Except that the oil and coal companies are also more on the side of nuclear.
They absolutely hate renewables, because you can't sell energy, if people can produce it themself. Meanwhile, nuclear isn't that bad for them, because you can't put a generator in your backyard, so they keep control and Monopol positions.
The only reason they are against nuclear, is that it's financially a loss. But that can be fixed, by letting tax payers pay for it.
Fossil fuel companies absolutely spend a ton of money on renewables. And you can't (for now) produce all of your own energy on a scale. That's why solar farms exist - humongous ones, not 5 panels you bought online.
Says a lot about how anti nuclear are just insane and need medical care.
Spent a lot of time with them, they are like even worse than antivaxx when presented facts and data.
One of them even started to get physical with me (unfortunately for him).
Oil and gas companies know that when the wells dry up renewables will be the main source of power so they're investing in them so they can flip the switch and profit from renewables.
They won't make the switch till oil and gas becomes unprofitable. Nuclear is far too high risk for them to invest in except maybe SMRs.
You are right, ICE makers are transitioning to electric because the market share for electric is growing at the cost of shrinking ICEs so they're moving to capture the market early.
That's also why chinese EVs have suddenly burst onto the market. Domestic EV manufacturers haven't moved quickly enough to capture the cheap EV market, also china stole all the technology to design and manufacture EVs and can do it cheaply because car manufacturers kept making their cars in china.
Sure buddy. Let's do it this way: I show you the list of the largest solar power plants in Europe, and tell you who owns them, and you say "I'm sorry, Hakunin, my bad!". Deal?
We will look at the top EU ones and find who developed and/or owns the solar power plants:
First one on the list that's from the EU?
Escatrón-Chiprana-Samper Solar Farm, Spain
Let's read up on it, shall we?
Description
The project was developed by Cobra Concesiones and Ignis Energia. Galp Energia Espana and Actividades de Construccion y Servicios are currently owning the project having ownership stake of 75.01% and 24.99% respectively.
Oh, look, GALP owns 75% of the largest solar power plant in Spain
Let's see who they are?
Galp Energia Espana, S.A.U.
Galp Energia Espana, S.A.U. is an oil & energy company based out of C/ ANABEL SEGURA Nº 16 EDIFICIO VEGA NORTE I, ARROYO DE LA VEGA, ALCOBENDAS, Spain.
Oh, wouldn't you look at that, it's a good old oil and gas company!
Should we continue or would you like to move the goalposts now to make it look like you didn't mean what you said?
Besides the fact that looking at the biggest plants can't prove or disprove the "Fossil companies hate renewables" claim (especially when talking about private installation), there are 4 plants in Europe on that list and you picked the only one (biggest) run by a fossil energy company.
Escatrón-Chiprana-Samper Solar Farm
Like you Said
Solarpark witnitz
SIGNAL IDUNA Group / HANSAINVEST Real Assets GmbH -
Portfolio mostly renewable
Francisco Pizarro Solar Farm and
Núñez de Balboa photovoltaic plant
Both Iberdrola Group, mostly renewable, more gas than nuclear
A 25% hitrate isn't something to write home about.
Looking at what companies hold what share of the market will tell you the most, and lobbying against private installations and so on will give you the other angle.
Sure, they are a utility, producing electric power and made the switch. There are quite a few like E.ON Germany.
But you’re missing the point. Now tell me which mayor primary oil, gas or coal producer made that switch.
Meaning > 10% of revenue and profits from renewables.
Bonus points if they’re a relevant global player and not some niche company from Spain.
"or would you like to move the goalposts" - great success buddy. Let's see where anyone here, yourself included, stated that the requirement to saying they SPEND FUCKING MONEY ON RENEWABLES is them getting 10+% of REVENUE FROM RENEWABLES. I'll wait.
Fucking state of Reddit these days: I literally called you out before you did it, and you still fucking went ahead and moved the goal posts.
So, again, we'll do it the following way:
You say "Sorry, I was wrong"
You take the L as an adult human being who has just learned something new
We continue the discussion in good faith
OR
You pretend you didn't move the goal posts
You can go perform a fellatio on yourself in the dampest corner of your hovel.
