3 ms·

> Certainly France has been much better off in terms of carbon emissions from electricity since the 1980s than most places in the world, but they were also goin

> Certainly France has been much better off in terms of carbon emissions from electricity since the 1980s than most places in the world, but they were also going nuclear due to lack of cheap fossil fuels. That's the point: 2024's solar is better than 1980's nuclear, but in the meantime we've pumped a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere we didn't have to.

pfdietz 2y ago
It's difficult to see the relevance of your point. Are you saying we should build nuclear now because we didn't then? That would make no sense. This isn't some sort of arena where we have to be fair to inanimate objects.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > difficult to see the relevance of your point. Are you saying we should build nuclear now because we didn't then The same statement will be true in twenty years. We’re not building gas generators because they’re pretty. We have power demand growth well ahead of our solar and wind deployment potential, even assuming the rosiest production growth forecasts for the next ten years. That gap is being filled with natural gas, based on infrastructure with 20 to 40-year financing timelines. Not building a nuclear plant today means more gas generators burning through the 2060s. (I’m assuming we build and deploy solar and wind as quickly as possible, too.)
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    > We have power demand growth well ahead of our solar and wind deployment potential Justify that statement, please. What is preventing us from installing that much wind and solar? If anything, nuclear's deployment potential is much more limited.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > Are you saying we should build nuclear now because we didn't then? No, that would be a large comprehension error. I'm making the point because people seem to use what solar and wind can finally do now to justify us not having built nuclear 40 years ago.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    I haven't seen anyone do that.
mrguyorama 2y ago
Except if we had wanted to be green energy in the 1980s, we would have given Carter a second term which means we would have had investment in Solar panels too. We would have likely seen a similar level of massive decrease in cost (not as big though, no chinese manufacturing) to make it pretty competitive. But America didn't want to do the hard work of spending a hundred billion dollars on infrastructure and investment to our country. We wanted the cocaine fueled orgy of capitalism that Reagan promised us. So we ripped the solar panels off of the whitehouse and shared a bed with Saudi Arabia. Now gas is cheap as chips so we can just burn as much as we want!

pfdietz 2y ago

It's difficult to see the relevance of your point. Are you saying we should build nuclear now because we didn't then? That would make no sense. This isn't some sort of arena where we have to be fair to inanimate objects.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> difficult to see the relevance of your point. Are you saying we should build nuclear now because we didn't then The same statement will be true in twenty years. We’re not building gas generators because they’re pretty. We have power demand growth well ahead of our solar and wind deployment potential, even assuming the rosiest production growth forecasts for the next ten years. That gap is being filled with natural gas, based on infrastructure with 20 to 40-year financing timelines. Not building a nuclear plant today means more gas generators burning through the 2060s. (I’m assuming we build and deploy solar and wind as quickly as possible, too.)
- pfdietz 2y ago
  > We have power demand growth well ahead of our solar and wind deployment potential Justify that statement, please. What is preventing us from installing that much wind and solar? If anything, nuclear's deployment potential is much more limited.
robertlagrant 2y ago
> Are you saying we should build nuclear now because we didn't then? No, that would be a large comprehension error. I'm making the point because people seem to use what solar and wind can finally do now to justify us not having built nuclear 40 years ago.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  I haven't seen anyone do that.

mrguyorama 2y ago

Except if we had wanted to be green energy in the 1980s, we would have given Carter a second term which means we would have had investment in Solar panels too. We would have likely seen a similar level of massive decrease in cost (not as big though, no chinese manufacturing) to make it pretty competitive. But America didn't want to do the hard work of spending a hundred billion dollars on infrastructure and investment to our country. We wanted the cocaine fueled orgy of capitalism that Reagan promised us. So we ripped the solar panels off of the whitehouse and shared a bed with Saudi Arabia. Now gas is cheap as chips so we can just burn as much as we want!