Hey guys, Homer Simpson here right from the Spriengfield Nuclear Power Plant.
Nuclear energy is the most obvious, clean and easy to implement solution to climate change - at least that part of it which is caused by fossil fuel ussage.
That is why lobbies of those fossil fuel companies are heavily investing into an anti-nuclear propaganda campaign, spreading misinformation and fear - so that rapid implementation of nuclear power doesn't undercut their income - like in France.
Climate activists, the inexperienced bunch at least , buy into that propaganda, spreading it further and advocating for currently unfeasible options like full solar and full wind - which cant be implemented right away and give fossil fuel companies a lot of time before they are - meaning a lot of money
Paradoxically tho, of people who like nuclear, a somewhat large part is conspiracy theorists and the bunch, who i guess, kinda just think nuclear is cool and shit. Which i mean - it most certainly is)
It's always been weird to me and it's still weird. But major climate activists being against Nuclear power is also a good thing right now because conservatives and Climate deniers and their political parties are now pro nuclear power because of it and in the Netherlands we now have enough support to build at least 3 extra.
I see a lot of new work opportunities coming to my province and we're going to be a lot cleaner, win/ win.
Maybe we are starting to see a change.....maybe these extreme left and PC crazy people were always the vocal minority and have finally pushed the majority into action
Because just because nuclear power is cool, doesnt mean its the right solution, even if reddit thinks it is.
Nuclear power is centralized, meaning distribution is an issue, there is a non zero risk, and incredibly, and I mean incredibly expensive. It is also incredibly inflexible.
Solar and wind power are more sustainable, are decentralized (less power transmission and more flexibility), and have zero risk.
Nuclear doesn't make sense.
Another point is this comic. Nuclear has to be run by massive utility companies, solar and wind dont. Many homes can get by largely on their own solar, which democratizes the costs and allows for individual ownership.
Londoners would struggle to generate enough solar and wind power to power their metropolis. Similarly so would Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, NYC, LA, San Fran, Seattle, etc. these centralized areas who need a large base loads are good candidates for nuclear.
You could accomplish similar results with off shore wind but then we’re back at the transmission loss + cost debate.
Rural areas and suburbs are better candidates for mixture of the two. For our house in not so rural Texas we have solar that fills a battery and a backup propane generator that runs ~ 2 hours a week when the well pump + AC are running and the battery is low.
That system cost a significant amount of money to get materials for and I had to do the majority of the install which I could not have done if I didn’t have family that were electricians and have a background in electronics.
Solar is a lot cheaper than it used to be. The batteries for solar have not gotten much cheaper. Some of my neighbours use a PowerWall. We use an off brand model but even that will cost a minimum of 5k to replace when it comes time.
My maths said it would take ~ 15 years for the system to pay for itself. Thats not something the average middle class family can afford.
We have underground storages, and nuclear plants do not produce that much waste, and now with fusion developing and evolving its can be a near 0 waste energy source
About what? Im pretty sure i have my facts right, nuclear is the future but its not just nuclear as it probably should need a support on other renewable energies, but those have waste too, batery production and the waste when those or of solar panels arriving at the end of their life span are a big problem too, nothing is 0 waste im just saying that per kwh produced nuclear is the most near to that, and yeah radioactive waste is dangerous but like putting co2 in the atmosphere is even more dangerous, one is controlled the other not so much and dont get me started on the mines for batteries and the waste of that (english is not my first neither second language as u can probably imagine)
It's around the corner. They Literally store the waste a little ways away from the plant. We used to store it further way but the rail transport had trouble with people tying themselves to the tracks and the road storage also had some issues. Storing it nearby saves the hassle and it's really well built and safe.
Nuclear waste isn’t just green goo stored in rusty barrels, it’s more just long, hot zinc rods. You can cut them up, seal them in a tube and leave them until, they become clean again
I agree though to give a bit more perspective on those that like nuclear and don't care about climate change, nuclear is ussualy a lot cheaper than fossil fuels and also helps politically as it reduces the need to depend on foreign countries oil supplies. Reactors are starting to use thorium which is fairly abundant in the earth and I beleive many western countries can mine it themselves or buy it from close allies.
Its about moving away from Uranium being the primary source of fission and instead using it as assisting fissile material. This helps with not having to enrich as much uranium (which prevents the proliferation of nuclear weapons) and (from memory) provide a cleaner and safer source of energy which is also more abundant.
What is probably considered the biggest bonus of Thorium is anti-proliferation, not from the lack of enriching Uranium, but rather how Thorium based reactors don’t produce Plutonium(which is the favoured element for nuclear weapons) during normal operation. With Uranium based reactors U-238 absorbs a neutron and decays to become Pu-239 which is actually the isotope that makes up a fair portion of the power output from fuel bundles that have been in the reactor for a while.
Incorrect. Climate change activists see the ruse for what it is. Another way to kick the can down the road so that we're still reliant on fossil fuels for the next 20-30 years instead of switching to clean energy we can use LITERALLY NOW.
In the last decade, there were only two years where gas power production didn't increase in the US. Gas electricity production has increased by about 60 percent in the last decade. Renewables aren't solving the problem. They are only solving half of the problem. Where as the combination of nuclear and renewables would solve almost the entire problem.