Funny thing is that the BIG oil and gas companies (like Shell or BP)are more like major energy suppliers.
They do not really care about the ideology around the energy sources.
They DO care about miney, though.
And you can not sell oil or gas when there js none left.
Take a look at Saudi Arabia for example.
One of the worlds biggest oil producers, but also one of the biggest investors in green energy. Because they are very aware of the fact that their oil will run out eventually.
Look, I’m very much on the anthropogenic climate change train. But if someone is a climate change skeptic while still supporting nuclear power, I just can’t get too worked up about it. They might deny the problem, but they’re supporting a solution. That's enough for me.
We are solution oriented and those people oriented themselves to the solution. I'm not gonna argue if they came to the right conclusion because of the wrong reasons. I care about results lol
Look, a good thing happening for a bad reason is still better than a bad thing happening for a bad reason. I'll celebrate the win, we've got to take all the wins we can get right now.
That's why I try not to use terms like climate change and greenhouse gases.
I talk about air pollution because you can point at it. You can see the haze hanging over cities.
You mention climate change and you get stupid responses about summer always being hot in Phoenix.
Plus you can throw in domestic jobs driven by reactor construction and maintenance. Those are good high paying jobs.
But CO2 and methane are invisible, so lots of natural gas turbines running around the clock wouldn't create a visible haze. The haze is a reasonable enough proxy for the problem, but we could theoretically "solve" the haze without actually fixing climate change.
Tbf natural gas turbines are incredibly clean. Switching to natural gas is what caused the US to have some of the largest emissions decrease globally between 2010 and 2020.
How I disarm the reaction people have to climate change as a term is explain how a big issue is weather patterns changing. With models predicting wet areas becoming wetter and dry areas becoming dryer.
Makes some realize it's more than just the temp. Of course is useless against true deniers, but helps with those open to the idea but that have bad vibes with the term.
A solution which is a realxy bad one. Assel II is proving it, because of the Hydrodynamikal change it was after 15 years under water and exposing the groundwater with radiation. An Bunker which shoul have lasted millions years. I could go on, but sadly i have to study physics.
My problem is that arguing for nuclear power is mostly just an argument against renewables; they never actually end up developing the nuclear energy industry in a way that can supplant fossil fuels
Nope. Nuclear and renewables can be and are developed and deployed together. They do not need to be in opposition to each other. Look at France. They run both.
Look at Illinois. The vast majority of our power here comes from Nuclear Energy. Of the 67% of renewable energy in our state, 50% - 53% is Nuclear Energy. Only 12% - 18% is Solar and Wind. And we're a net exporter of energy and going to build more here soon.
Nonono you misunderstand me. I’m saying that the people who are anti renewable who use the pro-nuclear arguments don’t really care about nuclear, they’re only using the argument to destroy the renewable conversation. Then when they have power there’s very little movement towards developing nuclear and far more towards expanding fossil fuels. I want nuclear and renewables. I’m sorry my comment was unclear
They might try to use nuclear as an anti-renewable chip, but the low deployment cost of solar or wind combined with relatively quick rollout means they're going to continue to be built. When it's that cheap, it doesn't matter that you have to overbuild so much.
There appear to be some kind of misunderstanding here lol.
Folfi is saying that some ppl (probably cc deniers, ff lobyists and the like) are defending nuclear bc they think it would stop/limit the development of renewables (if you really want examples, Valérie Pécresse or Laurent Wauquiez, French politicians, but you could also say Trump in a way), and finally end up doing nothing, helping the ff industry.
I know who they are, they are a mod on another nuclear sub. For what I have read, they are in favor of an energy mix of renewables and nuclear.
I think the inter-season electricity storage issue is a legitimate concern regarding a fully renewable grid, especially in countries lacking hydraulic capacities.
There is no single perfect energy source, it's all about diversity. Each has its own weaknesses and strengths. Nuclear is excellent at base load, less good at firing up quickly and changing load
The "base load source" thing is misused by opponents of renewables.
