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It does seem a lot simpler to plop down a bunch of concrete in roughly the same area as today's fossil fuel plants take, compared to rewiring and repurposing a
by lucb1e 4y ago
It does seem a lot simpler to plop down a bunch of concrete in roughly the same area as today's fossil fuel plants take, compared to rewiring and repurposing a third of a country to get enough solar panels and wind turbines in place (the latter while keeping residence distance requirements in mind). Not sure if that is factored into the feasibility when people talk about how expensive it is.
I agree that it doesn't make economic sense in an ideal world with twice as much space per capita and/or a lot more time to find and purchase ideal nooks and crannies and wire them up, but that would require moving to planet B. Note I'm not talking about nearly-empty USA, Australia, northern Africa, etc. here; rather, take 2-3 random European countries (highest emissions per capita after north america, so you know, the place that needs to get change happening) and you're very unlikely to hit only ones where not most/all of the land already is already allocated to some purpose.
I also agree it's likely already too late to get started on new nuclear plants, like, it's nearly so late that we might as well just go solar and wind for the rest of the way. But I don't think it's quite at that point yet, considering for example that regions in southern germany with big-ish distance requirements for wind turbines are placing nearly none (and germany is not even one of the countries that I would count among those that are out of space), it's apparently that full already and they've got like 80% of the way to go in phasing out fossil fuels.
Honestly the main hope I have these days is solar panels on crop fields becoming a real thing. That would grant a level of scale (and somewhat protects from crop failure causes like hail and drought) that would make me see this energy transition as feasible without nuclear (pushing the recycling problem onto the next generation, but better to deal with a billion worn panels than a billion displaced people (both figures are figurative)), but so far there's little adoption.
- eldaisfish 4y agoWe need a combination of the two. A single point of failure is not ideal design. One increasingly common weather event and your power grid loses a massive source of energy. Distributed energy is good because it allows life to continue, in a limited fashion. For western europe at least, off shore wind is a great alternative, as are smaller wind turbines on farms. Much of western europe is in the path of the trade winds and so is a great place for wind power. It is not too late for nuclear. Nuclear is an excellent stop-gap measure while we figure out how to transition to large-scale renewables.
- lucb1e 4y agoI agree with you. As I said, it's not too late yet for it to make sense to break ground, but we love hugging deadlines it seems...
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago> you're very unlikely to hit only ones where not most/all of the land already is already allocated to some purpose Thats is the wrong problem - numerous farmers in Britain want wind turbines, they want extra source of income and they are willing to put in their own money. They know the turbines dont take any land away from farming - only fraction of a percent. They are not allowed to install wind turbines on their own land from their own money, because the british government has banned turbines over a certain, non-viable height, on land. Even when you want a small turbines installed, it takes 4 years of planning permissions and legal battles. If we allowed every farmer to install windfarm of their land without interference, we'd solve half the problem. We are dooming ourselved to disaster out of purely aesthetic concerns.
- scarby2 4y agoThey're also doing the same with the green belt, housing and businesses in general. Farmers are being told they need to diversity but they can't have wind turbines, they can't have businesses that need any kind of premises, they can't build housing on their less productive land. Something has to give at some point. Everyone agrees they need to do something but many governments are intent on doing nothing
- ksec 4y agoI wish we could start a thread about all the problems in UK. From HN.