6 ms·
Compared to ripping the tops of mountains in West Virginia and states nearby and filling in the beautiful valleys to strip mine coal, a huge win.
by marze 9y ago
Compared to ripping the tops of mountains in West Virginia and states nearby and filling in the beautiful valleys to strip mine coal, a huge win.
- coin 9y ago> Compared to ripping the tops of mountains Or consider nuclear, which is much cleaner, safer and lower coast than all other energy sources
- labster 9y agoSo open pit uranium mines are that much better than ripping the tops off of mountains for coal?
- VMG 9y agoHow many mines are needed for the production and maintenance of wind (or solar) of comparable capacity?
- grigjd3 9y agoTons of them. Materials required for solar cells and turbines have to come from somewhere.
- ethbro 9y agoYou're forgetting the "It's different when it happens in Africa / India / China / South America" caveat to most arguments.
- labster 9y agoI'd normally agree with you, but the top Uranium producers are Canada, Kazakhstan, and Australia. Uranium mining is a first (and second) world problem.
- popey456963 9y agoTo be fair, you need _significantly_ less[0] uranium compared with the amount of coal you mine. For every million mountains destroyed by coal mining, you'd only have to destroy a couple of mountains. Not to mention I don't think uranium is usually mined from mountains but rather pit-mined, makes it far better than the alternatives. Personally however, still support solar. Especially solar house tiles, they look good, pay for themselves after a few years and can be placed on every house. [0] https://xkcd.com/1162/ https://xkcd.com/1162/
- kd0amg 9y agoReminds me of this chart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI99A08Y83E&t=13m45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI99A08Y83E&t=13m45s (if you want to skip to the punch line, it's just after 15:00), but this one is still in log scale.
- hueving 9y agoYou do know that a significant amount of coal is mined without the destruction of mountains, right?
- hsjhgktfdy 9y agoNot every house has solar resource. If your house is in the middle of the woods it's not going to work unless you clear-cut the surrounding woods and then you're not in the middle of the woods anymore. Same if you are in the shadow of a couple of mid-rises. etc. etc. Even if there is solar resource it may not replace more than a fraction of usage. Roof-top solar is great where the resource exists, but it's a partial solution at best. There's still a need for the utility grid and something needs to fuel that. It could be utility-scale solar, but it's not onsite rooftop solar.
- adrianN 9y agoYou realize that most houses are not in the middle of the woods? If I look around here in Berlin, almost all houses would qualify for rooftop solar. There is of course still the storage problem.
- adrianN 9y agoUranium has a much higher energy density, so you need fewer mines. The raw materials for renewable energy tech don't materialize from the ether either.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y agoBut they're vastly easier to source, and then reuse/recycle. Also, there's that "Not laying waste to huge areas and making them uninhabitable" thing. Nukes would be fine for a species that was capable of acting intelligently and responsibly over long periods. Humans are not (yet) that species.
- BinaryIdiot 9y agoDon't forget uranium can be extracted from seawater! Granted I don't think it's near the efficiency yet of simply digging and extracting from a pit but still it's something to watch out for in the near future. https://engineering.stanford.edu/news/how-extract-uranium-seawater-nuclear-power https://engineering.stanford.edu/news/how-extract-uranium-se...
- yongjik 9y ago> ... cleaner, safer and lower coast ... Typo or pun?
- afterburner 9y agoLower cost? Utterly laughable. Nuclear costs are notoriously high, always crazy multiples over budget, and then the operating and decommissioning costs are hidden with budget and accounting tricks. But you won't notice because it's a 50 to 80 year process.
- jahnu 9y agoSadly true. If it weren't for the insane costs I'd be a bigger fan of nuclear.
