this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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There is a huge lobby of pro-nuclear think tanks who try to astroturf pro-nuclear shit onto social media. We, scientifically literate, rational people, need to counteract these harmful narratives with some facts.
FACT: Renewable sources of energy are as cheap or cheaper per kwh than nuclear.
FACT: Renewables are faster to provision than nuclear.
FACT: Renewables are as clean, or cleaner, than nuclear.
FACT: Renewables are much more flexible and responsive to energy fluctuations than nuclear.
FACT: Renewables will only get cheaper. Nuclear will only get more expensive, because uranium mining will get harder and harder as we deplete easily accessible sources.
Fact: renewables take more land, that could be used for other purposes.
Fact: renewables by themselves cannot, and I mean CANNOT, be used alone. Unless you are willing to have a ridiculous over-provision. They depend on weather and have massive seasonal divergences. You need a base line power production to have a rational generation scheme.
Fact: nuclear have a higher cap for total production than renewables. As humanity needs more and more and more energy renewables (even destroying all our usable land) won't be enough.
Fact: no everyone that doesn't share your opinion is an "astrosuftist lobby" some of us can also think by ourselves. And some of us can ever think above the dogma of our political school of choice.
I'm pretty sure the ICCC disagrees with that
if 15% of the land used for parking spaces in the USA was instead used for renewables, that would generate enough electricity to power the whole country.
a report from the IEA showed that renewables CAN, and I mean CAN fully power the entire world. So take that one up with the experts. thanks!
nice brainwashing though!
Do you have the calculations for thar 15%? I'd love to fact check it.
Quick search didn't found me that report from the iae. You should probably pass me a link so I can fact check it too.
My country is not the USA, we do not have those ridiculous parking places that you guys have. Still renewables takes a ridiculous amount of space. I shall now as the land where I grew up is totally changed due wind power installations. And we are at 50% renewable generation. I fear to think what would become of this land if it was a 100% (that would probably need to be not double the land but 3-4 or more times the land if we want to cover energy usage during not windy months)
I really think that the sweet spot would be about 30-40 nuclear and 70-60 renewables.
You really need to stop following political dogmas, and start thinking.
Can you reply to the other points too? Also, could you link that source, it's very intriguing
I can’t, sorry - I blocked him for being a pro-nuclear shill. Rather than link to a specific study, because there are dozens at this point, I’ll instead just link you to a Wikipedia article that has plenty of references for you to explore - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy
If you want to find studies, you can find them - there are actually quite a lot of 100% renewable energy feasibility studies that all seem to come to the conclusion that 100% renewable energy economy is completely achievable and viable with current technology. Many of them consider nuclear power to be a fossil fuel.
Ask a pro-nuclear guy to provide any source that doesn’t come from somewhere funded by the nuclear lobby and watch as they flail around ineffectually and then link you to some pro-nuclear lobby group anyways. It’s quite funny
The guy replied with reasonable arguments. You just don't want to entertain that nuclear might have a place in some countries. Apparently wanting nuclear to make up less than half of energy generation is called being a shill.
Nuclear power is also not a fossil fuel. That's ridiculous. It comes from elements naturally found on earth that are the product of nuclear fusion reactions in supernova. Not the result of plant matter decaying underground.
Do you not think there are pro-renewable lobbies too? There are lobbies for all power sources including fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewables. Can you link anything that doesn't come from a pro-renewable lobby.
"Where is this study you talk about?"
OP: Waves vaguely towards wikipedia "Educate yourself!"
Makes a point
Blocks him
I was asking for a direct link because I don't have good stable internet right now and sifting through documents is incredibly slow. Here is a link to his post you can view in a private window.
You don't actually need to mine more uranium though. You can run certain nuclear designs on Thorium, Plutonium from weapon stocks, or even waste from other reactors. Current generation nuclear designs are laughably inefficient at using the nuclear fuels we have available, and I fully understand why people don't support them.
Realistically though I don't ever expect nuclear fission to be as cheap as renewables in most areas. In some places nuclear or another power source is always going to be needed though just because renewables are not practical in certain conditions.
In the long term the answer is almost certainly going to be nuclear fusion or another future power source like neutrino voltaic. Solar and wind power are ultimately just offshoots of fusion, and so is fission if you think about where uranium, thorium and so on come from. In fact all power we know of seems to come from either gravity or some kind of nuclear reaction (inc. geothermal and fossil fuels).
Notice how pro-nuclear people always point towards a bunch of fictional technology as the solution? Oh, we just need fusion, or breeder reactors, or a bunch of other shit that doesn’t exist. No, bro, we just need to build renewables and proper energy grids. It’s really not that complicated. If it’s not sunny where you live, then you just get electricity from where it is sunny. It’s really really simple
Nuclear energy is a solution looking for a problem. Total tech bro bullshit. Like crypto.
Renewables folks are also always looking for things that don't exist. Like magical energy storage and transmission solutions that don't cost the earth or have huge losses. Or wave power which still hasn't materialized after decades of research.
Breeder reactors already exist??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Notable_reactors
Moving electricity around is a hard problem. Even just moving energy from one end of Britain to the other looses us 10 or 20%, and we are a small nation. If you need to start moving energy in from somewhere actually sunny like Spain you are going to have a big problem.
Crypto isn't looking for a problem, fiat has plenty of problems, it's just not an optimal solution. Probably the real answer is not using money at all.
Yeah, really, really simple. Wait, what are transmission losses?