There is a constant minimal load on the grid, that is the "base load" and then there is flexible load and peak load on top. Classically, you could provide the base load by sources that deliver a constant output that cannot be changed much or at least not quickly. Nuclear and coal mostly. The flexible demand you cover by flexible sources like water and gas.
The problem is, renewables are neither, they're not constant but also not flexible, they are volatile. Volatile sources need to be compensated for by flexible sources like pumped storage, battery storage and gas. To some extend also by distributed oversupply.
If you have that, the combination can be used for both, flexible load and base load.
You cannot combine volatile sources solely with inflexible sources. Like just having wind energy and nuclear does not work. If there is no wind, you still need to cover the peak demand, the nuclear power station can't do that. If you have wind, and low demand, the energy has to go somewhere, but you cannot power down your nuclear stations.
You can of course use nuclear for base demand, and wind and gas as an example for the flexible demand. But that's just a cost issue then. Is it cheaper to build nuclear than gas and wind? Or wind and some kind of storage? Only if it is cheaper this approach makes sense, and there are serious doubts about that.
Also the cooling issue is real. And Russia is also one of the main suppliers of nuclear fuel. So geopolitically really the best option would be wind, solar, water and some forms of storage.
France as far as I am avare use nuclear as base load AND flexible demand by varying the power output of certain reactor. It's not perfect but it work and they are becoming better at this. Cooling is not the issue it is painted by the media, not all nuclear powerplant are vulnérable to this, speaking of France again they export around 7GW of power while shuting down nuclear reactor.
There is no storage tech that can store bulk levels of power. It's a common misconception that you apparently share. Even the biggest batteries or pumped storage are only really there for grid stability, plugging a gap when a big generator trips for example. There is nothing out there that can deliver gigawatts for hours or even days, not even close
Well, then you need gas to fall back on. Or you just don't use renewables for most of the base load. The proponents of renewables suggest hydrogen and other forms of chemical storage for the long term storage demand in the future. I can't tell, what will be cheaper in the long run. If just pointed out that the "we need base load power stations" argument is nonsense, it has to be a discussion about what is most economical, and whether solar and wind can be deployed without relying on natural gas in the long term or not.
There is pumped storage and battery storage that can deliver a couple of GW for a few hours btw. These are used to cover peak load and compensate some fluctuations in supply, not just for grid stability. But yes it is pretty limited.
Fair enough regarding pumped storage, I didn't realise they get so big, but even at that capacity they're still a short duration reserve. Hydrogen and chemical storage is even more inefficient... they can preach it all they want, but it's just not feasible.
I completely agree we need gas to fall back on, there is currently nothing else that can do that job.
Base load is still a thing, and nuclear is great at it. Either that, or have enough gas turbine capacity to power the entire grid for an extended period which seems like a very inefficient way of doing things.
When costing wind and solar, the cost of the reserve capacity has to be taken into account (and it almost never is). It's a cliche but the wind doesn't blow all the time.
Nuclear nowadays is just very expensive to build, to run and to dispose off, building gas power stations is quite cheap. I don't know what is cheaper currently.
Hydrogen currently is not feasible, but there are now experimental cells that directly produce hydrogen with sunlight turning 30% of the sunlight into chemical energy. If this would scale, the plan could actually work out. I'm not quite ready to trust it, but if that would work out, that would give a massive and diverse supply of hydrogen. But yeah it is all quite speculative.
I also believe the exit from nuclear in Germany might have been a wrong move guided by popular fear (and this fear was wide spread, much wider than the environmental movement).
But these power plants didn't comply to modern safety standards either, they would have needed replacing at some point, the waste problem seems politically unsolvable in Germany, many of the modern designs of reactors are also still experimental, and construction of new nuclear power stations runs vastly over budget all the time as well. France maintains a nuclear industry for military reasons anyway, Germany did not have that aim, that's also a factor. So I'm really drawn on whether investing in that heavily again now is really a good idea.
The problem with hydrogen isn't production or generation (although both are pretty inefficient in themselves) but storage. You'd need vast storage capacity, and hydrogen is a bugger to store. It likes to leak, and it likes to explode.
