6 ms·

All these ridiculous Rube Goldberg contraptions for solar and wind when we could just build more and different types of nuclear reactors.

npc12345 4y ago
Solar panels do not suddenly render large swaths of fertile land un-inhabitable.
- cbmuser 4y ago
  Neither does nuclear. 80% of the population of the exclusion zone in Fukushima prefecture have already returned to their homes. People can even move back to Futaba, a town next to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Nuclear power produces cheap, emission-free and reliable electricity. It's as safe as wind power and it's life-cycle emissions are even less. > https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy > https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-electricity-2020 https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el... > https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    > Nuclear power does not produce cheap, emission-free and reliable electricity Fixed that for you. Nukes produce the most expensive electricity of all. Always have, counting subsidies. Their value proposition gets even worse each day, as renewables cost continues on down. They will be mothballed soon as too expensive to continue operating at all, as people choose to buy cheaper power elsewhere. As the amount of time they can find a market for power declines, their cost per delivered KWh multiplies without bound.
7952 4y ago
Its not though. It is modest and conservative iteration of existing technology that is very well understood and easy to model.
- cbmuser 4y ago
  Yet, solar does not produce electricity reliably, needs additional electric backup power and uses large amounts of material and area for producing relatively small amounts of energy. Nuclear works everywhere, everytime. There is a reason they put nuclear reactors into submarines and aircraft carriers and space probes.
  - jhgb 4y ago
    > There is a reason they put nuclear reactors into submarines and aircraft carriers and space probes. The first two have ready access to infinite amounts of coolant, which is absolutely not the situation "everywhere", and the last one actually never delivered more power than solar panels due to very inferior power/weight ratio of all space-based nuclear reactors produced to this date -- the most widespread space-based reactor BES-5 generated something like 7-8 W/kg.
  - 7952 4y ago
    I am in favour of nuclear power but it is not so black and white. You have just listed three types of project with access to vast resources. The number of nuclear powered vessels is vanishingly small. And spacecraft overwhelmingly use solar when they can. If your goal is to move a ship or launch a communication satellite then the last thing you want to do is add the considerable extra complexity of nuclear power. Nuclear engineering is hard.
ncmncm 4y ago
Nukes are themselves ramshackle Rube Goldberg contraptions. They will all be mothballed by 2050 as their power cost is increasingly and, finally, overwhelmingly undercut by solar.

npc12345 4y ago

Solar panels do not suddenly render large swaths of fertile land un-inhabitable.

cbmuser 4y ago
Neither does nuclear. 80% of the population of the exclusion zone in Fukushima prefecture have already returned to their homes. People can even move back to Futaba, a town next to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Nuclear power produces cheap, emission-free and reliable electricity. It's as safe as wind power and it's life-cycle emissions are even less. > https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy > https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-electricity-2020 https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el... > https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity
- ncmncm 4y ago
  > Nuclear power does not produce cheap, emission-free and reliable electricity Fixed that for you. Nukes produce the most expensive electricity of all. Always have, counting subsidies. Their value proposition gets even worse each day, as renewables cost continues on down. They will be mothballed soon as too expensive to continue operating at all, as people choose to buy cheaper power elsewhere. As the amount of time they can find a market for power declines, their cost per delivered KWh multiplies without bound.

7952 4y ago

Its not though. It is modest and conservative iteration of existing technology that is very well understood and easy to model.

cbmuser 4y ago
Yet, solar does not produce electricity reliably, needs additional electric backup power and uses large amounts of material and area for producing relatively small amounts of energy. Nuclear works everywhere, everytime. There is a reason they put nuclear reactors into submarines and aircraft carriers and space probes.
- jhgb 4y ago
  > There is a reason they put nuclear reactors into submarines and aircraft carriers and space probes. The first two have ready access to infinite amounts of coolant, which is absolutely not the situation "everywhere", and the last one actually never delivered more power than solar panels due to very inferior power/weight ratio of all space-based nuclear reactors produced to this date -- the most widespread space-based reactor BES-5 generated something like 7-8 W/kg.
- 7952 4y ago
  I am in favour of nuclear power but it is not so black and white. You have just listed three types of project with access to vast resources. The number of nuclear powered vessels is vanishingly small. And spacecraft overwhelmingly use solar when they can. If your goal is to move a ship or launch a communication satellite then the last thing you want to do is add the considerable extra complexity of nuclear power. Nuclear engineering is hard.

ncmncm 4y ago

Nukes are themselves ramshackle Rube Goldberg contraptions. They will all be mothballed by 2050 as their power cost is increasingly and, finally, overwhelmingly undercut by solar.