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I’d much rather look out across a city and see solar panel islands rather than a coal smoke stack belching smoke, a nuke cooling tower or a massive dam. Just b
by testing22321 1y ago
I’d much rather look out across a city and see solar panel islands rather than a coal smoke stack belching smoke, a nuke cooling tower or a massive dam.
Just because old school power generation is often out of sight, it shouldn’t be out of mind
- tomrod 1y agoI don't mind nuclear. Good for base load.
- boshomi 1y agoBase load becomes very expensive under free and fair market conditions. The reason is simple: wind and PV are extremely cheap, and surplus capacity costs little. PV module price in EU is just 0.086 UDS/W fob. Wind turbine price in China ~2200Yuan/kW inclusive tower. In a free market, this leads to attractive conditions for batteries, and that is where the problem of base load begins: there is a lack of real demand, and base load then remains unused because its OPEX cannot compete with wind and PV. There's just one problem. There is virtually no free and fair market in the electricity market. Utilities lobby very successfully for highly regulated markets to protect their monopolies. Nuclear power requires massive government protection from competition, which makes it attractive to utilities.
- tbrownaw 1y agoThis is a prediction of the future, not an observation about the present / past like it's phrased as.
- hinkley 1y agoWe are already cresting that hill. It’s happening now. It’s not happening everywhere, but it’s already happening.
- boshomi 1y agono, this are real world prices https://www.infolink-group.com/spot-price/ https://www.infolink-group.com/spot-price/ https://wind.in-en.com/html/wind-2462559.shtml https://wind.in-en.com/html/wind-2462559.shtml (chinese example) BESS 5MWh 52 USD/kWh: https://www.metal.com/Battery-Cell-And-Module/202407100001 https://www.metal.com/Battery-Cell-And-Module/202407100001 Yes, electricity is becoming very cheap in China, and it will be difficult for the West to keep up here. Exorbitant US tariffs are also counterproductive, as they only serve to secure monopoly profits for old utilities.
- fellowmartian 1y agoNuclear is attractive? Are we living on the same planet? I wish it was attractive but it’s quite obviously the opposite.
- tomrod 1y agoIf you assume nuclear is only a 3 Mile Island waiting to happen, you're out of date.
- fellowmartian 1y agoYou’re preaching to the choir here, I know nuclear is good and safe, but most people really don’t.
- seb1204 1y agoBase load is something of the past. Base load does no longer exist as such as during daytimes the solar curve will / should push it to zero as surplus capacity is cheap. Running base load plays at night is then also no longer sensible.
- Reason077 1y ago> ”I don't mind nuclear. Good for base load.” Everyone who has an electricity bill or pays taxes should be against new-build nuclear power because it is pretty much the most expensive way to produce electricity. You should instead lobby for wind, solar, and even closing coal power plants in favour of modern natural gas plants. All of those will cut more emissions, more quickly, per dollar spent.
- samarthr1 1y agoBut, is that what the average ratepayer wants? I personally want cheaper, more reliable power over any feelgood emission metrics. I install solar on my rooftop because BESCOM is ripping me off, and net metering would occur help me get my bill to zero.
- apple4ever 1y agoNo I'm 100% in factor of lots of new build nuclear. It's only expensive because it's rare. The more we build the cheaper it becomes. And it does not have the issues like wind and solar and even gas.
- jama211 1y agoGiven the trend line of the cost of renewables + storage, by the time you’ve built one if you start now we could’ve done it cheaper and easier with renewables in most locations in the world.
- hk1337 1y agoDo you see any of those things now?
- testing22321 1y agoPersonally, no. My brother does. My sister does. Hundreds of millions of people do, and their health would improve if they didn’t.
- dvdkon 1y agoI understand the complaint against coal power plants, but you're not saying that nuclear power plant or large dams cause health issues, right?
- bad_haircut72 1y agolarge dams do have pretty big environmental effects
- lazide 1y agoNone of them that impact people’s health.
