5 ms·

If you're not serious about nuclear, you're not serious about climate change.

by psunavy03 2y ago

barbazoo 2y ago
Source?
- atomic128 2y ago
  Germany is a tragic real-world example. Take a look at what Germany did to itself. Compare France. The anti-nuclear wind/solar proponents are dangerously wrong.
  - _aavaa_ 2y ago
    That Germany's early retirement of its fleet was a bad idea does not mean that building more is a good idea.
  - barbazoo 2y ago
    Germany has been reducing its carbon emissions by increasing the ratio of renewable energy, year after year despite the exit from nuclear power. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c... Isn't that the goal? If they can do that without nuclear power - great. Despite France's >50% nuclear power they have a much higher ratio of "dirty" power compared to Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_France
    - emptyfile 2y ago
      [dead]
    - Manuel_D 2y ago
      Germany's energy industry emits 6 times as much greenhouse gases per MWh of electricity generated than France: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/09/08/france-vs-germany-which-country-is-better-at-reducing-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-its-factories_6725219_19.html#:~:text=Germany's%20mix%20has%20a%20higher,require%20significant%20electrification%20of%20processes https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/09/08/france-.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:Energy_mix_in_Germany.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:... Germany's energy is 80% fossil fuels. France's is 50%. I'm not sure how you reached the conclusion that Germany's energy mix is less "dirty" than Frances.
      - barbazoo 2y ago
        > Germany's energy is 80% fossil fuels. Where did you get that number from? https://www.iea.org/countries/germany https://www.iea.org/countries/germany > Renewables 39.4% share of power generation, 2022 vs. France's 26.1%. Edit: I guess you might be talking about consumption whereas I'm talking about production.
        Manuel_D 2y ago
        Nuclear power is less "dirty" than most forms of renewables: https://world-nuclear.org/images/articles/0a2091ce-35b3-4ada-969d-a5db4690a4dd.jpg https://world-nuclear.org/images/articles/0a2091ce-35b3-4ada... Again, Germany emits 6 times as much C02 for every MWh of electricity generated as France. It's not an issue of production vs. consumption. You're counting nuclear power, which is heavily utilized by France, as a "dirty" energy source despite the fact that it's cleaner than most renewables.
    - scotty79 2y ago
      I read that it turned from being large exporter of energy to be large importer.
  - Ghaenergyyy 2y ago
    [dead]
lancesells 2y ago
If you're not serious about energy consumption, you're also not serious about climate change. Unfortunately consumer and business technology wants to go the other way.
- epistasis 2y ago
  Climate change fact #1: CO2 (and to some extent other GHG) is the cause of climate change. Climate change fact #2: energy consumption is not a cause of climate change, except for when it causes CO2 emission. Climate change fact #3: reduced CO2 emission will not stop climate change. Reducing energy usage is a losing climate strategy in three ways 1) it doesn't solve the problem, cutting emissions 50% does jack shit, we need to get to 0% emissions and then negative emissions. 2) It's politically ineffective because only some people and countries will actually reduce emissions. 3) It's political suicide because it validates false anti-climate change propaganda. 4) It's highly socially regressive because these dictates demand that the burden be placed mostly on developing countries. Reason #1 is enough to disqualify the "reduce energy usage" as a climate strategy, but really there's zero way to look at it and think that there's any validity. Please find better sources and stop spreading this counterproductive idea.
- scotty79 2y ago
  Getting rid of CO2 from the atmosphere will take a lot of power. Energy conservation is not the way to go.
epistasis 2y ago
More logically, if you're serious about climate change you're not serious about nuclear. This Amazon investment aims to only have 5GW of nuclear on the grid 15 years from now. That's not a solution to climate change, it's not even a rounding error. It rises to a rounding error on the suddenly discovered need for new energy for AI, but it's a decade late for that. In 15 years, the grid will be completely decarbonized by solar and batteries and wind, existing nuclear/hydro, and probably some new tech like enhanced geothermal. This is 2039 energy environment that nuclear will enter into, and it will have to compete with 15 more years of prices falling on batteries and renewables. SMRs can't compete on price with today's price for new large nuclear, todays new large nuclear can't compete on price with today's solar/wind/batteries, and today's solar/wind/batteries sure as hell won't compete with 15 years of prices falling. SMRs like this have no hope to be a competitive product. Nuclear has overpromised and underdelivered for 60 years. We should have kept existing plants running. If our anscestors had lit money on fire to produce a bunch of reactors 40 years ago, we'd be in a much better position. But we'd also be in a much better position had they not pooh-poohed solar and made bigger investments sooner, driving forward solar revolution by 15-30 years from where it is now. We'd have been in a much better position if there had been a massive investment in battery technology 15-30 years earlier, making EVs feasible sooner, and revolutionizing the grid with storage sooner. Solar and batteries will be the foundation of the future, because they are technology that gets cheaper the more we invest in them. Nuclear might be around in 50 years, maybe not, but it won't be any cheaper or more affordable. It's a technology that barely moves the more we spend on it, and can sometimes be economically efficient in the best of cases. But the average case for building nuclear is big price overruns, and it's not uncommon for utilities to be brought to the point of bankruptcy. We have better technology available, today, to be deployed. Let's do it. Nuclear is a pipe dream from people that haven't run the numbers, or have run the numbers they have gotten them drastically wrong. The entire history of nuclear energy in this country is of people not running the numbers or running the numbers and getting them drastically wrong.

