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I disagree. Most of climate change is caused by fossil fuels. The rest are caused e.g. by factory farming (plant & animal - e.g. pesticide rundown), plastic po

by tomp 3y ago

I disagree. Most of climate change is caused by fossil fuels. The rest are caused e.g. by factory farming (plant & animal - e.g. pesticide rundown), plastic pollution, etc. If we had boundless nuclear energy, not only would fossil fuels become price inefficient, we could devote the extra energy we generate into synthetic fossil fuels, carbon capture, reducing pollution, etc. Almost all of these are energy bound right now.

vel0city 3y ago
According to the EPA, agriculture accounts for 10% of GHG emissions. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... Building a nuclear reactor isn't going to make steak go away. So even if you solved.for transportation and industrial uses and everything else you're still only at 90%, not 99.99%. > If we had boundless nuclear energy, More of this "nuclear energy will be too cheap to meter" talk. Nuclear energy is more expensive than other sources, not cheaper. It won't be cheaper to make synthetic fossil fuels, it'll be more expensive. > Almost all of these are energy bound right now. They're all price bound right now, because the cost of energy is so high in comparison to alternatives. So high most would probably just avoid using it entirely. Spending trillions building a bunch of reactors isn't making it cheaper you're just committing to spending more of it up front. Either way, making the synthetic fuels isn't the same as just building the reactors. We can have synthetic fuels without nuclear, we can have nuclear without the synthetic fuels, they're independent. So neither one is 99.99% on its own, it's no longer "one thing" like what the person I originally replied to stated. They supposedly have one thing that will solve 99.99% of GHG emissions. I'm not looking for something that will even solve 80% or 90%, why waste time with that when there's one thing to solve it 99.99%. So once again I ask, what is one thing that will solve 99.99% of GHG emissions?
- tomp 3y ago
  Transportation emissions are caused by fossil fuels. As for agriculture, check the rest of the page. Besides CO2, there's also methane and NO2 emissions, both of which are part of a cycle, so they have no long-term impact. The entirety of long-term impact of agriculture is, again, fossil fuels, which is literally digging extra C from the ground and adding that extra CO2 into the atmosphere (technically, TBH, it's also part of a cycle, but instead of 114 years as with NO2, that cycle is millions of years long). The point is if we invest much more in nuclear, it will become too cheap to meter (e.g. we start using modular reactors that benefit from economies of scale).
  - vel0city 3y ago
    You're right, methane breaks down in the atmosphere. What does it break down into again? > The point is if we invest much more in nuclear, it will become too cheap to meter So if we ignore the financial costs (invest today) it'll become too cheap to meter. If nuclear plants can generate with costs <1¢/kWh, why don't they? If nuclear is cheaper than all other energy sources (too cheap to even meter in costs) why is there any energy kind of energy usage and why would it need massive investment to make it happen? If your costs are practically zero, isn't your profit margin essentially 100%? Shouldn't all nuclear power plants be making money hand over fist competing against expensive nonrenewable resources? And yet it's often one of the more expensive sources of electricity today. Don't get me wrong I'm a fan of nuclear and wouldn't mind seeing more of it but not if my electricity bill is 30¢/kWh+. That's not moving towards too cheap to meter.
    - tomp 3y ago
      Methane breaks down into CO2, which is a part of the Carbon Cycle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle CH4 -> CO2 -> grass -> cow -> CH4 | \/ steak -> human -> CO2 and so on... > If nuclear plants can generate with costs <1¢/kWh, why don't they? Because they're too expensive to build, because of regulation and lack of economies of scale. Similar to why rockets were expensive, before SpaceX. If we invested more, both in research and in building more of them, in factories, we could build plenty, much more cheaply. The technology for modular reactors obviously exists (e.g. nuclear submarines), it just needs to be commercialized. > If your costs are practically zero, isn't your profit margin essentially 100%? You're mixing up or conflating total cost vs marginal cost. The marginal cost of making computer chips is almost 0, but the upfront investment is huge. Same with reactors and nuclear power. If we make more of them, streamline the construction, simplify regulation, etc. the marginal costs will drop massively (as will upfront costs, but they will still be non-zero).
      - vel0city 3y ago
        > Methane breaks down into CO2, which is a part of the Carbon Cycle. So it's pretty disingenuous to act as if methane emissions are unrelated to CO2 emissions, isn't it? That methane released in agriculture eventually does turn in to CO2 emissions. You even drew a graph showing my point. Thanks! > You're mixing up or conflating total cost vs marginal cost I'm going by total cost, because ultimately that's what society will pay. We can't just act like building a nuclear power plant costs $0.

