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>it feels like if we listened 15 years ago we'd be in less of a snake pit. We really missed the boat in the 60s/70s when the West largely gave up on Nuclear po

>it feels like if we listened 15 years ago we'd be in less of a snake pit. We really missed the boat in the 60s/70s when the West largely gave up on Nuclear power (which environmentalists are against). Imagine if the West invested in nuclear power to the same level as France did - think of the trillions of tons of CO2 that would not have been emitted into the atmosphere. Maybe it would have bought us an extra 5 decades. There is nothing we could have done in the early 2000s that we didn't do (and though your comment is very American-centric, the world is bigger than America). The biggest gains we received were when many regions transitioned from coal to natural gas but natural gas was not an economical option before the fracking revolution (which environmentalists are against). Even now, we don't really have any options to transition from fossil fuels. The best we can do (outside of nuclear, and if geography allows, hydro/geothermal) is to pair natural gas with solar panels and wind mills - but though solar/wind are OK (just OK) with CO2 emissions, they are very hard on the environment because of land-use requirements, production, and disposal. This doesn't take into account other fossil fuel use, like fuel for cargo ships, rockets, and airplanes, and the thousand of products that need petroleum. By the way, there's a Green party candidate running in Vermont (or Maine) that is against importing hydro power from Quebec. Insanity.

andromeduck 6y ago
This! We could have reduced our GHG footprint by 20-30% for the last 3 decades just by having gone nuclear in the 80s and 90s. What's crazier still are all those "extinction rebellion" types who oppose it even now because "it's too late now" and "we'll have better storage tech in 5-10 years". It makes absolutely zero sense. What rational mind when faced with an impending existential threat wouldn't take a known good solution over a potentially better solution down the road? At least temporarily if not forever, but but alas we have to let perfection be the enemy of the good. And that's assuming what they want is even achievable or desirable in practice. I swear half of the "greens" you meet are actually just malthusians in disguise. They don't care what happens to the environment as long as they have theirs, others be dammed.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >What rational mind when faced with an impending existential threat wouldn't take a known good solution over a potentially better solution down the road? Agreed. I suspect the people who claim climate change as an existential threat and denounce nuclear because of reasons like nuclear waste, don't really believe climate change is an existential threat. >types who oppose it even now because "it's too late now" They aren't wrong about that because we set ourselves a timeframe of 2030-2060 to completely decarbonize. Restarting large-scale nuclear deployment would take decades and wouldn't really fit within that timeframe. The brutal reality is that we will not decarbonize by 2060 with renewables - so we keep wasting time by not investing in nuclear. Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe we will get back on the nuclear wagon, because we live in a world that is still growing in population and per capita energy use and there is nothing as energy dense as nuclear. I'm also surprised that for all the talk about decarbonizing to fight climate change, there is very little discussion on what we need to do to live with the effects of climate change. It's pretty obvious that no matter what we do, we're not going to be removing the existing carbon from the atmosphere anytime in the next few hundred years.
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    Would it really though? It's true we don't have the penchant or capacity to execute on megastructures nowadays but SMRs in particular seem like a viable way to jump start that learning curve again. If France was able to pull it off in the 80s surely we could do the same today?
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      >Would it really though? If rebuilding our nuclear infrastructure was an absolute national priority, the way the moon landing was in the 60s, I don't see a reason why it couldn't be done within a decade plus change (kind of the way COVID-19 has accelerated vaccine development by years because we decided that a COVID vaccine is critical). The problem is that as a society we are not anywhere close to treating nuclear power as a necessity. In fact, the present inertia is to move away from nuclear, with much of new nuclear reactor projects being cancelled, and a number of existing reactors actually closing. There is tepid support for nuclear AT BEST by the public and representatives, and nuclear is still vilified by environmentalist and the fossil fuel lobby (i.e. natural gas companies). Given that reality, we're looking at decades at best. Basically we need to see renewables through to the end and be convinced that they cannot power a modern economy before there can be any shift.

andromeduck 6y ago

This! We could have reduced our GHG footprint by 20-30% for the last 3 decades just by having gone nuclear in the 80s and 90s. What's crazier still are all those "extinction rebellion" types who oppose it even now because "it's too late now" and "we'll have better storage tech in 5-10 years". It makes absolutely zero sense. What rational mind when faced with an impending existential threat wouldn't take a known good solution over a potentially better solution down the road? At least temporarily if not forever, but but alas we have to let perfection be the enemy of the good. And that's assuming what they want is even achievable or desirable in practice. I swear half of the "greens" you meet are actually just malthusians in disguise. They don't care what happens to the environment as long as they have theirs, others be dammed.

macspoofing 6y ago
>What rational mind when faced with an impending existential threat wouldn't take a known good solution over a potentially better solution down the road? Agreed. I suspect the people who claim climate change as an existential threat and denounce nuclear because of reasons like nuclear waste, don't really believe climate change is an existential threat. >types who oppose it even now because "it's too late now" They aren't wrong about that because we set ourselves a timeframe of 2030-2060 to completely decarbonize. Restarting large-scale nuclear deployment would take decades and wouldn't really fit within that timeframe. The brutal reality is that we will not decarbonize by 2060 with renewables - so we keep wasting time by not investing in nuclear. Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe we will get back on the nuclear wagon, because we live in a world that is still growing in population and per capita energy use and there is nothing as energy dense as nuclear. I'm also surprised that for all the talk about decarbonizing to fight climate change, there is very little discussion on what we need to do to live with the effects of climate change. It's pretty obvious that no matter what we do, we're not going to be removing the existing carbon from the atmosphere anytime in the next few hundred years.
- andromeduck 6y ago
  Would it really though? It's true we don't have the penchant or capacity to execute on megastructures nowadays but SMRs in particular seem like a viable way to jump start that learning curve again. If France was able to pull it off in the 80s surely we could do the same today?
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >Would it really though? If rebuilding our nuclear infrastructure was an absolute national priority, the way the moon landing was in the 60s, I don't see a reason why it couldn't be done within a decade plus change (kind of the way COVID-19 has accelerated vaccine development by years because we decided that a COVID vaccine is critical). The problem is that as a society we are not anywhere close to treating nuclear power as a necessity. In fact, the present inertia is to move away from nuclear, with much of new nuclear reactor projects being cancelled, and a number of existing reactors actually closing. There is tepid support for nuclear AT BEST by the public and representatives, and nuclear is still vilified by environmentalist and the fossil fuel lobby (i.e. natural gas companies). Given that reality, we're looking at decades at best. Basically we need to see renewables through to the end and be convinced that they cannot power a modern economy before there can be any shift.