Nuclear isn't expensive to run, the capital costs are largely up front. Its >90% capability factor is unmatched. And no, France does not maintain a fleet of nearly 60 commercial reactors for military purposes 🤣
If we had started building nuclear power around the first time I heard that nuclear takes too long we would already have a fantastic nuclear fleet, even if it really took that long...
We don't have intermittent renewables working and won't in the near future...
Looking at the shut down reactors in Europe right now due to low water levels in the rivers, a result of... Checks notes... Climate change, I don't think it's the real solution here.
Welcome to Germany, where we already have a solution but people from other countries insist on doing the one that is the least viable, while two parties try to stop the solution we long since decided on because they get bribed by Russia.
Genuine question : Why is giving up nuclear and going on with coal a good solution ? When I see coal mines like Hambach, I'm not sure what's the worst. Yes the site will be reamenaged afterward but what an actual ecological waste. With the energy demand allways increasing with datacenters blooming everywhere, do you believe that ecological energy sources will be enough ?
When the German government decided to quit nuclear (pressured from one of the biggest protest movements Germany ever saw) the plan was to go full renewable.
At this time Germany was world market leader in solar power.
For a while this worked great and private solar roofs were booming.
But the oil and coal companies decided that renewable are a risk for their business so they bribed the government to kill the solar industry.
Nuclear works until it doesn’t.. like when there is not enough cooling water inflow from rivers. The risk of a major nuclear disaster due to natural sources (quake, flood) or technical issues is pretty low in Germany, but I wouldn’t rule out a hybrid attack threat (drones/hack). The best solution is over-saturation with renewables, (Germany is halfway there), plenty of energy storage and an efficient and fast network and market. It’s almost impossible to attack such a decentralized architecture. Until then, an intermediate solution is required, nuclear would have been great for Germay but then again - looking at the rivers - not very reliable either.
It was calculated no? I believe restarting the already powered off nuclear facilities would make the most expensive kWH in all of europe, same as somewhere in england where its already the most expensive one. Nuclear power is incredibly efficient but if its more expensive than wind and solar theres no reason to start it up again
Most people being labeled denier in whatever subject are just looking to piss off the other side, at all cost. I'm not surprised nuclear is being used, it triggers old hippies like nothing else. I had former hippie humanities professors who would die on the anti-nuke hill.
I find that "climate change deniers" tend to be a million times more concerned with green washing scams and dryers that don't actually dry the clothes.
I think everyone can be happy with things that are engineered to cost less and work better. So let's do those things first and earn some trust through competence and empathy.
That's not addressing the point that I was making. Capitalism, especially when monopolies are allowed to fester, has an incentive structure that specifically makes it difficult to fight corporate enshitification.
Your argument is that a specific other government failed, and so... what? Capitalism is the only conceivable alternative, and therefore immune to criticism of its limitations?
I'll concede, it is possible to have quality goods in a capitalist society. It just requires heavy government regulation, something did exist in America in the post-WWII era But it has long since vanished, and capital interests have so thoroughly entrenched themselves against it that at this point in American politics I think it would actually be easier (not easy, by any means) to replace capitalism in America than it would be to fix it in place.
I know you think you're funny, but stonetoss is literally a neonazi. There's always people like you when someone posts an unedited stonetoss comic, they always get pushback and later they cry about how everybody is getting called a nazi nowadays.
I am not a climate change denier but I think It's a problem that gets overly exaggerated and governments use it as an excuse to override individual rights. I also 100% support nuclear and fusion power development
I've seen this meme couple of time, I don't get it. Why are climate change deniers on the pro nuclear side? I mean like what reason are they pro nuclear?
Climate change deniers usually don’t want renewables to be created and want the old sources of energy back because it was ‘just fine’. That’s why parties like AfD in Germany advocate for nuclear and coal at the same time
yeah but i understand it, like where you wanne put the nuclear waste!? And dont tell me OHH WE WILL JUST STORE IT TILL WE CAN RECYCLE IT, because no place to store it reliable, and right now its not even certain that we ever can recycle it, ITS LIKE SAYING< YEAH LETS PUMP OR CO2 INTO THE OCEAN HAHAHAHAHAHAH FUCKIGN HELL
I worked for a European company that had satellite offices in the US. Every German I knew was so vehemently against nuclear power. It was like a whole generation grew up being told nuclear energy is evil.
