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I do think the Iran crisis should continue to push countries towards nuclear + solar. Like Ukraine helped shift some in Europe back to supporting nuclear after
by mchusma 6mo ago
I do think the Iran crisis should continue to push countries towards nuclear + solar. Like Ukraine helped shift some in Europe back to supporting nuclear after foolishly shutting down reactors.
- pydry 6mo agoPoland was ~80% coal before Ukraine. It wasnt energy independence which got them interested in nuclear power it was the idea that they might one day want a nuclear bomb (in case the current nuclear umbrella goes away). It's never an economic decision to build nuclear power stations. They're 5x the cost of solar and wind.
- nsxwolf 6mo agoIf we actually cared about making nuclear cheap - getting rid of the political barriers to building Gen IV reactors, not throwing away our “waste”, it would beat the pants off solar by operating 24/7 and not using up all our land.
- actionfromafar 6mo agoAnd also be peaceful and never bomb plants.
- RealityVoid 6mo agoWhile I am a big fan of nuclear, I think the issue of land usage for solar is overblown. We use a lot of land for far less useful things. In the end, anything that helps us burn less fossil fuels, I am happy with.
- burningChrome 6mo agoYou're also taking away farmland that could be used to produce all kinds of things. Most of the prime solar areas are the same prime areas for agriculture. By creating massive solar farms, you're at the same time, reducing acreage that could be used for range animals and other agriculture: Modeling by the American Farmland Trust (AFT) finds that 83% of projected solar development will be on agricultural land, of which 49% will be on land AFT deems “nationally significant” due to high levels of productivity, versatility, and resiliency. In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS) reported that between 2009 and 2020, 43% of solar installations were on land previously used for crop production and 21% on land used as pasture or rangeland. In a few years we'll have to deal with an impending disposal issue on farmland: Forecasts suggest that 8 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their lifecycles by 2030. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports that less than 10% of decommissioned panels are recycled. Many end up in landfills at the end of their lifecycle, which could be problematic, according to researchers with the Electric Power Research Institute because panels could break and leak toxic materials like lead and cadmium into the soil. If decommissioned panels are not disposed of properly, they could contaminate the surface and groundwater in the surrounding area, making disposal a major issue for farmers and rural communities who rely on groundwater for needs ranging from crop irrigation to drinking water.
- downrightmike 6mo agoYou can do both farming and solar on the same land and it improves crop yields. As of yesterday, studies found it creates rainfall in the desert
- KaiserPro 6mo agoAgricultural land in large parts of the US is going through a massive degradation cycle. We are heading for dustbowl 2.0 especially now that a bunch of the weird land universities have been shut down. In short its being used wrong and left empty too long, meaning the top soil is blowing away. Not to mention the land drains stopping proper soaking leading to flash flooding and runoff events. Depending on how the panels are put in place, the land and soil quality will increase significantly because its reverting to fallow and long rooted stabilising plants will have 25 years to build up the biome again. Converting land back to farming is pretty quick. I understand the point your making, and I do agree with the end of life cycle issues. THere is going to be a lot of lead leaching into water courses if not dealt with properly.
- mjamesaustin 6mo agoThe land use argument is less than zero. If you replaced ONLY existing fields used to grow corn for ethanol, and turned those into solar panels, you would already exceed the entire current US demand for electricity. Solar energy is a phenomenal use of land, of which we have enormous amounts of in this country.
- rjrjrjrj 6mo agoFewer cows would be a huge environmental win. Beef farming is a major source of GHG. Also a very expensive/inefficient way to produce calories.
- pydry 6mo agoWhile we're at it I would actually prefer it if nuclear power paid for its own catastrophe insurance instead of lumping that burden on taxpayers. Currently their liability is capped at $300 million. Fukushima cleanup cost $800 billion. End the insurance free ride first and then maybe lets talk about deregulation.
- bluGill 6mo agonuclear is not useful today. It is too slow to change output as load changes. We need to focus on storage for all the excess power renewables give at the best case, shifting that to worst case-
- nradov 6mo agoIf we want to have an industrial economy with 24×7 heavy manufacturing then we need nuclear power for the base load. There's no need to change output much. The amount of batteries needed to keep a huge factory running is ridiculous.
- epistasis 6mo agoThe need for nuclear is simply not clear. Storage has advance so quickly, while nuclear tech has remained stagnant or even gotten more expensive. Eve China, the best nuclear power builders out there, are shifting away from massive nuclear to storage and wind and solar. Without a major technological innovation in the nuclear power space, I don't see how it can compete, except at the poles and in niches with very poor renewable resources.
- UltraSane 6mo agoGrid Storage is very expensive and right now only has a few hours of capacity. We would need weeks to really replace nuclear.
