5 ms·
People arguing for one alternative over the other are usually politically motivated. I feel like you are doing the same. Sometimes nuclear is a good fit, someti
by cinntaile 2mo ago
People arguing for one alternative over the other are usually politically motivated. I feel like you are doing the same. Sometimes nuclear is a good fit, sometimes renewables is a good fit, sometimes fossil fuels are a good fit. Most of the time a mix is the best fit. It depends on what you are optimizing for and what is geographically, (geo)politically and economically possible. All these systems are then built using assumptions, sometimes those assumptions no longer make sense after a certain period of time and sometimes you just temporarily or permanently have to adapt to the changes in the environment. This is an unusual but expected scenario for the nuclear plants along the Danube.
- hdgvhicv 1mo agoNuclear makes sense in arctic areas, I’m struggling to see the benefits of real nuclear over renewable plus storage as it’s more expansive and takes decades, even before the cleanup costs.
- vrganj 2mo agoI'm not really opposed to nuclear power politically. I just think it's a non-starter given the much higher cost, complexity of buildout and lack of reliability.
- deepsummer 2mo agoIn countries with dark winters and without enough hydro power, the only reliable alternative are fossil fuels...
- oblio 2mo agoWind + storage, geothermal.
- deepsummer 2mo agoStorage of energy in the dimensions required for weeks with almost no wind is an unsolved problem. Right now, we can't store enough to make it through a single night without using fossil fuels. Most countries don't even have the capacity to store the energy for a single hour.
- emsign 2mo agoGeothermal and storage is worth investing in, investing in nuclear is not. NPPs are simply too expensive and you won't find investors unless you heavily subsidize it with tax money. Only compnies willing to invest in NPPs are those with virtually free money: the handful of AI big tech giants.
- deepsummer 2mo agoHow can you be sure of that before even having a practical and proven solution for the required scale of storage?
- ben_w 2mo agoWe have proven solutions. We're building the factories to make them as fast as we can find investors with money to spend on them, because they're already cheaper than fossil fuels which are themselves cheaper than nuclear.
- RandomLensman 2mo agoAs we can store fossil fuels for weeks of demand, we can store the required energy in chemical form, no? Germany has huge natural gas storage, for ezample.
- deepsummer 2mo agoIf you mean hydrogen, this video explains the issues better than I can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zklo4Z1SqkE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zklo4Z1SqkE
- RandomLensman 2mo agoDoesn't need to be hydrogen - plenty of possible substances that could be used as storage (might not even need to be gaseous for some applications).
- comrade1234 2mo agoIceland has no nuclear power plants.
- deepsummer 2mo agoCountries like UK, Ireland, Germany, Danmark, Netherland, Poland also have dark winters. Solar in winter is only about a fifth of production in summer months. Iceland has geothermal, which is amazing, but won't help central Europe.
- ben_w 2mo agoThose places also have a huge wind resource in the form of the North Sea, for Ireland whatever the other bits of that submerged continental shelf are called, and for Poland the Baltic: https://globalwindatlas.info/en/ https://globalwindatlas.info/en/ This is important because wind season anti-correlates with PV season. Plus, it's not like north-south power lines are beyond the wit of mankind. The US western interconnection includes both Canada and Mexico: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NERC-map-en.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NERC-map-en.svg
- deepsummer 2mo agoYet there are whole weeks practically without wind in winter. And most climate models estimate that global warming reduces wind further. Storage in the required dimensions is an unsolved problem.
- frm88 2mo agoStorage in the required dimensions is an unsolved problem. No, it's not. Decommissioned nuclear plant infrastructure used as massive battery storage. https://gesi-deutschland.de/en/gesi-project-presented-in-grohnde/ https://gesi-deutschland.de/en/gesi-project-presented-in-gro...
- deepsummer 2mo ago
- stavros 2mo agoAgreed, whenever I hear someone say "we need more/less nuclear and less/more solar/wind", I hear "let's burn more fossil fuels while we uselessly split hairs".
- hdgvhicv 1mo agoIf we have $X to invest in power I’d rather it were invested in solar and wind, which returns more kWh per dollar and in a shorter timeframe.
- stavros 1mo agoYeah I care that they aren't invested in fossil, and the question of which renewable to invest in far, far down my list of concerns, to the point where it's not really worth discussing. A lot like how when I'm starving to death I'm not really interested in a debate on whether I should have ice cream or cake.