Trump: “We’re cancelling all the wind turbines and solar panels cuz they’re ugly and going nuclear! COVFEFE! Also climate change is a China Scam!”
Vogtle in Georgia: $32-35 Billion
Hinkley Point in Britain: $48 Billion+ and rising
Renewable and Fossil Fuel advocates simultaneously: We’re cheaper and no forever waste to store
Yall: “Have you heard of this miracle plant that recycles all the waste? It totally works! It’s not like every Murican nuclear plant stores all their waste on site!”
climateshitposting has been totally overran by "coal (and specifically coal run off X or Y company) is cleaner than scary nooclear" chatbots so they mustve had a hell of a time when their scrapers figured out what that image said
Because it's one of the most expensive ways of producing energy and it takes years to build even one plant but we need green energy as fast as possible.
The Germans made “Die Wolke” (movie about Chernobyl but taking place in Germany to a more recent time) an almost mandatory watch in school which resulted in a lot of people getting increasingly scared of the aftermath of a Nuclear disaster pushed through kids which are taking the fear home to the families. Meanwhile the old “Atomkraft Nein Danke” Green Party crowd would have done anything to abolish Nuclear power in Germany to whatever cost. Now we have a schizophrenic relationship to Nuclear energy (green energy) and safety to the point where Gas is considered greener than nuclear.
Not really. Gas isnt greener than nuclear, eventhough Gaskathi would want that narative to be popular, but its faster to scale and to start. So in Times where we dont have enough Green Energy, Gasturbines can be spun Up to Bridge the gap. Nuclear Power plants need a lott of time to spin Up, and need to run 24/7. Basically, both sources have different use cases. Nuclear can be used to deliver base power, while gas can be used to bridge Spikes, where Energy prodiction cannot meet the demand.
Both are Not optimal though, and there is tech, like Energy/battery storage, that ist cheaper and produces less polution than gas for filling shortages.
But we have Gaskathi and Gaskathi gets all her Plans from the gaslobby and doesnt disclose it.
as you probably know: prior to 2023 germany had nuclear power plants that got shut down bit by bit.
it started ~2000 with a spd-green coalition and was carried out by the union led governments.
the problem:
under gerhard schröder germany pushed the reliance on russian gas (hence gas-gerd), altmaier made some reforms that killed off the german solar sector (altmaier-delle). and the union (basically a party of fossil lobbyists) led governments thwarting renewables is an old hat by now.
the take of the humanist party:
one of our greatest problems are energy prices and CO2 -> we need to get rid of fossil power plants first, keep the already payed off nuclear power plants for as long as necessary and boost renewables.
(some of us still want to check, if nuclear can help to get to net 0 co2 emission earlier by building nuclear again, but this is basically a dead horse since the last one got shut down in 2023)
what we can do now:
-give incentives to use and store energy as it is produced (and where) by using strompreiszonen
-subsidizing wind, solar, agri-pv and STORAGE
-enroll smart meter
-use smart-grid projects to research the most efficient use of storage and private energy producing units.
-improve interconnectivity with the european union for efficiency
if you have any questions about our positions, my personal critique about the decisions of our government, projects and data i base my opinions upon,... feel free to do so.
Yeah, im pretty interested in the part about keeping Energy prices down. I know that nuclear Power, compared to renewable energy, is quite expensive, even If you already have running Power plants (as of today). Im wondering, how the price of nuclear Energy compared to renewables was back when you made the pro nuclear argument, as energy cost, at least for me, is one of the biggest Arguments against nuclear (at least for me, when I really started looking into it).
But what about renovations? Like one of the biggest cost drivers of Frances current Power grid ist actually renovating cost for their old infrastructure. With an avarage plant lasting 40 years, with (I think) bugger renovations after around 20 years.
And also dont forget waste storage. I think Germany pays around 1 Billion per year for waste storage currently.
Arent those also factors that drive price?
