Post source: https://mas.to/@advisorybriefs/110769955083302457
Data source: https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
1607 points (98.1% liked)
World News
39019 readers
2729 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
"Nuclear power scares me"
Welcome to the result. It's sad, because nuclear power was the way, but instead we propegandized against it and continued to use it as a boogie man.
Ignoring the fact that coal and natural gas still hurt and kill people daily, ignoring there's over 400 nuclear power reactors that are still active, 93 in America... But no.. "Chernobyl" and the discussion ends.
Also Chernobyl was a 50 year old design, and happened 40 years ago, involved multiple human errors ... nah can't consider things have changed since then.
Now we have people using another nuclear plant in Ukraine as an example, and again the fear rises. They're trying to weaponize the plant, but somehow it's "Nuclear power" and not the fact some fuckheads are planning to destroy it in a destructive fashion that's the problem.
Somehow dams that would be devistating to destroy are given a pass, but hey Nuclear power, so scary.
Things have indeed changed, now construction regulations are far tighter. This is good because the risk of a Chernobyl event is far lower, but at the price of extreme cost overruns and project delays
So is it better to start a nuclear project and hope it can start reducing coal & NG emissions 10 years from now? Or is it better to add solar and wind capacity constantly and at a fraction of the price per MWh?
There was a time when nuclear was the right choice, but now it is just not cost effective nor can it be brought online fast enough to make a dent in our problems
I think you're forgetting that once the waters from a dam break dry up you can rebuild....a nuclear accident has the potential to poison the land for generations
And in ten years.. it'll be too long to add nuclear ... And in ten years it'll.
Solar and wind works in some places, it doesn't work in all places, and the goal is to start moving away from Coal and Natural gas, it's a long process no matter which way you go, but starting to add more nuclear capactiy so in 10 years we can use it, isn't a bad thing.
"It's too late" has also been a refrain about Nuclear, but hey, in 2010 if people started to go nuclear, we'd have that capacity today, instead it was too late then, and we can only go solar and Wind... and we're still lacking.
Solar wind thermal energy works almost everywhere that humans thrive and it's cheap
The comments are full of nuclear bros who think nuclear is the answer. Something about sun and wind not working everywhere.
The best time to ignore the nuclear industry scammers and spend the money on renewables instead for 10x the return in clean energy was 1942.
The second best time is now.
Unfortunately this is only true if the money tied up building a reactor for 10 years doesn't take away from the budget for wind and solar projects. If it isn't then you're literally stealing clean energy from the present to hopefully get roughly 1/4 that rate of power production in a decade
The problem is that Solar and Wind doesn't work as a viable solution everywhere, so if the choice is between do nothing or start nuclear, you go nuclear.
Instead America has done neither and waited as have many countries.
If Solar and wind can work, and they are as fast as you say, of course you go wind and solar, the problem is that's not the case in many places.
I am not here to argue with you or to persuade you to change your opinion. I am only here to provide you with some information and facts that you may find useful or interesting.
You are right that solar and wind energy may not be viable solutions everywhere, depending on the availability of resources, the cost of installation and maintenance, the environmental impacts, and the social acceptance.
However, there are also many challenges and risks associated with nuclear energy, such as the disposal of radioactive waste, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the safety of nuclear power plants and fusion devices, and the potential for environmental contamination and human health hazards in case of accidents or mishandling.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, renewable energy sources accounted for about 20% of U.S. electricity generation in 2020, while nuclear energy accounted for about 19%. Solar and wind energy grew at the fastest rate in U.S. history in 2020, while nuclear energy remained relatively stable³. Some studies have suggested that it is possible to supply about 75-80% of U.S. electricity needs with solar and wind energy, if the system were designed with excess capacity and storage⁴.
Nuclear energy is not a renewable source of energy, as uranium is a finite resource that will eventually run out. Moreover, nuclear energy is not carbon-free, as the process of mining, refining, and preparing uranium emits greenhouse gases. Nuclear waste is also a major environmental problem that has no permanent solution yet.