- epistasis 6mo agoSaying that grid storage "only has a few hours of capacity" is like saying that a nuclear power reactor "only has 1GW of power." You solve both issues by deploying more. And if you want a longer lithium ion battery installation without the additional power capacity, you can save a bit on inverters. Grid storage is cheap enough that Texas, a purely profit-driven grid is now overtaking California in the amount of battery storage deployed. 58GWh of new grid storage was added in 2025 alone, and the growth is still exponentialhttps://seia.org/news/united-states-installs-58-gwh-of-new-energy-storage-in-2025/ https://seia.org/news/united-states-installs-58-gwh-of-new-e...
- wood_spirit 6mo agoMost uranium mining is from Russia/CIS and those African counties that have experienced the recent wave of Wagner-assisted coups. The West needs to be energy independent, not just swap who it is dependent upon?
- barbazoo 6mo agohttps://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/world-uranium-mining-production https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c... It's actually more diverse than I thought.
- contubernio 6mo agoThe wars in Ukraine and irán have also highlighted what a horrendous insecurity nuclear power plants are. A direct missile attack on one could be catastrophic. The idea that such will never happen is as silly as the idea that there will never be an accident or a tsunami. But passive safety won't stop a missile.
- senko 6mo ago> what a horrendous insecurity nuclear power plants are. A direct missile attack on one could be catastrophic The same holds for hydro. Even worse, there would be no time for evacuation. Yet nobody is considering banning dams.
- foobarian 6mo agoDams are just too good a source to ban them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medog_Hydropower_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medog_Hydropower_Station 60 GW planned capacity!
- pksebben 6mo agoBoth are good sources of energy. If you're going to make the argument that "nuclear is unsafe so we shouldn't do it" though, it's relevant to keep in mind that since we've had nuclear power, dam failures have outpaced nuclear by many times in terms of deaths / TwH (1). Edit to add: Before anyone jumps on for this it's important to note that without the Banquiao disaster the rates are about the same. Still means "nuclear is unsafe" is kind of a red herring. 1 - https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
- Dumblydorr 6mo agoNot in the same ballpark. Chernobyl nearly poisoned the entire continent’s water supply. Nuclear waste is far far worse than excess water.
- lesuorac 6mo ago
- cmrdporcupine 6mo agoThe flush of $$ to North American oil companies will unfortunately lead to a pile of investment in more oil and gas exploration, refining, and transport. Seeing that already here in Canada. All parties (except one) seem united in their newfound aspiration to just mine and ship more of the stuff. Talking about transition is politically toxic here right now.
- gpm 6mo agoThe shift in Canada predates the oil crisis the US just created... it dates back to at least the election a year ago. I strongly suspect it was primarily created by the US threatening to annex us via "economic force" and thus creating a need to prioritize our short term economic strength over longer term charity things like climate change.
- downrightmike 6mo agoPlus if Canada warms up, hey win win
- cmrdporcupine 6mo agoIf you like forest fires, permafrost collapse, and drought, sure.
- gpm 6mo agoThis war has definitely had massive positive implications for the financial future of the north west passage... But Canada has a pretty great climate apart from a bit of snow, I wouldn't take warmer at the cost of a small risk of desertification, forest fires, hurricanes, etc. Climate change is unfortunately not just in the nice and warm direction.
- robrain 6mo agoI live in a ski resort, you insensitive clod /s Warmer over here in the west means wetter, which means land slides and floods (plus more wild fires in drier seasons). It also means a pivot in tourism (from glaciers, ski resorts, frozen north) to well, who knows what at this stage. Logging also becomes even less advisable (see land slides etc.). So less "hey win win" (with an implied wink), more "hey win, lose, lose, ?".
- shimman 6mo agoThis administration has killed dozens of solar + wind projects. Don't get your hopes up, the US is run by people that only want to profit off of natural gas and nothing else matters.
- abetusk 6mo agoThe economics of solar will bulldoze past any need for subsidies from the government.
- knappe 6mo agoThey're not referencing the subsidies. https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-energy-climate-c0ac1e447c93126327f1922327921aa0 https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-energy-climat...
- lynx97 6mo ago> foolishly shutting down reactors. Ahem, have I missed something? Do you know more then the rest of us? I mean, has the nuclear waste problem actually been solved?
- danaris 6mo agoNo*, but the nuclear waste problem is a problem for 50, 100, 1000 years from now. Climate change is a problem for 50 years ago. And now. Very, very much now. Having to, in the worst case, designate some small areas that we choose as uninhabitable "nuclear waste zones" in a few decades is vastly preferable to having to designate entire regions of the world as uninhabitable "too hot to live" zones around the same time. And that's if we don't find some better way to handle the nuclear waste. * Not in the sense of "a permanent and comprehensive solution". However, the actual spent nuclear fuel can now be reprocessed and reused in newer reactor designs, down to a tiny fraction of what we would have considered "nuclear waste" with the earliest designs in the mid-20th century.
- endymi0n 6mo agoIt's definitely a bit ironic that a war for oil drives the last push for getting rid of it, but I'll take that as well, if logic and sanity didn't help ¯\_(ツ)_/¯