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What happens after another century of dumping 45+ billion tons of CO2 and other GHGs into the air? The question is whether it's better to use nuclear power or

by pc86 6y ago

What happens after another century of dumping 45+ billion tons of CO2 and other GHGs into the air? The question is whether it's better to use nuclear power or fossil fuel power. There's little difference, practically speaking, between hemming and hawing about statistically small events happening re: nuclear power, or what we do a lifetime from now, and actively advocating for increased fossil fuel usage. If nuclear can be replaced with something even cleaner and even safer then I'm all for it. But it's short sighted in the extreme to actively tear nuclear down when the only realistic alternative at that scale is fossil fuel.

DangitBobby 6y ago
Or the discussion is about nuclear versus other forms of "green" energy.
- dntrkv 6y ago
  And what do you do when the other forms of green energy aren't available?
  - DangitBobby 6y ago
    Well, then nuclear is better than fossil fuels. Has that been a barrier to adoption?
    - stjohnswarts 6y ago
      Yes, NIMBYs
Daho0n 6y ago
>the only realistic alternative at that scale is fossil fuel. Are the alternatives widespread in places like Denmark not realistic (wind from 50% in 2020 to 84% by 2035)? 4th best energy architecture performance and the second best energy security in the world. Is it not realistic elsewhere?
- politician 6y ago
  Correct, wind energy is not present in the same amounts everywhere. There are places where wind energy is more available and places where it's not available or marginal. You can't run your AC off of a gentle breeze. Finding the best places to install wind farms is surprisingly difficult.
  - Daho0n 6y ago
    With enough wind energy couldn't energy transfer between countries and energy storage help? After all it is always windy somewhere. I know energy storage is hard and not enough alone but couldn't for example Sweden and Denmark transfer energy back and forth and only use other energy sources as backup?
    - politician 6y ago
      There's a lot of power loss in transmission over long distances. China is attempting to move power from solar fields from the eastern deserts to its major cities using Ultra High Voltage (UHV) power lines [1], but not without problems. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity...
      - jhayward 6y ago
        > There's a lot of power loss in transmission over long distances. No, there's not. If one were to build new transmission today one would expect low-single-digits percentage loss per 1,000 miles of distance. It's not enough for anyone to worry about.
      - gehsty 6y ago
        HVAC has significant losses, HVDC has less losses and allows power to be transmitted efficiently enough over long distances (guess it depends on what you mean by long). A good example is North Sea link, linking the north of England to the abundant hydropower in Norway, which should come online this year I think. HVDC links connecting European countries of the length 400-600km are becoming quite common, unfortunately subsea cables are prone to failures and can cause a lot of outages etc.

by pc86 6y ago

DangitBobby 6y ago

Or the discussion is about nuclear versus other forms of "green" energy.

dntrkv 6y ago
And what do you do when the other forms of green energy aren't available?
- DangitBobby 6y ago
  Well, then nuclear is better than fossil fuels. Has that been a barrier to adoption?
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    Yes, NIMBYs

Daho0n 6y ago

>the only realistic alternative at that scale is fossil fuel. Are the alternatives widespread in places like Denmark not realistic (wind from 50% in 2020 to 84% by 2035)? 4th best energy architecture performance and the second best energy security in the world. Is it not realistic elsewhere?

politician 6y ago
Correct, wind energy is not present in the same amounts everywhere. There are places where wind energy is more available and places where it's not available or marginal. You can't run your AC off of a gentle breeze. Finding the best places to install wind farms is surprisingly difficult.
- Daho0n 6y ago
  With enough wind energy couldn't energy transfer between countries and energy storage help? After all it is always windy somewhere. I know energy storage is hard and not enough alone but couldn't for example Sweden and Denmark transfer energy back and forth and only use other energy sources as backup?
  - politician 6y ago
    There's a lot of power loss in transmission over long distances. China is attempting to move power from solar fields from the eastern deserts to its major cities using Ultra High Voltage (UHV) power lines [1], but not without problems. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity...
    - jhayward 6y ago
      > There's a lot of power loss in transmission over long distances. No, there's not. If one were to build new transmission today one would expect low-single-digits percentage loss per 1,000 miles of distance. It's not enough for anyone to worry about.
    - gehsty 6y ago
      HVAC has significant losses, HVDC has less losses and allows power to be transmitted efficiently enough over long distances (guess it depends on what you mean by long). A good example is North Sea link, linking the north of England to the abundant hydropower in Norway, which should come online this year I think. HVDC links connecting European countries of the length 400-600km are becoming quite common, unfortunately subsea cables are prone to failures and can cause a lot of outages etc.