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> So first up, the stat is usually fatalities per TwH, since that skews things in Nuclear's direction, not just number of fatalities which would be won by some
by throwawaylinux 5y ago
> So first up, the stat is usually fatalities per TwH, since that skews things in Nuclear's direction, not just number of fatalities which would be won by some obscure but not very successful power source.
Why wouldn't it be fatalaties per TWh? It's TWh by the way.
> Second, even with the correct metric, solar and wind are now beating nuclear and projected to continue to do so, widening the gap over time. Comparing the very start of the renewable rollout gives misleading stats as the total power generated is low, and many stats that get quoted on this are more than a decade out of date.
> You can build a wind turbine and ritually sacrifice someone on completion of the build and the fatalities per TwH is infinite as it's not generated any power yet, but with every year of operation it gets lower.
No, wind towers don't have infinite generation, require maintenance and decommissioning, and have been well around for long enough that statistics are quite well available throughout the lifecycle. People have been acting like we've been at the very start of the renewable rollout for the past 30 years, which is longer than the operating life of an average wind turbine.
> Basically the same applies to carbon output, nuclear does well, but wind/solar/nuclear have been basically tied on both metrics unless you're relying on some very, very old data.
Again I've been hearing that renewable energy will solve all this and nothing else can for the past 20 years if not more. Hundreds of nuclear plants could have been built and running in that time now.
Funny thing is it keeps getting repeated. Again, and again, and again, by people who don't understand the fundamentals. Coal was doomed, completely on the way out and destroyed by wind and even solar just a couple of years ago according to these very same anti nuclear people. Today, thermal coal prices have been at record highs for the past year. Coal production is ramping in many countries and global consumption is near record highs and will take many decades to drop. Coal plants are being built with 40 year lifespans.
Where's wind and solar? Still only make up little more than 10% of global electricity generation. Most of the stats for renewables quoted includes hydro which exceeds both of them combined.
- Aeolun 5y ago> Still only make up little more than 10% of global electricity generation Only? Not very long ago that stat was less than a percent, if it was mentioned at all.
- throwawaylinux 5y agoOnly. When was it less than a percent? 20 years ago?
- bryanlarsen 5y agoAbout 10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States About 2/3rds of new capacity being added in 2022 is renewable: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50818 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50818
- throwawaylinux 5y agoThat's not going to solve climate change is it? It's not even reducing existing fossil fuel installations let alone providing all new energy requirements. Like a real nuclear effort could have. And "capacity" of course means something very different when it comes to the wind and solar, which makes that 2/3 not as great as it sounds. No, the anti-nuclear luddites and conspiracy theorists have no credibility. They are dangerous climate deniers who should not be listened to. The amount of damage they have already caused may well be incalculable.
- bryanlarsen 5y agoThey're building 2 nuke plants worth of solar and 1 plant worth of wind in 2022. In a single year. That'd be about $100B if it was nuclear. Given that it takes about 20 years to build a nuke, that means 60 plants being built simultaneously, total cost $2T. That would never happen.
- throwawaylinux 5y agoWho is they? And are you talking about the total generating capacity? 3 nuclear plants per year is laughable compared to what needs to be done. It's barely enough to maintain the greenhouse gas footprint let alone reduce it significantly. And nuclear would never happen thanks to the anti-nuclear / pro-fossil-fuel "green" lobby. I'm not saying it would, I'm saying it's been killed and along with it the climate by these lunatics. Big coal is happy though, they're making some astounding profits in the past year or two, wind turbines or no wind turbines.
- capitainenemo 5y agoI've often wondered about those % measurements of electricity generation. Because of high variability balancing wind/solar is apparently tricky since rarely is storage capacity built along with the wind/solar (I kinda wish that subsidies focused on that). So... of that 10%, how much of it is excess power that had to be soaked up wherever a place could be found to dump it, and or rapid ramping down of base generation, causing waste. It's probably a hard thing to calculate though.
- zuminator 5y ago> No, wind towers don't have infinite generation, require maintenance and decommissioning, and have been well around for long enough that statistics are quite well available throughout the lifecycle. GP was making the opposite point that 1 (sacrificial death) ÷ 0 (TW generated from a brand new tower) is "infinite" (fatalities per TWh) which would really be undefined, not infinite, but a silly point regardless.