4 ms·

Did you account for the footprint of building the plant (all that concrete manufacturing produces lots of CO2)? And the footprint of the waste storage (again co

Did you account for the footprint of building the plant (all that concrete manufacturing produces lots of CO2)? And the footprint of the waste storage (again concrete, potential for leaks)? Footprint of mining? Lots of Uranium produced in the the developing countries (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine) which have poor safety standards. The problem with peaks is not a defect of renewables, it is a temporary problem, which will be resolved once we build international power grid.

Akronymus 6y ago
> Did you account for the footprint of building the plant (all that concrete manufacturing produces lots of CO2)? Same can be said about renewables and such, which produce MORE pollution per amount of capacity, along with having a even worse footprint. > And the footprint of the waste storage (again concrete, potential for leaks)? Are you talking about waste from setting it up or waste from operation? > Footprint of mining? Lots of Uranium produced in the the developing countries (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine) which have poor safety standards. The uranium mines definitely can be improved. I agree with that. Same could be said with rare earth mines needed for solar panels, for example. > The problem with peaks is not a defect of renewables, it is a temporary problem, which will be resolved once we build international power grid. We DO have a international power grid in europe. Still doesn't solve the problem, or even close to solving it. In summary, I feel like nuclear is currently still the better option. I am not saying to not use renewables though, but that replacing nuclear with renewables/other fossils is currently a bad idea.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  Really? Footprint of manufacturing a renewables based plant worse than building huge concrete buidling? Do you have data to support this? Of course I am talking about operational waste storage. Rare earth mining has so much smaller scale than Uranium mining however. I honestly do not understand why are molten salt power plants not more popular. They have essentially zero pollution, they do not use anything exotic, relatively low tech, can run even during dark hours. We do not have energy grid which would cover whole or most of the world. Once it covers USA, Russian and China there will be no need to store renevable energy.
  - Akronymus 6y ago
    > Really? Footprint of manufacturing a renewables based plant worse than building huge concrete buidling? Do you have data to support this? As I currently do not have access to my list of sources, I'll have to get back to you on that later. > Of course I am talking about operational waste storage. Then nuclear wins, due to how compact the spent fuel/irradiated material is. Along with the HLW decaying rather quickly, while MLW and LLW not being hard to contain for a relatively long time (Enough to have it fall close to, or below background radiation levels) > Rare earth mining has so much smaller scale than Uranium mining however. I currently lack access to my bookmarks on that either. > I honestly do not understand why are molten salt power plants not more popular. They have essentially zero pollution, they do not use anything exotic, relatively low tech, can run even during dark hours. My guess is because you need to have either a lot of sunlight or use up quite a bit of land area to get a decent amount of energy out of it. Also frying birds that fly through it. > We do not have energy grid which would cover whole or most of the world. Once it covers USA, Russian and China there will be no need to store renwable energy. I don't think that is feasible in a timespan where we don't get power satellites before. And that would change the whole discussion on a fundamental level anyways. So, in my eyes it is a moot point. Along with some areas just being unable to produce enough energy to support the rest when needed. Eg.: During the northern hemisphere winter, solar output would be quite a bit lower. And that is before even getting into the losses of transportation.
emiliobumachar 6y ago
International power grid? Do you mean intercontinental? Solar exposure is definitely correlated across nearby countries, and I assume so is wind.

Akronymus 6y ago

> Did you account for the footprint of building the plant (all that concrete manufacturing produces lots of CO2)? Same can be said about renewables and such, which produce MORE pollution per amount of capacity, along with having a even worse footprint. > And the footprint of the waste storage (again concrete, potential for leaks)? Are you talking about waste from setting it up or waste from operation? > Footprint of mining? Lots of Uranium produced in the the developing countries (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine) which have poor safety standards. The uranium mines definitely can be improved. I agree with that. Same could be said with rare earth mines needed for solar panels, for example. > The problem with peaks is not a defect of renewables, it is a temporary problem, which will be resolved once we build international power grid. We DO have a international power grid in europe. Still doesn't solve the problem, or even close to solving it. In summary, I feel like nuclear is currently still the better option. I am not saying to not use renewables though, but that replacing nuclear with renewables/other fossils is currently a bad idea.

SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
Really? Footprint of manufacturing a renewables based plant worse than building huge concrete buidling? Do you have data to support this? Of course I am talking about operational waste storage. Rare earth mining has so much smaller scale than Uranium mining however. I honestly do not understand why are molten salt power plants not more popular. They have essentially zero pollution, they do not use anything exotic, relatively low tech, can run even during dark hours. We do not have energy grid which would cover whole or most of the world. Once it covers USA, Russian and China there will be no need to store renevable energy.
- Akronymus 6y ago
  > Really? Footprint of manufacturing a renewables based plant worse than building huge concrete buidling? Do you have data to support this? As I currently do not have access to my list of sources, I'll have to get back to you on that later. > Of course I am talking about operational waste storage. Then nuclear wins, due to how compact the spent fuel/irradiated material is. Along with the HLW decaying rather quickly, while MLW and LLW not being hard to contain for a relatively long time (Enough to have it fall close to, or below background radiation levels) > Rare earth mining has so much smaller scale than Uranium mining however. I currently lack access to my bookmarks on that either. > I honestly do not understand why are molten salt power plants not more popular. They have essentially zero pollution, they do not use anything exotic, relatively low tech, can run even during dark hours. My guess is because you need to have either a lot of sunlight or use up quite a bit of land area to get a decent amount of energy out of it. Also frying birds that fly through it. > We do not have energy grid which would cover whole or most of the world. Once it covers USA, Russian and China there will be no need to store renwable energy. I don't think that is feasible in a timespan where we don't get power satellites before. And that would change the whole discussion on a fundamental level anyways. So, in my eyes it is a moot point. Along with some areas just being unable to produce enough energy to support the rest when needed. Eg.: During the northern hemisphere winter, solar output would be quite a bit lower. And that is before even getting into the losses of transportation.

emiliobumachar 6y ago

International power grid? Do you mean intercontinental? Solar exposure is definitely correlated across nearby countries, and I assume so is wind.