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The thing that gets me is: even if hydrogen and turbines can solve the issue, it's still years and years and years out and may or may not end up being good enou

by tw04 6y ago

The thing that gets me is: even if hydrogen and turbines can solve the issue, it's still years and years and years out and may or may not end up being good enough. We've got nuclear as an option RIGHT NOW for a problem we have to solve RIGHT NOW. I think what frustrates me more than anything are the people that just think/say: "well we have amazing scientists so we'll find a solution to the problem when it becomes an issue" - in response to global warming. And more often than not they're the people saying that scientists warning that global warming is going to be a catastrophe that may be impossible to stop are just overreacting. Green Peace kind of feels like its policy is being set by one of those folks...

pfdietz 6y ago
We can build hydrogen turbines and storage caverns (and renewables to make the hydrogen) much faster than we can make nuclear power plants. Electrolysers are being built at gigawatts/year rates now, and factories can be scaled up rapidly. The speed argument comes down strongly against new nuclear power plants.
7952 6y ago
A global deployment of nuclear would still need a vast amount of engineering hours to complete. There may be room for optimisim, but that is also true of other technologies. And those other technologies are often simpler. It may well be easier to deploy battery farms with new technology than build an existing nuclear design.
pjc50 6y ago
> hydrogen and turbines can solve the issue, it's still years and years and years out and may or may not end up being good enough. We've got nuclear as an option RIGHT NOW for a problem we have to solve RIGHT NOW. If you look at the past ten years of the UK, we've hugely expanded our wind production, shut down and demolished almost all the coal plants, and ... failed to build a nuclear plant. Renewables are the technology that's ready. Nuclear is the technology that suffers huge time overruns.

by tw04 6y ago

pfdietz 6y ago

We can build hydrogen turbines and storage caverns (and renewables to make the hydrogen) much faster than we can make nuclear power plants. Electrolysers are being built at gigawatts/year rates now, and factories can be scaled up rapidly. The speed argument comes down strongly against new nuclear power plants.

7952 6y ago

A global deployment of nuclear would still need a vast amount of engineering hours to complete. There may be room for optimisim, but that is also true of other technologies. And those other technologies are often simpler. It may well be easier to deploy battery farms with new technology than build an existing nuclear design.

pjc50 6y ago

> hydrogen and turbines can solve the issue, it's still years and years and years out and may or may not end up being good enough. We've got nuclear as an option RIGHT NOW for a problem we have to solve RIGHT NOW. If you look at the past ten years of the UK, we've hugely expanded our wind production, shut down and demolished almost all the coal plants, and ... failed to build a nuclear plant. Renewables are the technology that's ready. Nuclear is the technology that suffers huge time overruns.