5 ms·

> 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 ago
  So open pit uranium mines are that much better than ripping the tops off of mountains for coal?
  • VMG 9y ago
    How many mines are needed for the production and maintenance of wind (or solar) of comparable capacity?
    • grigjd3 9y ago
      Tons of them. Materials required for solar cells and turbines have to come from somewhere.
  • ethbro 9y ago
    You're forgetting the "It's different when it happens in Africa / India / China / South America" caveat to most arguments.
    • labster 9y ago
      I'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 ago
        To 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 ago
          Reminds 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 ago
          You do know that a significant amount of coal is mined without the destruction of mountains, right?
        • hsjhgktfdy 9y ago
          Not 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 ago
            You 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.
      • Pxtl 9y ago
        It's such a shame the Aussies don't build nuke plants. They have the uranium and they have a good place to store the waste. But they're so stuck on being Commonwealth Texas that they'll stick to fossil fuels forever.
        • Jedd 9y ago
          As an actual Australian I'm really happy that we don't build 'nuke plants' here. (I am assuming you mean nuclear fission power plants.) We have uranium, yes, but if happenstance is our only criteria we should also be building nuclear weapons and burning lots of coal. Sadly we're doing the latter with great alacrity. We also don't have a good place to store the waste. I don't think there's (m)any places on the planet that could be good places to store waste of this nature. It's probably telling that people often refer to nuclear waste needing to be stored or managed, rather than recycled, rendered safe, disposed of, etc.
          • vacri 9y ago
            > We also don't have a good place to store the waste. We've got tons of space to store the waste. The country is right in the middle of a tectonic plate, so little worry about earthquakes, and large swathes of the country are uninhabited by anyone, even mythical 'lost tribes'. Even if nowhere else, we could store waste in the giant area cordoned off for nuclear testing in the '50s. In my opinion, it's hard to find somewhere better suited for storing nuclear waste than 'somewhere in Australia'. Stable, first-world government, a fair few places where we can put it where even leaks wouldn't be a problem, skilled populace, etc etc. In any case, it looks like they're discussing it: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-08/should-south-australia-be-storing-nuclear-waste-above-ground/8003156 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-08/should-south-australia...
            • Jedd 9y ago
              > In my opinion, it's hard to find somewhere better suited for storing nuclear waste than 'somewhere in Australia'. This makes sense only if your starting position is that creating nuclear waste makes sense. > Stable, first-world government, a fair few places where we can put it where even leaks wouldn't be a problem, skilled populace, etc etc. How long does nuclear (fission) waste need to be managed? How long do you believe that AU has had a stable, first-world government?
  • adrianN 9y ago
    Uranium 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 ago
      But 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 ago
    Don'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 ago
  Lower 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 ago
    Sadly 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 ago
      False 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 ago
        If 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 ago
  If 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 ago
    I want to reject your analogy but it's too damn good :-)
• whyever 9y ago
  How is nuclear waste clean? How is a possible reactor meltdown safe or cheap?
  • pikzen 9y ago
    Nuclear 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 ago
    Reprocessing could take care of the waste problem.
  • coin 9y ago
    The 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