Comment on Can somebody please explain why the world hasn't gone nuclear yet?
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days agoIt is also massively uneconomical. Even with existing subsidies, like free insurance and long term storage, plant operators don’t want to keep going.
Modern day nuclear advocates are like the Japanese soldiers in the 70s refusing to admit the war was lost decades ago.
astropenguin5@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Tbh I’d still rather have something economically unviable funded by my taxes than pumping CO2 into the air. And it’s not really that much of an either or thing with renewables, both can/should be done but the important thing is to stop subsidizing fossil fuels (which are to this day highly subsidised which makes the comparison even worse)
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
With the same amount of money you can build so much more renewable generation and storage than nuclear.
astropenguin5@lemmy.world 5 days ago
This also assumes the same pot of money is being used for all kinds of energy generation, which is not always the case because bureaucracy. Also also pretty much all renewables are intermittent besides hydro which is not available everywhere. It might be more expensive, but both having diverse energy sources and baseline power is good for the grid. Wind and solar also do not provide any grid Inertia,, which is important for maintain frequency. I wanna say it was Ireland (feel free to check where) that actually had too few conventional generators and too much wind, and they had to build basically just a massive flywheel to regulate their grid
iii@mander.xyz 5 days ago
The worlds production of storage isn’t even sufficient to power germany for a week. Hence why germany is, till date, heavily dependent on gas. Mostly US liquified natural gas, and russian pipeline gas.
To me, it’s a surprising statement that, for the same amount of money, one can buy something that doesn’t exist. 🤔
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
I am not arguing that nuclear should have been phased when it was, as that resulted in more coal and gas, but that clinging to it now is a mistake.
Building a new nuclear power plant in Germany would take a decade if things went well. Until then grid battery storage can mature and demand adjustment projects can be rolled out. It’s probably also easier to convince germans to accept pumped hydro where they live over nuclear.