If you're not serious about nuclear, you're not serious about climate change.

barbazoo 2y ago

Source?

atomic128 2y ago
Germany is a tragic real-world example. Take a look at what Germany did to itself. Compare France. The anti-nuclear wind/solar proponents are dangerously wrong.
- _aavaa_ 2y ago
  That Germany's early retirement of its fleet was a bad idea does not mean that building more is a good idea.
- barbazoo 2y ago
  Germany has been reducing its carbon emissions by increasing the ratio of renewable energy, year after year despite the exit from nuclear power. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-consumption-and-power-mix-charts https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c... Isn't that the goal? If they can do that without nuclear power - great. Despite France's >50% nuclear power they have a much higher ratio of "dirty" power compared to Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_France
  - emptyfile 2y ago
    [dead]
  - Manuel_D 2y ago
    Germany's energy industry emits 6 times as much greenhouse gases per MWh of electricity generated than France: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/09/08/france-vs-germany-which-country-is-better-at-reducing-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-its-factories_6725219_19.html#:~:text=Germany's%20mix%20has%20a%20higher,require%20significant%20electrification%20of%20processes https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/09/08/france-.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:Energy_mix_in_Germany.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:... Germany's energy is 80% fossil fuels. France's is 50%. I'm not sure how you reached the conclusion that Germany's energy mix is less "dirty" than Frances.
    - barbazoo 2y ago
      > Germany's energy is 80% fossil fuels. Where did you get that number from? https://www.iea.org/countries/germany https://www.iea.org/countries/germany > Renewables 39.4% share of power generation, 2022 vs. France's 26.1%. Edit: I guess you might be talking about consumption whereas I'm talking about production.
      - Manuel_D 2y ago
        Nuclear power is less "dirty" than most forms of renewables: https://world-nuclear.org/images/articles/0a2091ce-35b3-4ada-969d-a5db4690a4dd.jpg https://world-nuclear.org/images/articles/0a2091ce-35b3-4ada... Again, Germany emits 6 times as much C02 for every MWh of electricity generated as France. It's not an issue of production vs. consumption. You're counting nuclear power, which is heavily utilized by France, as a "dirty" energy source despite the fact that it's cleaner than most renewables.
  - scotty79 2y ago
    I read that it turned from being large exporter of energy to be large importer.
- Ghaenergyyy 2y ago
  [dead]

lancesells 2y ago

If you're not serious about energy consumption, you're also not serious about climate change. Unfortunately consumer and business technology wants to go the other way.

epistasis 2y ago
Climate change fact #1: CO2 (and to some extent other GHG) is the cause of climate change. Climate change fact #2: energy consumption is not a cause of climate change, except for when it causes CO2 emission. Climate change fact #3: reduced CO2 emission will not stop climate change. Reducing energy usage is a losing climate strategy in three ways 1) it doesn't solve the problem, cutting emissions 50% does jack shit, we need to get to 0% emissions and then negative emissions. 2) It's politically ineffective because only some people and countries will actually reduce emissions. 3) It's political suicide because it validates false anti-climate change propaganda. 4) It's highly socially regressive because these dictates demand that the burden be placed mostly on developing countries. Reason #1 is enough to disqualify the "reduce energy usage" as a climate strategy, but really there's zero way to look at it and think that there's any validity. Please find better sources and stop spreading this counterproductive idea.
scotty79 2y ago
Getting rid of CO2 from the atmosphere will take a lot of power. Energy conservation is not the way to go.

epistasis 2y ago

More logically, if you're serious about climate change you're not serious about nuclear. This Amazon investment aims to only have 5GW of nuclear on the grid 15 years from now. That's not a solution to climate change, it's not even a rounding error. It rises to a rounding error on the suddenly discovered need for new energy for AI, but it's a decade late for that. In 15 years, the grid will be completely decarbonized by solar and batteries and wind, existing nuclear/hydro, and probably some new tech like enhanced geothermal. This is 2039 energy environment that nuclear will enter into, and it will have to compete with 15 more years of prices falling on batteries and renewables. SMRs can't compete on price with today's price for new large nuclear, todays new large nuclear can't compete on price with today's solar/wind/batteries, and today's solar/wind/batteries sure as hell won't compete with 15 years of prices falling. SMRs like this have no hope to be a competitive product. Nuclear has overpromised and underdelivered for 60 years. We should have kept existing plants running. If our anscestors had lit money on fire to produce a bunch of reactors 40 years ago, we'd be in a much better position. But we'd also be in a much better position had they not pooh-poohed solar and made bigger investments sooner, driving forward solar revolution by 15-30 years from where it is now. We'd have been in a much better position if there had been a massive investment in battery technology 15-30 years earlier, making EVs feasible sooner, and revolutionizing the grid with storage sooner. Solar and batteries will be the foundation of the future, because they are technology that gets cheaper the more we invest in them. Nuclear might be around in 50 years, maybe not, but it won't be any cheaper or more affordable. It's a technology that barely moves the more we spend on it, and can sometimes be economically efficient in the best of cases. But the average case for building nuclear is big price overruns, and it's not uncommon for utilities to be brought to the point of bankruptcy. We have better technology available, today, to be deployed. Let's do it. Nuclear is a pipe dream from people that haven't run the numbers, or have run the numbers they have gotten them drastically wrong. The entire history of nuclear energy in this country is of people not running the numbers or running the numbers and getting them drastically wrong.