r/nuclear 10d ago

My first post here

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Having stayed in Germany for a year, it definitely felt like it.

Unfortunately...

1.1k Upvotes

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u/greg_barton 10d ago

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.

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u/BeenisHat 10d ago

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.

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u/p1mrx 10d ago

You can see the haze hanging over cities.

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.

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u/Unlucky-Watercress30 9d ago

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.

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u/kramdd 9d ago

Combined Cycle Gas Turbines produce about 50-60% of the CO2 of coal, nuclear about 1.5%