• StraponStratos@lemmy.sdf.org
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    20 days ago

    How disappointing.

    Renewables and storage are far superior, in almost every conceivable metric it’s not funny.

    Yet we let conservatives hype up nuclear garbage and carbon recapture as the solution to climate change.

    • maevyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      20 days ago

      I just don’t see it in terms of fundamentals. We’ve heard this for years, yet countries that have denuclearized have not been able to go full renewables, they have become more dependent on fossil fuels. Storage has just not been able to keep up with demand, baseload is still necessary, and we don’t have other options.

      We should absolutely keep investing in renewables and pushing forward, they help. There is no reason at the same time to prevent investment in nuclear and other non-carbon emitting solutions, and if tech companies are willing to foot the bill we shouldn’t complain. Every gigawatt counts at this point.

      • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        We’ve heard this for years, yet countries that have denuclearized have not been able to go full renewables, they have become more dependent on fossil fuels.

        Which countries are you referring to? Germany for example denuclearized and replaced them with renewables, they didn’t become more dependent on fossil fuels (even if people like to say that).

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:Germany_electricity_production.svg

        • maevyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          19 days ago

          Japan for one, whose coal and natural gas consumption has gone up significantly: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan

          Germany has stayed fairly steady, fair enough. Imagine if they had just focused on replacing fossil fuels instead of nuclear, they would be nearly carbon free by now.

          I have no problem with the majority of funding going to renewables and making progress right now, but I also don’t see why we can’t break ground on new 4th generation nukes and continue investment in nuclear research at the same time. We can hedge our bets, make progress on both. If the 100% renewables + storage plan pans out, cool, we stop the nukes. If they don’t, then cool, we have our carbon free baseload production and we aren’t a decade behind on it when we need it.

        • redfellow@sopuli.xyz
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          18 days ago

          Fyi Germany has reintroduced coal plants because of the storage issues.

          They also relied on Russian gas until Gazprom was ordered to cut over half of the gas flow because of Germany aiding Ukraine.

          • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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            18 days ago

            I don’t think that “reintroduced” is fair wording here. Even if we hadn’t denuclearized, new coal plants would still have been opened. The proportion of coal power to other power also didn’t increase, even in spite of the challenges posed due to Russias war.

        • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
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          19 days ago

          Not really, not right now it isn’t. If you want to cover baseload with wind and solar you’ll need energy storage. We haven’t got a solution that scales well, yet.

          • MoistCircuits0698@lemm.ee
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            18 days ago

            Base load isn’t really a thing. This is the problem with pro nuclear. There isn’t an understanding of the issue. Lets not talk about reaction time of fission plants.

            • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
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              18 days ago

              Base load isn’t really a thing.

              How do you figure that?

              This is the problem with pro nuclear. There isn’t an understanding of the issue.

              Is this an attempt at insult? If you believe that I have misunderstood something, then please enlighten me.

              Lets not talk about reaction time of fission plants.

              Agreed, let’s leave that out of the equation, as then the only viable backup to solar and vind, using current technology, is burning stuff.

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      yeah here come the nukes. They missed all the fun and now they think it just makes sense.