- opo 9y ago>...Nuclear costs are notoriously high, No, according to the US Energy Information Administration the levelized cost of nuclear has been comparable or less than coal (without the massive negative externalities of coal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
- afterburner 9y agoFalse dichotomy, it's not nuclear vs coal (which is terrible anyways as you note) https://c1cleantechnicacom-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/files/2016/12/solar-energy-costs-wind-energy-costs-LCOE-Lazard.png https://c1cleantechnicacom-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/files/201... Also: "not typically included in levelised cost of electricity assessments is the cost of decommissioning a reactor and disposing nuclear waste, says Roula Inglesi-Lotz an energy economist and associate professor at the University of Pretoria. This would further increase the price of nuclear energy. Even when these costs are not included in calculations, the cost of nuclear investment remains high." https://africacheck.org/reports/is-nuclear-energy-really-the-cheapest-source-of-electricity/ https://africacheck.org/reports/is-nuclear-energy-really-the...
- opo 9y agoIf you want baseload power, you can choose between coal, nuclear and natural gas. Natural gas has estimates that range between 72 and 113, so depending on which you choose it might well be cheaper or more expensive than nuclear power. Natural gas has a number of advantages over coal, but unfortunately it is now thought to be almost as bad as coal in terms of effects on climate change - this is a very bad negative externality that isn't priced into the cost. Your original point was that "Nuclear costs are notoriously high" - instead they are projected to be roughly comparable to other forms of baseload power. >..."not typically included in levelised cost of electricity assessments is the cost of decommissioning a reactor and disposing nuclear waste Maybe in other countries, but not the US. Every nuclear power plant in the United States is required, by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as part of its licensing to set aside sufficient funds to decommission the plant when it reaches the end of its useful life. >...(The USA is an exception, because the cost of decommissioning is included in the price of electricity, per the Nuclear Waste Policy Act), Also there is a tax on electricity produced by nuclear power in the US to cover eventual long term waste disposal so it is priced into the cost - though ideally this high level waste will eventually be burned in a 4th gen reactor so the volume of waste will be a small fraction of what it would otherwise be.
- noonespecial 9y agoIf you laid Tolkien's world on ours, Orcs would mine coal with dynamite, Men would use nat-gas and oil, and Elves would use wind and solar. Nuclear? Dwarves all the way. "Clean, safe, and low cost" until you delve too deep and awaken nameless evil!
- anigbrowl 9y agoI want to reject your analogy but it's too damn good :-)
- whyever 9y agoHow is nuclear waste clean? How is a possible reactor meltdown safe or cheap?
- pikzen 9y agoNuclear waste is cleaner than what coal emits in the atmosphere. Store it in an underground facility, figure out what to do with it later. It's not perfect, but it's better than what we have currently for high volume electricity generation. As for reactor meltdowns, well, to give one example, France has beeen one of the world's biggest users of nuclear power, and we haven't had any meltdown ever. So, uh, don't build your reactors near dangerous zones, and don't go with the cheapest contractor for a critical piece of infrastructure? Meltdowns don't happen unless you do something really, really stupid. Nuclear power is still the better cost/production method we have for now. It's safe (yes, the stats include deaths while building which puts wind/ocean at a disadvantage, but overall it is just as safe as renewable energy), it's efficient. Just don't pull a Chernobyl and actually follow security measures.
- grigjd3 9y agoReprocessing could take care of the waste problem.
- coin 9y agoThe nuclear waste problem has already been solved, at this point it's a political issue. See http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter11.html http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter11.html
- Normal_gaussian 9y agoMy point exactly
- hueving 9y agoFalse dichotomy. That's not how a significant amount of coal is mined. Yet every windmill sticks up into the air as a reminder of human presence.
- j3097736 9y ago>reminder of human presence. Still not as bad as a plastic bottle on the ground.
- Sanddancer 9y agoThe smog generated by burning coal gives the air a rather obnoxious brown tinted reminder of human presence.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y agoIf you think really coal pollution is invisible, try visiting China - which, perhaps not coincidentally, is currently rushing headlong towards a fully renewable economy.
- hueving 9y agoWhat? I'm talking about a bad generalization made about mining, not coal pollution.