- otherme123 2mo agoUnless the scenario is totally different where you live, pro-nuclears are mainly "we need more nuclear, less rerewables, don't care about fossils, just guaranteed production", while pro-renewables are mainly "we need more renewables, less or no fossils and as few nuclear as possible". If someone is getting wiped from the mix because of renewables, it is coal and fuel, not nuclear.
- hamper653 2mo agoWhat about Germany?
- paganel 2mo agoEveryone is politically motivated on this subject, and that's a good thing, because this is a political decision by default, where the "political" is comprised of is, the voting citizens. We can't let decisions like these be taken by unelected technocrats alone.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- gib444 2mo agoI'm not filled with joy about my chav ("redneck") neighbours weighing in on nuclear vs solar and climate change and national and international energy markets and power distribution... I don't have a clue either. Don't ask for my vote on how to power a country. Take my taxes and use them to listen to experts
- dudefeliciano 2mo agoPlot twist, the experts are lobbyists and they convince our politicians to start fracking and massively increase the use of "clean coal"
- vablings 2mo agoI would be willing to bet on a board of PHDS of varying sciences they would determine that coal is dumb and a waste of money
- dudefeliciano 2mo agothere are plenty of PHDs out there who have been bought and are in the pockets of industry...
- cucumber3732842 2mo ago>and that's a good thing, because this is a political decision by default, Why is it a good thing that everyone and their brother seeks to apply state violence to micromanage what should be a fairly arcane technical issue? >We can't let decisions like these be taken by unelected technocrats alone. Do you feel the same way about topics where your opinion differs substantially from the local majority?
- ThePowerOfFuet 2mo ago>sometimes fossil fuels are a good fit. Oh come on.
- blitzar 2mo agoYour at the north pole ... its dark all day long (and cold) ... you need some heat and some power
- hdgvhicv 1mo agoGreen hydrogen would work fine in those cases.
- peterashford 2mo agoScott base in Antarctica (NZ's scientific research base) is installing wind turbines and batteries and getting rid of diesel generators.
- cozzyd 2mo agoYes but the South Pole burns jet fuel. Not much wind and 6 months of darkness. The hut point peninsula is consistently windy though and the turbines are pretty! https://photos.app.goo.gl/goDVb7KuiKr6soHT6 https://photos.app.goo.gl/goDVb7KuiKr6soHT6
- peterashford 2mo agoSo, larger batteries, then. Or produce hydrogen from excess wind power in the summer as a chemical battery.
- cozzyd 2mo agoyes, people (some of whom I know) have looked at this of course: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032123011322?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403212... but it's somewhat risky, since if the power goes out in winter, to first order, everyone dies. I think you'd always keep the generator on at low load, just in case. Note that wind turbines at pole have not historically been very successful, maybe that will improve.
- seszett 2mo ago> sometimes fossil fuels are a good fit There is simply NO safe level of fossil fuel use.
- ben_w 2mo agoDisagree, it's just that the safe level is around 0.1% of current use (though I don't just mean use of fossil fuels for electricity, I mean *everything*).
- danw1979 2mo agoThere’s applications that we still have no alternative for though - e.g. aviation - so we’ll have to accept the burning of hydrocarbons there. Not fossil hydrocarbons forever, of course, but synthetic kerosene might be a thing soon enough.
- acdha 2mo agoYes: the way we should think about that is that we do things like switch to trains and BEVs so we can afford to continue running airplanes while synthetic fuels are being put into production.
- cinntaile 2mo agoI don't know what you mean with "no safe level of fossil fuel use". It doesn't mean anything without contextualizing that statement.
- dudefeliciano 2mo agoThe point they are making is that climate change will further push these conditions, so are we willing to build more nuclear power plants, knowing that by the time they are ready to go online this problem will be worse? Or better to invest in renewables which can be implemented today and will alleviate this problem? A mix of both with heavy majority of renewables and nuclear/fossil only to guarantee baseloads seems like the best idea to me.
- Krasnol 2mo ago> People arguing for one alternative over the other are usually politically motivated. If you can spend a Dollar only once, you might end up with renewables. People can be economically motivated too. No reason to draw politics in an already heated discussion.
- cinntaile 2mo ago> It depends on what you are optimizing for and what is geographically, (geo)politically and economically possible. I mentioned all of this in my message. What was unclear about it or did you perhaps not read past the first sentence?