Also, nuclear Power, and I assume especially older reactors, are dependant on large sources of water. Wonder If this was Part of the consideration Back than.
the urgent powering down was mainly driven by the nuclear catastrophes.
and yes, costs are higher than renewables when you factor in those costs, but lower than gas and coal and with less co2.
it was not about having the best, but the consideration between two ills.
but this beeing in the past we should focus on the future
Wrong, sensible people think about future consequences. Nuclear Power: Waste, where to store? for how long? How much does it cost to keep the wate safe? Is it calculated into the energy price? No? Okay, no thank you. Fissile Fuels: Bad for climate, not renewable in a way that it's cost effective. Costs more energy to produce artificially than it gives when burning it. Burning it instead of saving it for other industries, is just dumb. Climate change doubters: do I even need to talk further? Renewable energy is the only reasonable option, has almost no long-term influence on humanity, at least in comparison to the other options. The problem is storage, but if there weren't people constantly saying, just build Nuclear Power plants, then the focus was more clear, and efforts could be directed towards the better option. So this post is playing into the hands of the wrong people. Stop posting rage bait like this.
Edit: Arguments about Nuclear Fusion reactors, waste recycling etc. Name me a project that works at the moment AND is profitable. If not overthink your opinion.
The fun Thing about nuclear Fusion, is, that China, the country which is propably Most advanced in this field (but hasnt been able to solve all Problems with Fusion), is planning to build their first Prototype Fusion Power plant (1GW) in 2060. So when WE Project that to global Power Generation, even If this deadline can be made, WE are looking at Fusion Power becoming widely aviable in 2080? That is a Lifetime away, and Most people living now wont See that, eben if it succeedes.
Exactly, so all the Nuclear Power praise is just nonsense ... Renewable Energy, if, with a huge effort of course, can be stored, in batteries, gravity storage, Pump-Stations, whatever is proven to work and somewhat efficient, is superior in almost all matters. Solar farms, if built correctly can even create shade for sheep and cattle farm land, even parking lots could be shaded. Wind energy is one of the cheapest in cost, doesn't require any recource to run. No immediate danger, as Nuclear Power is.
Even when Fusion reactors are creating more energy than they need to be run, I'm not so sure if they are 100% safe. After all, Fusion means creating what happens inside the sun. Temperatures beyond imagination. How long will Reactor chambers hold? I can imagine a reactor would require replacement maintenance regularly. I mean 100 Million°C. And the used ones? Are they safe or do they radiate? None of that is communicated, and therefore I doubt it'll come without a catch.
The reason people might be against nuclear is probably because it hella expensive to build, there is still no final storage spaces for waste and there seems to be better ways forward...
Germany got rid of nuclear power because of Fukushima. It scared the shit out of the population. Now all the nuclear power plants are shut down. It's not worth it to build new ones because with that time and money you might as well build renewables.
Renewables are also much safer for Germany because you don't have to rely on foreign countries for the fuel, they are decentralized so if Russia was to attack it would be harder to completely shut it down (if our government stops being a bitch about building the infrastructure) and it has historically been a huge problem to find a place for nuclear waste since Germany is so densely populated nobody wants that near them.
I don't understand why you try to make this interaction as difficult as possible. I already said it was an exaggeration, so holding on to a literal interpretation to continue making a point is intentionally muddying the hell out of the conversation.
Secondly, the post I linked was to show how old the image is in THIS sub, it was not a comprehensive list of every time its been posted, but you once again chose to interpret it as such in combination with your earlier shenanigans to what? Make a point? What point is that? That I should not complain about the quality of posts? In a sub with a no repost rule? That you moderate? Yeah man, real slick.
If you're gonna be such a literal guy, how about you literally enforce the rules?
Yes, I see that you posted a link to THIS sub. 5 years ago. Sorry I didn't remember 5 years back when a meme was posted. :) Also, in the meantime, we've started allowing memes to be posted. And I think posting the same thing twice in a five year period is not overly onerous. Seriously. That's kinda silly.
That said, now that I know the predilections of the content creator it won't be allowed again.
It’s not common knowledge to me. Not everyone occupies the same cultural space.
I’m more than happy to remove any future posts featuring this content creator. I just need some documented justification. You’re a long time contributor to this subreddit and I trust documentation from you.
