Experts say world is ‘past peak fossil power’ but warn against uneven development of energy projects

Experts say world is ‘past peak fossil power’ but warn against uneven development of energy projects

Nuclear power generation is likely to break records in 2025 as more countries invest in reactors to fuel the shift to a low-carbon global economy, while renewable energy is likely to overtake coal as a power source early next year, data has shown.

China, India, Korea and Europe are likely to have new reactors come on stream, while several in Japan are also forecast to return to generation, and French output should increase, according to a report on the state of global electricity markets published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Wednesday.

Electricity demand is also expected to increase around the world, fuelled largely by the move to a low-carbon economy. Electric vehicles and heat pumps, as well as many low-carbon industrial processes, require electricity rather than oil and gas.

  • KyuubiNoKitsune
    3·
    10 months ago

    We should rather build more coal plants to fill in what renewables can’t right?

    • Diplomjodler@feddit.de
      3·
      10 months ago

      I suppose you’re talking about base load? That tired old myth has been debunked so many times, yet it gets rolled out every single time these discussions come up. Maybe come up with some new “argument”? Oh right, you don’t have any.

      • KyuubiNoKitsune
        3·
        10 months ago

        Yes, because that’s what I said. I said we need to keep a minimum demand to keep the stations going…

        You people are insufferable. When we have battery systems that are efficient enough to store enough power to keep things running when there’s not enough window or solar generation for a period, then it’ll be fine. You know that there are a lot of industries that run 24/7, for instance the infrastructure you’re seeing this message on… That has nothing to do with base load and everything to do with constant power draw…

        Why don’t you set yourself up with some solar and wind, but make sure not to use any batteries though, and get off the grid, then you can be a renewables puritan and lord over everyone else like you’re better than them.

        • Diplomjodler@feddit.de
          3·
          10 months ago

          Did you even read the article I linked to? Or make any effort at all to get informed? And yes, we’re going to have to build a whole lot of more storage. And grid capacity. And grid management. And load management. All of which are drastically easier, safer and cheaper than building a lot of nuclear plants. Even if it was feasible to do so which it very patently isn’t. Nuclear power doesn’t scale, as Hinkley Point, Olkiluotto etc. have proven beyond a shadow of doubt.

          • sus@programming.dev
            3·
            10 months ago

            Nuclear is expensive because when particulate pollution kills millions of people every year, nobody cares at all. But when a nuclear accident kills exactly zero people, we get massive levels of hysteria and shut down a dozen nuclear power plants on the other side of the planet.

            Imagine the reaction if there was a single nuclear disaster that killed 9 million people. According to greenpeace that’d be 9 chernobyls, but more likely it would be between 100 and 1000 chernobyls. Do you think people might be a bit upset about that? But with fossil fuels that is now happening every single year, and it’s probably just going to get worse. (CO2 emissions are just getting higher every year despite all the growth in renewables) And you get a few news headlines about it and then everyone forgets. Weirdly enough climate change caused by the same fossil fuels gets far more attention, even though those effects are even harder for the average person to understand.

            And even with this level of paranoia about nuclear, with the incredible level of security put in with gen 3 reactors that directly contribute to the massive cost and time overruns, we still have these “nuclear is not safe enough” claims flying around.

            • Diplomjodler@feddit.de
              3·
              10 months ago

              Nuclear is expensive because when particulate pollution kills millions of people every year, nobody cares at all. But when a nuclear accident kills exactly zero people, we get massive levels of hysteria and shut down a dozen nuclear power plants on the other side of the planet.

              That’s the dumbest take I’ve ever heard on this topic and that’s saying a lot. And how do you know how many people were killed by the Fukushima triple meltdown that is in no way contained and has displaced tens of thousands of people permanently? The answer is we don’t know because the Japanese government has systematically suppressed any reliable information from coḿing out. Which just goes to show that nuclear power is a danger to democracy on top of all its other drawbacks.

              And who ever said the alternative to building nuclear plants is building more fossil fuel generation capacity? That’s just delusional. Nobody is doing that, in fact fossil ist very quickly being replaced by renewable at a pace nuclear could in no realistic scenario get even remotely close to.

              • sus@programming.dev
                4·
                10 months ago

                That’s the dumbest take I’ve ever heard on this topic and that’s saying a lot

                So which part is wrong? Does pollution not kill millions of people each year? Is shutting down reactors on the other side of the planet a smart move when the causes of one disaster are completely inapplicable to them? Are both of these responses reasonable and proportional?

                And how do you know how many people were killed by the Fukushima triple meltdown that is in no way contained and has displaced tens of thousands of people permanently? The answer is we don’t know because the Japanese government has systematically suppressed any reliable information from coḿing out. Which just goes to show that nuclear power is a danger to democracy on top of all its other drawbacks.

                you’re sounding like a conspiracy theorist. I don’t think japan has a police state that is in the habit of suppressing all information. I’ll admit zero deaths is hyperbole for fukushima. There were probably a few deaths directly caused by, it, maybe a few dozen (at most, and totally unproven) from long-term health effects, and many deaths from the (unnecessary in hindsight) rapid evacuation. They still pale in comparison to the 19 thousand deaths from the tsunami that caused the disaster.

                Which just goes to show that nuclear power is a danger to democracy on top of all its other drawbacks

                Certainly not an enormous leap in logic at all. No sir. It’s just that the deadly nuclear radiation spontaneously causes the death of liberty. Russia only covers up their nuclear accidents (on those RBMK reactors they are still running) because of nuclear power, certainly not because of the way their society structured.

                And who ever said the alternative to building nuclear plants is building more fossil fuel generation capacity?

                You just said that. Nobody else said that.

                • Diplomjodler@feddit.de
                  3·
                  10 months ago

                  you’re sounding like a conspiracy theorist.

                  Like CBS?

                  or the New York Times?

                  or Mainichi?

                  I could go on. This is public knowledge. But there’s no point trying to argue with the willfully ignorant. I’ll leave it at that.

                  • sus@programming.dev
                    2·
                    10 months ago

                    Did you even read your own articles?

                    CBS:

                    its delayed disclosure of the meltdowns at three reactorswas tantamount to a cover-up

                    NYT:

                    Culture of Complicity Tied to Stricken Nuclear Plant

                    Mainichi:

                    then TEPCO president Masataka Shimizu had ordered the company not to use the term “meltdown” to describe what had occurred

                    None of these support anything close to the kind of cover up needed to result in a “nobody can know how many people died” level of lack of information. They’re mostly about failing to report the disaster fast enough and downplaying it by using certain wording and having a lax security culture. Not about the government preventing investigations or giving gag orders or something like that.