- dredmorbius 1y agoNot even remotely true. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure#List_of_major_dam_failures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure#List_of_major_dam_...> And that's just the direct impacts from failure. Long-term environmental costs are real, if indirect. I write this somewhat reluctantly as hydro is carbon-neutral,* and affords one of the better energy-storage options, as pumped hydro. Even allowing that dam failures tend to occur under regimes with significant organisational issues (low trust, low public concern, low levels of organisation, conflicted interests), dams have a pretty horrific track record for direct fatalities. Almost all those risks are mitigatable, and the underlying root cause (organisational dysfunction) would likely create similar risk patterns for other energy modalities. But we have a direct history to point to. I've written on this topic a few times at HN should you or others be interested, I do hope my thoughts come across as nuanced, as they in fact are: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adredmorbius%20Banqiao&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>
- ACCount37 1y agoI don't mind things like huge cooling towers or massive dams. They're majestic in the same way ancient pyramids are majestic. On top of being useful infrastructure and not just oversized landscaping pieces.
- thelastgallon 1y ago[flagged]
- Forbo 1y agoACCount37 expressly left out the coal smoke stacks from their description, so I'm not sure why you chose to focus solely on that and throw it back in?
- thelastgallon 1y agoWhat are cooling towers for if not for coal smoke stacks?
- ascorbic 1y agoNuclear
- hinkley 1y ago[flagged]
- Forgeties79 1y ago> I don't mind things like huge cooling towers or massive dams. ^That’s not “cherry picking.“ They are saying the two things that they would not mind seeing in the distance. It is reasonable to assume that it was not an omission to avoid hurting their point, but rather that coal power smoke stacks are not on list. It strikes me as the much more obvious reading. “Of the things you listed, these two don’t really bother me.”
- Tade0 1y agoLet's also not forget about the haze of photochemical smog everywhere there are combustion vehicles. Today I walked by someone dropping off people from his diesel VW Passat B6. You could smell that thing from afar and it bothers me that it's still considered roadworthy.
- DANmode 1y agoDiesel particles are heavy.
- rayiner 1y agoWhat’s wrong with a nuke cooling tower?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- rainsford 1y agoI admit this is subjective, but they're giant ugly concrete chimney-like structures spewing stuff into the air. Sure, intellectually I know it's just water vapor and they're form is dictated by their function, but they look like they belong in some pollution riddled dystopian hellscape. I'm actually pro-nuclear power, but the cooling towers are a pretty significant eyesore and a non-trivial downside. But apparently some people hate the way wind turbines look while I think they're sleek and futuristic looking, so taste as ever is subjective.
- rayiner 1y agoThey’re elegant structures venting water vapor into the atmosphere. It looks like clean power. Way nicer than solar panels, which take up a lot of space.
- lazide 1y agoI’m not aware of any sizable cities with coal smoke stacks, nuke towers, or visible large dams. Are you?
- testing22321 1y agoIndeed. Both my brother and sister live in cities with those, and I’ve driving through literally hundreds on my way around the world
- lazide 1y agoExamples/cite? I haven’t seen an active smokestack with actual smoke in a city in decades, dams are where mountains are - and usually require the opposite terrain for a city, and no one builds nuke plants in major cities. That would be silly.
- awesomecomment 1y agoI personally don't know but I feel like, we also need to think of the environmental changes of something like solar batteries if we store the energy There was a michael moore's documentary regarding climate change and I personally think that the best solution climate-wise speaking is probably nuclear but the whole world's sentiment is so regulated by lobby-ists which is why the cost of production of them and regulations shot up to an unreasonable amounts but the world was already transitioning to nuclear energies. There are some new modular approaches to it which aren't as efficient but feel safer to the general public but nuclear is one of the most safest and compact sources of massive amounts of energy generation compared to solar and wind. Nuclear Energy is cool. Now am I right/wrong in saying this, let me know, I think I am right but I maybe wrong too, but its just that every expert I have seen on this topic really prefer's nuclear and my own "research" on this topic makes me feel the same really. Somebody should write more clearly as to why nuclear is superior to solar and the others as a comment as I feel like I have written similar things atleast once more and maybe if there could be a nice website like why.nuclear or why-nuclear.net etc. which could give points of why nuclear is a superior form, it could be really great and I would love to hear more arguments both good and bad comparison with nuclear (primarily) and maybe comparing it with solar if somebody's an expert on this topic as I would love to hear an expert about it as well.
- deadbabe 1y agoWhat if we designed nuclear cooling towers to be more aesthetic? Maybe it would become desirable to see.