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I know, right? Why build a solar farm in 6 months or a wind farm in a year when you can spend five times as much and have a nuclear plant ready in 10-15 years?
by pydry 4y ago
I know, right? Why build a solar farm in 6 months or a wind farm in a year when you can spend five times as much and have a nuclear plant ready in 10-15 years?
- otikik 4y agoIn 6 months you don't even have the permission for building a wind farm (or a solar farm). Source: https://www.positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/2022/10/15/solar-farm-update-we-finally-have-planning-permission/ https://www.positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/2022/10/15/solar-farm-...
- benj111 4y agoI suppose it's how you define 'build'. If I build an IKEA bookcase, do I time the build from when I throw the instructions away, or when my significant other decides to buy it between mouthfuls of meatballs?
- kmeisthax 4y agoIf you think the NIMBYism for renewables is bad, imagine trying to build a nuclear plant in your backyard. In fact, the majority of problems with nuclear being slow to build boil down to "the NIMBYs wont have it". This is probably a place where nuclear and renewable advocates could come together and fight back against the NIMBYs who would rather you just built more coal plants next to the poors. Because NIMBYism is just lower-case c conservatism with extra steps.
- bombcar 4y agoNIMBY can be solved with enough money and willpower; we don't have that right now. It can also be reduced or solved by telling people outside "the area" they don't get a say.
- benj111 4y agoWhat's "the area" for nuclear power though? The hypothetical radioactive cloud could travel a few hundred miles in the wind...
- kmeisthax 4y agoIf your only concern is radiation exposure, coal plants actually emit more radiation than nuclear. And that's deliberate, everyday emissions, not the accidental once-in-a-decade megaevents like Fukushima or Chernobyl.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoPlease do share the total cumulative activity of all bioacumulative elements present in all non-filtered fly ash ever released and compare it to the Cs137 that Sellafield poured into the ocean as part of normal operation in 1975 or the Kr 85 that La Hague releases on an average year.
- benj111 4y agoI was replying to >It can also be reduced or solved by telling people outside "the area" they don't get a say. The area that gets a say, should surely be the area impacted by it. Further. Whataboutism, comparing it to a rapidly obsoleting technology doesn't seem reasonable.
- Manuel_D 4y agoBecause the solar farm is going to saturate the energy market on sunny days, and fail to produce energy at night and on cloudy days. There's diminishing returns on intermittent energy sources once peak production is saturated. Comparing intermittent sources of electricity to dispatchable sources of energy is comparing apples to oranges.
- pydry 4y agoIt's insane to fret about saturating the energy market when 40% of electricity is produced by gas on a sunny day and electric car drivers are gagging for differential pricing tariffs. Intermittent electricity produced now is worth more than baseload in 14 years later.
- amanaplanacanal 4y agoExactly. Worry about saturating when we are actually close to that happening.
- Manuel_D 4y agoIt's not just close to happening, it already is happening in Australia and Hawaii: https://solarbuildermag.com/policy/grid-saturation-lessons-from-australia-and-hawaii/ https://solarbuildermag.com/policy/grid-saturation-lessons-f...
- amanaplanacanal 4y agoSo don’t build more solar in those locations. That’s not an excuse for other places where this is not the case.
- Manuel_D 4y agoRight, but then how do you displace the remaining fossil fuel use? It's only a matter of time until the "other places" are also saturated. How do you get from 40-50% decarbonized energy to zero? The solution is non-intermittent energy generation. Hydro and geothermal are great for places that have the right geography and geology. But nuclear is the only other non-intermittent form of decarbonized energy we have*. * Some would point to biomass, but I don't consider them decarbonized: the biomass could have been a carbon sink if it wasn't burned. It's emissions by virtue of opportunity cost. An it's not a very scalable form of energy anyway.