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The only effort that matters is the move to nuclear power. We are so far away from doing anything meaningful about climate change that any projects, including
by konjin 6y ago
The only effort that matters is the move to nuclear power.
We are so far away from doing anything meaningful about climate change that any projects, including solar, we are pushing for today are meaningless.
Enjoy the 30 good years left where industrial civilization can be stably sustained and then be prepared for the bumpy ride to a world of 500 million over the next century or two.
- bildung 6y agoNuclear is essentially done (outside of niches), simply because renewables have become cheaper (in $/MWh produced) than nuclear, while having non of nuclears disadvantages.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoThe only effort that matters is the move to nuclear power. I'm not even sure about that. The biggest concrete pour in Europe right now is for a nuclear power station in the UK. We won't solve climate change without dramatically changing our patterns of consumption. Trying to apply technical fixes is repeating the same patterns of thought that got us here in the first place.
- emteycz 6y ago> I'm not even sure about that. The biggest concrete pour in Europe right now is for a nuclear power station in the UK. I'm having a very hard time believing that. In Czechia there are companies building entire towns (for rent), and these are still small compared to some of the new industrial areas, surely that can't be less concrete than a nuclear power plant
- corty 6y agoThats just the biggest single-piece concrete pour. Any random highway bridge has a similar total volume of concrete, just not in a single pour.
- ip26 6y agoWe will never reach carbon zero through austerity alone.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoWe won't reach it by buying more stuff either.
- adrianN 6y agoRenewables would work too and are probably cheaper and easier to deploy than nuclear. Imo we should just try both and go with whatever is done first.
- cbozeman 6y agoRenewables would work?? For global power?? My friend, you need to look further into this. The only solution we have, and I do mean the only solution is nuclear fusion. I understand why no one wants to throw money at this problem... cheap, unlimited power is nothing that old people running the world want, because they can't inflate their bank accounts by making that a reality, but we don't have a choice. If we don't crack fusion, we're done as a species.
- WalterBright 6y ago> cheap, unlimited power is nothing that old people running the world want The actual problem is nobody knows how to make a fusion reactor work.
- cbozeman 6y agoGotta have money to make it go, baby... We can't crack fusion because we can't get all the first-world nations to throw 1% GDP at it. I guarantee you, if we threw $250 billion a year at fusion, we'd have it in 10 years.
- jjk166 6y agoEven if we had fusion working already, a fusion powerplant would be expensive to build - comparable to a similar sized fission plant. At a conservative estimate of $2 Billion per GW, that $250B/yr would take more than a century just to build enough reactors to replace current fossil fuel consumption. Realistically, fusion is unlikely to be cost competitive with other power sources outside of niche applications. Even if fusion winds up powering our civilization in the future, something else will have to act as a stop-gap.
- 6y ago