I hope this information helps you to understand some of the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy compared to solar and wind energy. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to share them with me. 😊
(1) The Disadvantages of Nuclear Energy - Physics | ScienceBriefss.com. https://sciencebriefss.com/physics/the-disadvantages-of-nuclear-energy/.
(2) Advantages and Challenges of Nuclear Energy. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/advantages-and-challenges-nuclear-energy.
(3) Advantages Disadvantages of Nuclear Energy - NRC. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0813/ML081350295.pdf.
(4) Various Disadvantages of Nuclear Energy. https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/Disadvantages_NuclearEnergy.php.
(5) U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics .... https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=48896.
(6) Study: wind and solar can power most of the United States. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/mar/26/study-wind-and-solar-can-power-most-of-the-united-states.
(7) Pros And Cons of Nuclear Energy | EnergySage. https://www.energysage.com/about-clean-energy/nuclear-energy/pros-and-cons-nuclear-energy/.
(8) Nuclear energy: what it is and its advantages and disadvantages. https://www.endesa.com/en/the-e-face/power-plants/nuclear-power.
(9) Renewable Energy | Department of Energy. https://www.energy.gov/eere/renewable-energy. (10) U.S. renewable energy use nearly quadrupled in past decade, report .... https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/11/09/renewable-energy-solar-wind-biden/.
(11) Wind and solar power producing record amount of U.S. electricity. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2022/03/03/wind-and-solar-power-producing-record-amount-u-s-electricity/9353259002/.
Where?
Show the data.
What place on earth is nuclear more viable than renewables?
No vague gesturing. Hard numbers.
It's better to do both!!
Nuclear is not more expensive than solar and wind. And today's paradox is solar and wind are cheap because oil is cheap...
Besides, comparing the 2 is totally misleading. One is a controllable source of electricity, the other is by nature an unstable source, therefore you need a backup source. Most of the time, that backup is a gas plant (more fossil fuel...), and some other time it's mega-batteries projects that need tons of lithium... that we also wanted for our phones, cars, trucks etc. Right now, every sector is accounting lithium resources as if they were the only sector that will use it...
And then you have Germany, that shut down all its nuclear reactor, in favor of burning coal, with a "plan" to replace the coal with gas, but "one day", they'll replace that gas with "clean hydrogen" and suddenly have clean energy.
So we'll have very very exactly the same conversation 10 years from now, when we'll be 100% renewable but we'll have very frequent power outages. People will say "we don't have time to build nuclear power plan, we need to do «clean gas/hydrogen/other wishful thing to burn»". And at that time, someone will mention that we will never produce enough of these clean fuel but ... How many times do we want to shoot ourselves in the foot??
In the years to come, we're going to lose much more land just because it won't be suitable for human survival, and that will be on a longer scale than a nuclear disaster. Eliminating fossil fuel should be the sole absolute priority, and nuclear is one tool to achieve it.
It's people like you who present a false dichotomy that are the really evil people in the world today.
We can do solar, wind and nuclear. One does not preclude the other, contrary to your false dichotomy.
In fact, we must build out a minimum level of nuclear - it is the only mandatory technology required to stop climate change, because it works 24/7.
We can add as much solar and wind to the system as we would like, as long as the grid can handle it.
Grids with a lot of hydro will not require much nuclear, e.g. Iceland can do entirely without it and Sweden only needs a small amount. Grids with little hydro will need a lot of nuclear, like France.
This was true in 1990. It is still true today and it will still be true in 2050.
Budgets are a real thing. If you tie up $28.5 billion constructing say, the Vogtle #3 and #4 reactors, you are taking away significant amounts of money that could have already produced working wind and solar installations that would produce far more power. Stating that reality doesn't make me "evil," get a grip.
Additionally, with upgrades in high voltage transmission lines and grid-level storage systems the need for nuclear or fossil fuel baseload in the future is going to be far less than you expect
Obviously, regulations must be changed to make nuclear affordable.
But yes, misguided people like you and those who opposed nuclear in the 90s are causing a mass extinction even that is gearing up to become the biggest in the history of the planet.
If that isn't evil, then I don't know what the term evil means anymore.