by tomp 3y ago

vel0city 3y ago

According to the EPA, agriculture accounts for 10% of GHG emissions. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... Building a nuclear reactor isn't going to make steak go away. So even if you solved.for transportation and industrial uses and everything else you're still only at 90%, not 99.99%. > If we had boundless nuclear energy, More of this "nuclear energy will be too cheap to meter" talk. Nuclear energy is more expensive than other sources, not cheaper. It won't be cheaper to make synthetic fossil fuels, it'll be more expensive. > Almost all of these are energy bound right now. They're all price bound right now, because the cost of energy is so high in comparison to alternatives. So high most would probably just avoid using it entirely. Spending trillions building a bunch of reactors isn't making it cheaper you're just committing to spending more of it up front. Either way, making the synthetic fuels isn't the same as just building the reactors. We can have synthetic fuels without nuclear, we can have nuclear without the synthetic fuels, they're independent. So neither one is 99.99% on its own, it's no longer "one thing" like what the person I originally replied to stated. They supposedly have one thing that will solve 99.99% of GHG emissions. I'm not looking for something that will even solve 80% or 90%, why waste time with that when there's one thing to solve it 99.99%. So once again I ask, what is one thing that will solve 99.99% of GHG emissions?

tomp 3y ago
Transportation emissions are caused by fossil fuels. As for agriculture, check the rest of the page. Besides CO2, there's also methane and NO2 emissions, both of which are part of a cycle, so they have no long-term impact. The entirety of long-term impact of agriculture is, again, fossil fuels, which is literally digging extra C from the ground and adding that extra CO2 into the atmosphere (technically, TBH, it's also part of a cycle, but instead of 114 years as with NO2, that cycle is millions of years long). The point is if we invest much more in nuclear, it will become too cheap to meter (e.g. we start using modular reactors that benefit from economies of scale).
- vel0city 3y ago
  You're right, methane breaks down in the atmosphere. What does it break down into again? > The point is if we invest much more in nuclear, it will become too cheap to meter So if we ignore the financial costs (invest today) it'll become too cheap to meter. If nuclear plants can generate with costs <1¢/kWh, why don't they? If nuclear is cheaper than all other energy sources (too cheap to even meter in costs) why is there any energy kind of energy usage and why would it need massive investment to make it happen? If your costs are practically zero, isn't your profit margin essentially 100%? Shouldn't all nuclear power plants be making money hand over fist competing against expensive nonrenewable resources? And yet it's often one of the more expensive sources of electricity today. Don't get me wrong I'm a fan of nuclear and wouldn't mind seeing more of it but not if my electricity bill is 30¢/kWh+. That's not moving towards too cheap to meter.
  - tomp 3y ago
    Methane breaks down into CO2, which is a part of the Carbon Cycle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle CH4 -> CO2 -> grass -> cow -> CH4 | \/ steak -> human -> CO2 and so on... > If nuclear plants can generate with costs <1¢/kWh, why don't they? Because they're too expensive to build, because of regulation and lack of economies of scale. Similar to why rockets were expensive, before SpaceX. If we invested more, both in research and in building more of them, in factories, we could build plenty, much more cheaply. The technology for modular reactors obviously exists (e.g. nuclear submarines), it just needs to be commercialized. > If your costs are practically zero, isn't your profit margin essentially 100%? You're mixing up or conflating total cost vs marginal cost. The marginal cost of making computer chips is almost 0, but the upfront investment is huge. Same with reactors and nuclear power. If we make more of them, streamline the construction, simplify regulation, etc. the marginal costs will drop massively (as will upfront costs, but they will still be non-zero).
    - vel0city 3y ago
      > Methane breaks down into CO2, which is a part of the Carbon Cycle. So it's pretty disingenuous to act as if methane emissions are unrelated to CO2 emissions, isn't it? That methane released in agriculture eventually does turn in to CO2 emissions. You even drew a graph showing my point. Thanks! > You're mixing up or conflating total cost vs marginal cost I'm going by total cost, because ultimately that's what society will pay. We can't just act like building a nuclear power plant costs $0.