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ncmncm
searching Neon…
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31.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Nobody suggested power plants should not be constructed. At issue is what to construct. Starting nukes now brings catastrophe nearer, as they displace exactly zero CO2 output for many years, vs. alternatives that start displacing CO2 outp
32.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Many people mistakenly or vaguely conflate global civilization with "the planet". The distinction doesn't really matter much, from a policy perspective.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
The peacetime policy was to build renewable capacity. Now there is radically more renewable capacity than before, much more than if another direction had been chosen. If 30% coal today is bad, >>30% coal, the alternative, would have b
34.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Money is fungible. Each dollar spent on nuke generating capacity is that dollar not spent on several times as much renewable generating capacity.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
The decent answer is, simply, that storage will be built when there is enough renewable capacity to charge it from. Storage is technically trivial. Building it all will be a big civil engineering job, but we have plenty of civil engineers.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Always was. The most reliable product of the nuke industry has always been dishonesty. "Too cheap to meter..." No nuke has ever been operated anywhere in the world without massive subsidy.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Hydrogen is one of many practical storage media. Many will be used, different ones favored in different places. Hydrogen is particularly suited for places with large, stable underground cavities.
38.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
The cost of batteries is immaterial to anything being discussed here. As you already knew.
39.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
There are no "grid damaging events".
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Social science is far from exact enough to predict either eventuality with any confidence. If waves of tens or hundreds of millions of refugees leaving places they cannot live in any longer begin sweeping across borders, how long will it be
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
You seem very certain of your facts. I can only say that you are probably right. But we don't know if the ocean ecosystem will collapse in that time, bringing down civilization. The thing about collapse is that it happens terrifyingl
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Sweden is not less dependent on global civilization than other countries. Is Sweden a net food importer?
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Right, there is never any legitimate justification to build new nukes. At the moment, existing nukes can still be operated at competitive marginal cost, neglecting original capital cost, and carefully not counting continuing subsidies in
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
That is, surely, fixable by constructing transmission lines massively cheaper than nukes.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Energy demand will not increase in the next decade. It will, instead, fall, as it has in recent years. Electricity demand will increase as that takes over for other energy uses that will be collapsing.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
The single most reliable feature of all right-wing parties is that they are against state subsidies unless the subsidies are directed into their own pockets. They are singularly skilled at directing subsidies reliably into their own pocke
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
The overwhelming majority of utility scale storage will not be in batteries, so battery technology does not matter. The sun does, in fact, shine far, far more than enough.
48.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Renewables + storage will provide massively cheaper baseload power.
49.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Exactly. We do not need nukes, and we especially do not need institutionally corrupt nuke projects.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
The overwhelming majority of storage will not be batteries, unless a massively cheaper battery chemistry takes over. Lake Mead stores (well, stored) radically less energy than mountaintop reservoirs with thousands of feet of "head"
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Wind and hydro are probably more practical in Sweden. Geothermal is not having a heyday because it depends on the same sort of expensive-to-operate steam turbines as nukes do, so is uncompetitive. Anytime steam turbines have to compete with
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
The planet will be fine. Civilization will be likely to have collapsed, but that is our problem.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
There is plenty more good about renewables. Being the cheapest source of power that has ever existed is good, too.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
PPAs at inflated prices are absolutely subsidies. They impose inflated costs on users of the power, which is only marginally better than on the body politic at large. Or marginally worse, maybe. Much of the subsidies are the public picking
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
The gas would have been used to fill in while renewables were being built out. Now coal is filling in while renewables are being built out even faster. Without the investment to date in wind, coal dependency would have been massively greate
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Look at the recent fiascos where $15B has already been spent and they say giving them another $10B will surely provide you with a 2GW plant, if you just wait enough years more. Or might not. "Public credit" for these massive cor
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
No civil nuke plant has ever been operated, anywhere in the world, without massive government subsidies, or by coercing ratepayers to pay well above market rates. Looks like the Swedish public will be on the hook for subsidies for decades m
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
Or, hold it until they come to their senses and build out massively more productive renewables.
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
It would be stupid to spend on storage before there is enough renewable generating capacity to charge it from. In the meantime they spend, sensibly, on renewable generating capacity. By the time there is enough, storage will be massively ch
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by
ncmncm
4y ago
It is dishonest to conflate emergency war measures as policy.
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