solar and wind are a big improvement over coal and natural gas. I dont want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, I just want to be realistic about the downfalls of these methods.
I believe, with our current technology, that nuclear is our cleanest and greenest option.
Ok so, realistically, if we all agree on this today, when would new nuclear power plants begin generating electricity? With all the regulations which are in place today?
≈20-30 years, outside of China. They should have the first molten salt reactors being turned on in another 8 years or so, but they started those projects in 2020
If we "all agree" and do a moonshot construction plan we could have electricity in 8 years. This is a fantasy, tho.
Best case scenario in the real world is operational in 12 years.
In the capitalist hellscape here in the US, a reasonable expectation would be 18-20 years.
20 years also happens to be the lifespan of our wind turbines. In 20 years, all of the currently running wind turbine blades will be in a landfill and new ones will need to be manufactured to replace them.
No reasonable person is suggesting nuclear as a short-term option. It's a long term investment.
If you're going to do that, then also consider the co2 output of all the concrete needed for nuclear power plants.
And the environmental impact of mining and enriching the fuel.
You know renewables aren't even the same thing as nuclear right? renewables aren't consistent and it's currently not possible to store the renewables anywhere.
We already have over-capacity of renewables.
Spending money on more doesn't help when there's no where to put that energy.
I’m curious how you think adding nukes have an advantage here. You understand that nukes are not easily shut down? If we have a problem with an over abundance of energy, adding nukes to the grid only makes that problem worse.
No. Nukes make up the reliable baseload 24h/day
Have you any idea how a modern day grid functions?
The only other thing that can provide a reliable baseload 24h/day is hydro, which in upon itself is high $$$ to implement and has its own environmental issues.
You should familiarize yourself with the complexities of grid management.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHFZVn38dTM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66YRCjkxIcg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1BMWczn7JM
... it's currently not possible to store the renewables anywhere
Every time someone argues this, it's immediately obvious they haven't actually paid attention how the storage market has been progressing.
Next, you'll probably talk about problems with lithium, as if it's the only storage technology.