4 ms·

Solar panels are not a replacement for nuclear power. Controllable energy sources as Gas and Coal are.

bayesian_horse 3y ago
Then you don't understand power generation. Especially as long as fossil fuel power generation is still online, any non-fossil fuel power generation, even supposedly unstable, is worth-while because it reduces greenhouse emissions. The turning point where this changes is quite far off for most countries. You need to replace a lot of fossil fuels with solar/wind to come to that point. And by the time that happens, other solutions will be used, some of which are ready, some of which are not: plant-based fuels, energy storage of various forms and better capacity planning. But if you were really interested in this topic you should have heard or read that argument a thousand times by now, so I assume you just don't want to listen.
- cryptonym 3y ago
  - I don't understand - I'm not really interested - I don't want to listen Sir, your response is not very civilised! Short term, if you had 10GW of controllable nuclear, you will have to replace it with 10GW of another controllable source. As long as you don't have huge energy storage, replacing reliable and controllable energy source with something not controllable is pure fantasy. In our world this is typically replaced by Gas or Coal. Maybe in a future world we'll have plans to replace one controllable power plant with renewable and storage. BTW I'm mostly speaking about capacity and infrastructure, for sure you are free to not use an infrastructure at its maximum when there is wind or sun but you still need to build it, maintain it, buy and store gas coal or whatever... Solar/wind is far from ideal, requiring more cement, metal and other materials but also more space than other traditional concentred power sources and by multiple orders of magnitude. You also have to take into account new infrastructures for energy storage.
  - mqus 3y ago
    > Solar/wind is far from ideal, requiring more cement, metal and other materials [...] than other traditional concentred power sources Citation needed. Afaik nuclear is not expensive because of it's ongoing resource need but because of its construction (and also regulatory) costs.
    - cryptonym 3y ago
      > Citation needed. I'm not writing a wikipedia article. If you want to disprove, feel free to add you own sources and knowledge. I legitimately would be really interested to read how Solar and Wind takes less space, cement and metal than nuclear per WH produced.
  - bayesian_horse 3y ago
    You still don't understand that there is a difference between peak capacity and total emissions, right? And that you can replace plenty of total emissions with completely "uncontrollable" energy resources?
    - cryptonym 3y ago
      Let's say you already have controllable nuclear power and you want to switch while maintaining capacity, best options seems to be either storage + renewable or fossil. Actual production on a given period is an orthogonal problem, we are discussing controllable capacity because you don't want population and industry to suffer and you plan carefully. Now replacing nuclear capacity, with whatever else, in order to reduce total emissions doesn't make sense, you are doing this for a totally different purpose. Replacing nuclear capacity by investing in new fossil capacity, in order to reduce total emissions, doesn't sound that smart.

Then you don't understand power generation. Especially as long as fossil fuel power generation is still online, any non-fossil fuel power generation, even supposedly unstable, is worth-while because it reduces greenhouse emissions. The turning point where this changes is quite far off for most countries. You need to replace a lot of fossil fuels with solar/wind to come to that point. And by the time that happens, other solutions will be used, some of which are ready, some of which are not: plant-based fuels, energy storage of various forms and better capacity planning. But if you were really interested in this topic you should have heard or read that argument a thousand times by now, so I assume you just don't want to listen.

cryptonym 3y ago
- I don't understand - I'm not really interested - I don't want to listen Sir, your response is not very civilised! Short term, if you had 10GW of controllable nuclear, you will have to replace it with 10GW of another controllable source. As long as you don't have huge energy storage, replacing reliable and controllable energy source with something not controllable is pure fantasy. In our world this is typically replaced by Gas or Coal. Maybe in a future world we'll have plans to replace one controllable power plant with renewable and storage. BTW I'm mostly speaking about capacity and infrastructure, for sure you are free to not use an infrastructure at its maximum when there is wind or sun but you still need to build it, maintain it, buy and store gas coal or whatever... Solar/wind is far from ideal, requiring more cement, metal and other materials but also more space than other traditional concentred power sources and by multiple orders of magnitude. You also have to take into account new infrastructures for energy storage.
- mqus 3y ago
  > Solar/wind is far from ideal, requiring more cement, metal and other materials [...] than other traditional concentred power sources Citation needed. Afaik nuclear is not expensive because of it's ongoing resource need but because of its construction (and also regulatory) costs.
  - cryptonym 3y ago
    > Citation needed. I'm not writing a wikipedia article. If you want to disprove, feel free to add you own sources and knowledge. I legitimately would be really interested to read how Solar and Wind takes less space, cement and metal than nuclear per WH produced.
- bayesian_horse 3y ago
  You still don't understand that there is a difference between peak capacity and total emissions, right? And that you can replace plenty of total emissions with completely "uncontrollable" energy resources?
  - cryptonym 3y ago
    Let's say you already have controllable nuclear power and you want to switch while maintaining capacity, best options seems to be either storage + renewable or fossil. Actual production on a given period is an orthogonal problem, we are discussing controllable capacity because you don't want population and industry to suffer and you plan carefully. Now replacing nuclear capacity, with whatever else, in order to reduce total emissions doesn't make sense, you are doing this for a totally different purpose. Replacing nuclear capacity by investing in new fossil capacity, in order to reduce total emissions, doesn't sound that smart.