Actually we can make nuclear molten salt reactors (working small scale stuff exist for long decades). Since the medium is liquid, it has much better utilization of the fuel, there is no pressurized radioactive water reservoirs (which is the actual issue with current reactors), to stop the reaction, you drain the fuel circulation into a container and you are done, no need to supply water to prevent criticality.
But since those molten salt reactors could not be used to create plutonium for weapons, the current reactor design was chosen during cold war era.
They have some drawbacks, like slow startup times, but the cons it provide are incredible.
MSRs and LFRs are horribly unreliable and don't last. There hasn't even been a successful demo reactor and the technical issues for running one safely at full power long term don't even have proposed half-solutions.
There are a few testing facilities like chinas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Experimental_Fast_Reactor and it was already tested and producing power. And they are planning to start a functional plant connected to the grid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFR-600
So it seems much more than a half-solution...
You've now swapped from molten salt reactors to sodium cooled ones while pretending they're the same thing.
CFR has also never run without using U235 as its main fuel source.
Mind-boggling stupidity as always.
Sodium is in a molten salt form in those reactors...
This is a fake news. Period.
Some reactors had to REDUCE THEIR OUTPUT because otherwise they would exceed the temperature increase they're allowed to cause in the river, this to preserve life in the river. No reactor was shutdown because of a low water stream.
What happened last year is a systematic defect was found in an external protection layer, and the decision was made to fix all the reactors having the same potential defect at once. The work took longer than expected, and that caused France having very limited capacity for months, causing worries about power outage.
Not to say it could never happen in the future, but it didn't yet.
No, I don't mean to destroy life in the river. I mean to highlight the difference of impact between going from 90% of your capacity to 0% in one information to reducing from 90% to 80% or even 70%. Shutting down a nuclear reactor is quite a big deal in terms of operations. Restarting it is not like turning back on a switch either. Claiming a reactor was shut down makes it sound like a much bigger deal than what it was.
That's the problem "cheaper and vastly safer" alternatives AREN'T always available. People continue to talk up Solar, and Wind, but they're not viable for a majority of users of coal and natural gas plants. To produce the power that Nuclear does in square mile of land, you need 50 square miles of solar at least, and over 360 square miles for Wind. And that's also saying you need viable places, because Wind turbines can't just be thrown up anywhere, nor can solar.
Coal and Natural gas is more efficient by a factor of at least 10 in land space.
If you're in the middle of nowhere, that's viable, if you live in a big city, that's going to become a problem quickly.
The statement that "cheaper and vastly safer alternative techs are NOT always available" is not accurate. Solar and wind energy are becoming more viable as technology improves, and the land requirements for these technologies are not as significant as they once were. In addition, coal and natural gas are not as safe as they are often made out to be. Coal mining is a dangerous occupation, and coal-fired power plants can release harmful pollutants into the air. Natural gas is also a fossil fuel, and its combustion releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
The cost of coal and natural gas is likely to increase in the future, as the world's reserves of these resources dwindle. The environmental impacts of coal and natural gas are also becoming increasingly well-known, and public pressure is growing for a transition to cleaner energy sources. The development of new technologies, such as battery storage and smart grids, is making it easier to integrate renewable energy sources into the electricity grid.
In conclusion, there are a number of reasons to believe that cheaper and vastly safer alternative technologies to coal and natural gas are becoming more available. These technologies offer a number of advantages over traditional fossil fuels, and they are likely to play an increasingly important role in the global energy mix in the years to come.
Inkai uranium mine produces about 40W/m^2 in fuel for the actively leeched land where everything is killed by the sulfuric acid and vehicle movement.
If you include the 15km buffer where you can't live or eat anything it's about 20W/m^2
Solar averages 20-50W/m^2 with current tech.
Rooftop solar uses no land. Agrivoltaics can have negative land use (adding the solar reduces the amount of land needed for the crops under it). Roughly 30m^2 of roof + 30m^s of facade or wall is sufficient for the average high income country european's final energy use.
Solar uses a strict subset of the materials needed for a nuclear plant, so land use from the uranium mining is in addition to construction.
Like every pro-nuke lie, your land use pearl clutching is the oppksite of the truth.