@Atom Nuclear is green energy. The problem green activists have is the massive cost of nuclear plants, the timescale of getting them active, and the security concerns of them merely existing.
Your post is not only deeply & deliberately misleading (that’s not what the comic says, even remotely), it’s also wrong and stupid. Well done.
Plus the still unsolved waste problem.
I thought vitrifying and subsequent underground storage is a pretty effective method of storage for many isotopes? Obviously it isn’t perfect, but it means no liquids to leak atleast.
Also recent advances in fusion are exciting, though obviously only time will tell if they’ll get anywhere or just fizzle out…
I am but a humble student, but the silly thought does cross my mind, has anyone wondered what the consequences of dumping nuclear waste into a volcano would be?
There are already prospects for long time storage, and some of these are in various stages of development. Finland may be furthest ahead. Even Norway (who’s not even considering nuclear power at the moment) is looking into converting their temporary storage of research waste to a permanent solution. Stable geological conditions are critical, but it’s technically very doable.
Even if all the costs and timescales could be reduced, the security concerns are significant. On top of that even the entire nuclear energy operation requires a (literal) higher degree of education than most alternatives, which is a ton of human resources to stay active, let alone started.
Now we also live in a world where wind/solar/hyrdo have proven their efficacy and reliability, which we weren’t really at even 20 years ago. (Well hydro has been around.)
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Good point you make here, for those of us living in cities, solar would be more difficult to scale as a solution, however I’m a strong believer that with the energy market potentially coming to the mainstream with gas stations building EV chargers that industrial scale solutions can be built to supply demands, people will simply find and think of new ways to harvest energy
I’m broadly pro-nuclear if that was what you’re going for but seriously, you’re going with “land use”? Wind farms can collocate with agriculture easily, and solar can happily go on rooftops. Try looking out of the car/train window next time you travel, you’ll learn a lot. Offshore literally doesn’t use land. So the only leg you have to stand on is hydro (excluding tidal or microhydro).
The argument’s already lost for goodness sake, there are plenty of places near enough 100% renewables already.
Randall Munroe would be embarrassed to see his cartoon so misused BTW.
You seem upset about wind, solar and hydro yet your post doesn’t seem to mention them. How is that related to the post?
Post doesn’t mention land use either. Whole title is non-sequitur, or whatever the reverse of that is. I’m green and on the fence about nuclear but today’s “spontaneous” crop of braindead pro-nuclear memes is not helping their case.
Now walk us through how “land use” is the primary constraining factor for energy generation anywhere outside Singapore or Andorra.
As opposed to, I dunno, cost to produce a gigawatt ?
But… but… they found some bugs in the desert outside Las Vegas that could be negatively affected! Checkmate, leftists!
One of the issues is long term waste storage.
Alt text:
Knuth Paper-Stack Notation: Write down the number on pages. Stack them. If the stack is too tall to fit in the room, write down the number of pages it would take to write down the number. THAT number won’t fit in the room? Repeat. When a stack fits, write the number of iterations on a card. Pin it to the stack.
Personally I think the only problem with nuclear is that it has to be near a large natural water source that stays very stable. Due to already ongoing climate change, there’s not a lot of safe large bodies of water. Either you’re so far above sea level you risk running dry, or your so close that you’re at risk of flooding. There are still some places it’s a good idea, but they’re few and far between.
I mean, they do make nuclear power plants on lakes/rivers.
Greens?
Probably referring to the green party (e.g. in Germany: Bündnis 90/die Grünen). OP seems to have a strong opinion against climate activists and for nuclear energy (see their other post).
There has been a massive uptick in pro-nuclear astroturfing across reddit (and presumably other social media that I don’t use) over the last 18months.
It may be a coincidence that it coincides with the Russian invasion and Europe’s efforts to ditch russian gas for renewables. Certainly the fact that the average build time for a nuclear plant being over a decade helps keep us on coal and gas for longer than the rapid deployment times for renewables.
I don’t have any proof that it’s a russian plot, it could just as easily be the fossil fuel industry at it again. They both have form in this regard so it could be either or both.
That there is a campaign however is undeniable, the uptick in “nuclear is the panacea for all your climate woes” is a hundredfold on 2 years ago.
Renewables are cheaper and faster, and Europe (& Australia for a different reason) have showed how much solar and wind you can deploy in 18months. Nukes take decades to deploy and cost hugely more than renewables.
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One only has to look up the wikipedia page of the finnish reactor that just came online. Planning started 2005, with an estimated completion date of 2010 for a flat 3bil. Euros. In the end it took 18 years and 11bil. Euros. And now it shuts down during the summer as it can’t compete with renewables.
Meh I’m sure nuclear could or would have it’s place, I just don’t know if anyone wants to take the risk now since the earthquake in Japan
The earthquake has very little to do with the lack of new nuclear power plants. They simply cost too much, take too long to come online and take too long to turn a profit to be seen as viable, when renewables are already cheaper and less risky and are set to become even less expensive, all the while storage capacity becomes cheaper too.
OP shits on fossil fuels elsewhere. My money’s on useful idiots. I’m just butthurt that the nuclear community is bigger than most of the things I actually care about getting content on.
You should always eat your greens. Listen to your gran.
Aren’t land use concerns negated by panels on roofs?
Partly an economy of scale problem. It’s much more expensive to install 100 x 1,000 W systems, vs installing 1 x 100,000 W system. And easier to manage, repair, store energy, what have you. Also power companies don’t like residential solar because (besides cutting into their profits) the power companies are responsible for maintaining the grid voltage, and they don’t have control over residential solar, so it introduces a lot of mess for them.
And even then, there was a federal study that concluded covering all residential roofs in the US would provide roughly ≈40% of the required power. So still much more needed.
Even ignoring other green energy sources, while covering residential home should also happen, covering roadways/shopping malls/factories/parking structures/parking lots is, as you mentioned more cost effective to install and would take care of the rest of that energy deficit.
I’m not saying it’s going to happen, I’m saying that the problems of scale and installation cost for specificallycould be overcome easily with the capital will to do so.
The problem is that it’s not a political problem, it’s a capital problem, as you point out. Legacy energy companies will fight progress tooth and nail because in the short-term, green energy will eat into their profits based on an outdated energy infrastructure.
Like a guy in a leaky rowboat shaking his fist at the airplanes overhead because they’re cutting into his ferry business.
For sure…don’t get me wrong, I’m 100% pro-renewables. I was super hyped about that guy that was making road “tiles” out recycled glass that had solar panels, heating elements, and LEDs incorporated. Would have been a neat multi-purpose solution. It’s a shame it turned out sucking.
Haha, yea, when I saw that road tile thing, it was like oh that’s not going to work. Putting down movable piezoelectric tiles is a fun idea but with 2 to 20,000 lb vehicles constantly running over it, It’s just impractical.
Make a tunnel or archway covering or partially covering the roadway instead and line the surfaces with solar panels. Bingbangboom done.
Throw a couple of those vertical axis turbines in while you’re at it that run off displaced vehicle air. Boombombang.