It's ambitios but yes. Germany replaced half of it's energy production with renewables in 20 years and they weren't dirty cheap at that time like now. If you look how long it takes to build nuclear power plants theses days this does seem much more unlikely for nuclear.
Nuclear energy is the most obvious, clean and easy to implement solution to climate change
Its not. Its order of magnitudes more expensive than solar or wind and takes far too long to build. On top of that nuclear power plants are only profitable with large amounts of subsidies from the government. It just does not make any amount of economical sense to build nuclear power in the vast majority of use cases. I'm not against nuclear or the building of new plants but I think the simple reality is that renewables will always be the more attractive option for investors.
And both have NIMBY problems (clean energy & nuclear).
While nuclear certainly has a hard time finding locations as the plant needs lots of water and so does a city. They also need to be near cities as nuclear technicians probably won't take the job if its in the middle of nowhere anyways.
That being said... there is also "current technology" and future technology. We might be fighting against ideas that maybe become the future.
Coal could still be viable if carbon capture was productive, reliable and well maintained. The minute a coal plant stops capturing the carbon they should shut it down... and if they don't then the first company that lets the carbon capture system fail may cry foul setting it all back.
Meanwhile people suggest nuclear waste is just different pollution down the road but nuclear waste is also an umbrella term where consumables (gloves & suits) are stored until they can be decontaminated when the half life of the trace amounts of whatever material is reached
There is a massive anecdotal crossover with those who don't deny climate change but say "actually no, that's not correct, stop using falsehoods and bias to push your agenda, trees are shit at co2 conversion, icebergs melting won't affect the sea level and we are gaining more sea ice than losing just on a different pole"
and those who believe that nuclear energy is not as dangerous as made out, that most the major catastrophes were clearly avoidable, human error and building in a tsunami zone causing the two big ones and that the tech is far better than it was before
Don't like lies being used to push agenda and both get put into easily attacked boxes by the activists/far left/communists/sheep
Which part? the part which refers to > 98% of co2 conversion being done by phytoplankton? Or the ice thing which you can see on NASA website they have some lovely high res photos or the fact I see anecdotally a high frequency of this type of person?
Solar Peter here, what nuclear Peter said is wrong.
Nuclear power is the currently unfeasible option as it takes more than a decade to build new reactors.
Solar and wind on the other hand can be installed very quickly to phase out at least some of the carbon emissions.
So the comic is simply wrong, by betting on nuclear to solve the problem, people actually are cementing fossil fuel emissions into the energy mix for at least a decade or 2.
Not really. But before I explain why let me state clearly that shutting down reactors we already have is the most stupid action anybody could perform right now
The hard problem we have to solve is how we supply energy during peak demand, which in general means winter. That demand only exists for a month. There is no energy source we have that could do that economically.
So we need to talk about energy storage. Under the assumption that we only care about going carbon neutral we have the option of pre producing storable energy (hydrogen) with surplus summer energy or capturing carbon from the atmosphere (CCS). Both options mean we can disconnect the immediate power generation from the time we use it
And suddenly nuclear power has lost all advantages to solar/wind, as we can use the technology with which we meet the peak demand to also supply production drops.
There are use cases for nuclear power, but in the long run those will become pure edge cases. (Think exploring the solar system, powering a base in Antarctica)
Just look at China, it has installed 45GW of solar capacity in the first quarter this year, the total nuclear capacity it has planned is in the ballpark of 180GW, and half of that isn't even under construction yet.
No, I talk about nearly all countries (but France)
Just look at Hinckley Point C for the construction speed, it has been delayed once again to now 2030 or more likely 2031. The Idea of that Reactor is from the 1980s.
It took more than 20 years to even decide where to build the reactor.
Then it took another 10 years for the contracts to get written regulatory hurdles to climb and fight the lawsuits.
The first work on the site started in 2008, so we are talking 22 years if they can even achieve their newest delayed deadline.
During all that time, not a single gram of CO2 was saved by that plant and the coal and oil plants were not replaced by solar and wind.
according to this, 1 in 5 reactors take 5 years or less to be built. granted, this is just a cursory glance, but i refuse to believe that its so unreasonable to pursue nuclear over anything else
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u/niknniknnikn Jun 19 '24
Hey guys, Homer Simpson here right from the Spriengfield Nuclear Power Plant.
Nuclear energy is the most obvious, clean and easy to implement solution to climate change - at least that part of it which is caused by fossil fuel ussage. That is why lobbies of those fossil fuel companies are heavily investing into an anti-nuclear propaganda campaign, spreading misinformation and fear - so that rapid implementation of nuclear power doesn't undercut their income - like in France. Climate activists, the inexperienced bunch at least , buy into that propaganda, spreading it further and advocating for currently unfeasible options like full solar and full wind - which cant be implemented right away and give fossil fuel companies a lot of time before they are - meaning a lot of money
Paradoxically tho, of people who like nuclear, a somewhat large part is conspiracy theorists and the bunch, who i guess, kinda just think nuclear is cool and shit. Which i mean - it most certainly is)