4 ms·

> it's hard to argue against the significant advances made by renewables over the past few years. I don't think it's that hard to argue that we should have bee

> it's hard to argue against the significant advances made by renewables over the past few years. I don't think it's that hard to argue that we should have been building nuclear plants en-masse 30 years ago, and that resistance to this has lead to immeasurable damage to our biosphere. And that continued resistance will result in even more damage. No projections for renewables is fast enough to meet the gap. https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/15/renewable-energy-is-growing-fast-in-the-u-s-but-fossil-fuels-still-dominate/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/15/renewable-e... Nuclear is increasingly the only option for meeting climate targets quickly enough to save our biosphere.

adrianN 6y ago
We can't build nuclear plants quickly. In the ten years it takes to build a nuclear plant you can build a lot of wind and solar. It's cheaper too.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  The UK commissioned Calder Hall in 1953 and connected it to the grid in 1956 (although energy production was its secondary purpose). We could do it faster if we really wanted to.
  - kristopolous 6y ago
    And if all goes as planned it'll only cost £121bn and take a total of 139 years to decommission. Really. Started in 1981, scheduled to finish in 2120, and nothing really went wrong Oh except for the year after 1956, where that site saw the worst nuclear accident in the UK's history. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire
    - AdmiralGinge 6y ago
      >Sir John Cockcroft, leading the project team, was sufficiently alarmed to order the filters. They could not be installed at the base as construction of the chimneys had already begun, and were constructed on the ground then winched into position at the top once the chimney's concrete had set.[42] They became known as "Cockcroft's Folly" as many regarded the delay they caused and their great expense to be a needless waste. During the fire the filters trapped about 95% of the radioactive dust and arguably saved much of northern England from becoming a nuclear wasteland. Terence Price said "the word folly did not seem appropriate after the accident". You've got to love the British understatement! Having said that, this was really at the start of the nuclear age and came about through the UK being excluded from US nuclear projects despite having contributed to the Manhattan Project under the incorrect assumption technology would be shared after the war. Windscale was built because Britain needed the atomic bomb to prevent its post-war decline making it geopolitically irrelevant and needed it before the US and Soviet Union banned further testing. There's no way anything like that would be built today by any sane government knowing what we do now.
fulafel 6y ago
As long as we're playing counterfactuals: We should have used the untold zillions of public money and subsidies nuclear R&D got (both military and civilian sides) over the last 80 years on renewables, we would have reached the current level of advancement 30 years ago.

adrianN 6y ago

We can't build nuclear plants quickly. In the ten years it takes to build a nuclear plant you can build a lot of wind and solar. It's cheaper too.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
The UK commissioned Calder Hall in 1953 and connected it to the grid in 1956 (although energy production was its secondary purpose). We could do it faster if we really wanted to.
- kristopolous 6y ago
  And if all goes as planned it'll only cost £121bn and take a total of 139 years to decommission. Really. Started in 1981, scheduled to finish in 2120, and nothing really went wrong Oh except for the year after 1956, where that site saw the worst nuclear accident in the UK's history. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire
  - AdmiralGinge 6y ago
    >Sir John Cockcroft, leading the project team, was sufficiently alarmed to order the filters. They could not be installed at the base as construction of the chimneys had already begun, and were constructed on the ground then winched into position at the top once the chimney's concrete had set.[42] They became known as "Cockcroft's Folly" as many regarded the delay they caused and their great expense to be a needless waste. During the fire the filters trapped about 95% of the radioactive dust and arguably saved much of northern England from becoming a nuclear wasteland. Terence Price said "the word folly did not seem appropriate after the accident". You've got to love the British understatement! Having said that, this was really at the start of the nuclear age and came about through the UK being excluded from US nuclear projects despite having contributed to the Manhattan Project under the incorrect assumption technology would be shared after the war. Windscale was built because Britain needed the atomic bomb to prevent its post-war decline making it geopolitically irrelevant and needed it before the US and Soviet Union banned further testing. There's no way anything like that would be built today by any sane government knowing what we do now.

fulafel 6y ago

As long as we're playing counterfactuals: We should have used the untold zillions of public money and subsidies nuclear R&D got (both military and civilian sides) over the last 80 years on renewables, we would have reached the current level of advancement 30 years ago.