I expect debates, hm Interesting this got this much upvotes
But also why no one talked about land usage
I expect debates, hm Interesting this got this much upvotes
But also why no one talked about land usage
No one talks about land usage for solar either. Which is a real shame, because with some relatively minor redesigns solar plants can be integrated into the ecosystem without causing massive damage, instead of what usually happens which is just clear-cutting a huge field and destroying any plant and animal life there.
ITT: ignorant people with 20+ years old knowledge.
Nuclear energy has been safe for a long time. Radioactive waste disposal is better than ever now.
People are kind of missing the point of the meme. The point is that Nuclear is down there along with renewables in safety and efficiency. It's lacking the egregious cover up in the original meme, even if it has legitimate concerns now. And due to society's ever increasing demand for electricity, we will heavily benefit from having a more scalable solution that doesn't require covering and potentially disrupting massive amounts of land before their operations can be scaled up to meet extraordinary demand. Wind turbines and solar panels don't stop working when we can't use their electricity either, so it's not like we can build too many of them or we risk creating complications out of peak hours. Many electrical networks aren't built to handle the loads. A nuclear reactor can be scaled down to use less fuel and put less strain on the electrical network when unneeded.
It should also be said that money can't always be spent equally everywhere. And depending on the labor required, there is also a limit to how manageable infrastructure is when it scales. The people that maintain and build solar panels, hydro, wind turbines, and nuclear, are not the same people. And if we acknowledge that climate change is an existential crisis, we must put our eggs in every basket we can, to diversify the energy transition. All four of the safest and most efficient solutions we have should be tapped into. But nuclear is often skipped because of outdated conceptions and fear. It does cost a lot and takes a while to build, but it fits certain shapes in the puzzle that none of the others do as well as it does.
Some personal thoughts: My own country (The Netherlands) has despite a very vocal anti-nuclear movement in the 20th century completely flipped now to where the only parties not in favor of Nuclear are the Greens, who at times quote the fear as a reason not to do it. As someone who treats climate change as truly existential for our country that lies below projected sea levels, it makes them look unreasonable and not taking the issue seriously. We have limited land too, and a housing crisis on top of it. So land usage is a big pain point for renewables, and even if the land is unused, it is often so close to civilization that it does affect people's feelings of their surroundings when living near them, which might cause renewables to not make it as far as it could unrestricted. A nuclear reactor takes up fractions of the space, and can be relatively hidden from people.
All the other parties who heavily lean in to combating climate change at least acknowledge nuclear as an option that should (and are) being explored. And even the more climate skeptical parties see nuclear as something they could stand behind. Having broad support for certain actions is also important to actually getting things done. Our two new nuclear powered plants are expected to be running by 2035. Only ten years from now, ahead of our climate goals to be net-zero in 2040.
Sorry, but that is far from correct. Of course you can throttle wind and solar production if you want, but the problem of to much energy is a nice to have. You could create Hydrogen or desalinate water in large scales if you got energy left over Regarding nuclear power: If you calculate the cost of nuclear and include that you need to store the waste for thousands of years it's not cheap either. And you also need to source the fuel from somewhere. Uranium is not abundant. And also it takes 20 years to build an new plant. By then it will be even lest cost effective. Rather continue with wind and solar and then batteries for the money.
My issue with nuclear energy isn't that it's dangerous or that it's inherently bad. The world needs a stable source of energy that compensates for wind and solar fluctuations anyways. For the current realistic alternatives that's either going to be nuclear or coal/oil/natural gas. We have nothing else for this purpose, end of discussion.
My problem is the assumption underlying this discussion about nuclear energy that it somehow will solve all of our problems or that it will somehow allow us to continue doing business as usual. That's categorically not the case. The climate crisis has multiple fronts that need to be dealt with and the emissions is just one of them. Even if we somehow managed to find the funds and resources to replace all non renewable energy with nuclear, we would still have solved just 10% of the problem, and considering that this cheap new energy will allow us to increase our activities and interventions in the planet, the situation will only worsen.
Nuclear energy is of course useful, but it's not the answer. Never has technology been the answer for a social and political issue. We can't "science and invent" our way out of this, it's not about the tech, it's about who decides how it will be used, who will profit from it, who and how much will be affected by it etc. If you want to advocate for a way to deal with the climate crisis you have to propose a complete social and political plan that will obviously include available technologies, so stop focusing on technologies and start focusing on society and who takes the decisions.
One simple example would be the following: no matter how green your energy is, if the trend in the US is to have increasingly bigger cars and no public transport, then the energy demands will always increase and no matter how many nuclear plants you build, they will only serve as an additional source and not as a replacement. So no matter how many plants you build, the climate will only deteriorate.
This is literally how the people in charge have decided it will work. Any new developing energy source that is invented serves only to increase the consumption, not to replace previous technologies. That's the case with solar and wind as well. So all of this discussion you all make about nuclear Vs oil or whatever is literally irrelevant. The problem is social and political, not technological.
Meme propaganda? In my Lemmy feed?
It’s more likely than you think
Literally one of the safest sources of energy production in existence.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/charted-safest-and-deadliest-energy-sources/