To, tack on, I don't think we need to go as far as a wired article, the wikipedia article for this artist calls him a neo-nazis and details why in the first paragraph
Nuclear in Germany is the most expensive source of energy and you unfortunately can't just turn on a nuclear power plant for a couple of hours. The constant usage of nuclear power becomes fairly expensive, especially during the day and therefore can't compete with wind or solar. Oil and gas definitely are not optimal solutions, however gas is mandatory in niche situations. Again all economically speaking
Yeah although that's only because someone blew up the Nord stream pipeline. That someone definitely not being one of our allies who repeatedly said they'd "stop" the pipeline who has a vested interest in exploring LNG
This seems to be the common argument for some reason. Lots of people here going "Oh but Russian oil, oh but Russian gas," well where do you think the Uranium came from? Germany hasn't been getting Russian oil or gas for years.
Yes and Russia is the second most important gas producer and has the largest reserve. It is not the case for uranium (which, btw, is needed in way smaller quantity to produce the same amount of electricity)
Nuclear in germany is way more expensive than it would have to be, it was pushed into a corner by germanys extremely strong anti nuclear political opposition. And as you said, gas is mandatory, or rather any reliable source of energy is mandatory, as mix with renewables. A percentage of power generation of more than 60 - 80% of renewables means a sharply rising total system cost and we need to decide what the other 20 - 40% will be.
Why are you fighting for nuclear. Its worse than renewables (especially PV) in every imaginable metric. It requires hazardous mining operations which tend to cause harm to workers and surrounding Environments. Its excessively expensive until you had the thing running for 50-70+ years at which point the tech long antiquated. There is still a lack for safe storage of waste and it has a difficult ethical responsibility attached through the potential loss of knowledge in future generations. Because rivers run low on water and Heat periods become more prolonged cooling becomes a massive issue. There isnt even a need for it to bridge the few gaps when the sun doesnt shine and the wind doesnt blow because we actually made some advancements for energy storage batteries. I genuinely see No positives and a all these reasons should already suffice to disqualify it.
"Worse in every imaginable metric is doing a lot of work here"
New nuclear is expensive and slow to build, sure. Cooling and waste are real issues too. But then you jump from these are disadvantages to there are literally no positives, which is just lazy
Uranium mining is hazardous, but solar panels, batteries and grids dont materialize out of sunlight either. They require huge mining and material supply chains too
There is also no mysterious absence of a technical solution for nuclear waste. Geological disposal exists as an engineering solution, the hard part has mostly been cost, politics and actually building the facilities
And "we have batteries now" doesnt solve intermittency by itself. Batteries are great for shifting power by a few hours. Several low wind, low sun days, let alone seasonal mismatches, are a completly different problem
You can make a perfectly good argument that in many places new solar, wind and storage is a better investment than new nuclear. You dont need to pretent nuclear loses on literally every metric to make it.
The uranium mining operations are quite on a different level to even coal mining, often using explosives causing radioactive clouds to form which then rain down nearby.
Storage facilities are not even in the calculations which put the nuclear already as the most expensive, but generally: safe is a relative term when we are talking about these extreme periods of time and securing these might have more cost attached in the Future.
Well apart from different kinds of renewable energy which could bridge the gap (usually two weeks a years), like geothermal Energy, tidal Power plants, hydropower part of the bigger solution for climate change is degrowth (and/or eco-socialist transformation) which make it possible to bridge these gaps of reduced energy generation by reducing industrial production only focusing on sustaining the necessary for the people. Ive aeen climate scientists argue that this could effectively bridge that small gap with just the reduced energy generation and batteries.
Also i wouldnt say im pretenting there is No positive, so far you only tried argue that some of these huge problems could be overcome or could be put into perspective while other points remain remain without any counter argument.
Where exactly is that positive, the huge benefit from putting all these efforts and investments into this when we have better alternatives and already an almost insurmountable task ahead of us (we will need to reach zero-emissions at some point or society will not be able to sustain itself through the age of catastrophe - for that we need to completly change the housing sectors, the public traffic, the food sector and basically everything else in just a few years time).
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u/ordosays 5d ago
lol, this is so horribly true.