Comment on 40% of US electricity is now emissions-free
assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It’s worth pointing out that the renewables break down as such (% of all electricity):
Nuclear energy is providing more than any other individual source, making up 45% of all renewable electricity.
Next time you hear someone “concerned about global warming” also fearmonger about nuclear energy, it’s worth considering where their allegiances lie. Most people are misguided, but when it comes to politicians, it says a lot about how much they actually care about sustainability.
Nuclear has been at that supply level since the 1970s. Other parts of the world have much higher renewable mixes in their energy inputs. For example, Germany:
reuters.com/…/germany-likely-pass-50-mark-renewab…
Nuclear is not necessary to meet climate change targets. In fact, it’s so damned expensive to deploy and maintain, it will harm meeting those targets.
www.destatis.de/EN/Press/…/PE23_090_43312.html
And because they shut down their nuclear plants, they had to start burning coal again, which is about as bad an energy source you can get when it comes to emissions and pollution. Their coal use % went up from 2021 to 2022. They may have a higher renewable mix, but they’ve also increased their emissions. Not to mention, they also significantly reduced their energy imports from France – the majority of which is generated by nuclear energy. They are replacing clean energy with coal.
France is actually a significant counterpoint as well. They’ve got 65%+ nuclear energy, and renewables just add to the percent of clean energy sources. Considering they’re doing much better than Germany in terms of not using fossil fuels, I believe they are an example to follow over Germany – which means nuclear is critical to meet our climate goals.
since we’re talking about france, it’s important to mention that frances nuclear infrastructure is a mess right now, pretty much all of it is EOL and a handful have found serious structural issues. Maintenance is important kids, remember to perform it, otherwise your PWR main loop might explode. and everyone will laugh at you.
Also the EPR reactor being built thats like n times over budget and x years behind commission, 90% of it is fabrication skill issues though. The EPR is also just immensely complex compared to better designs.
infrastructure is a universal issue though, you just HAVE to maintain things unless you want them to disintegrate. And you need to have a plan in place to keep things going into the future, when things inevitably reach EOL.
Yeah I don’t see this so much as a nuclear problem but a universal problem. Everything requires maintenance, from oil refineries to solar farms.
And because they shut down their nuclear plants, they had to start burning coal again…
Unrelated and a whataboutism.
It’s completely relevant to a discussion about renewable energy and meeting emission targets. What’s the benefit of having a higher renewable mix if your total GHG emissions are consistently going up?
Germany has generated more CO2 than it would have if it had kept nuclear technology, and that’s an indisputable fact.
It was completely relevant to the discussion. That’s not a whataboutism.
i wonder where the world we be today if we didnt stop funding nuclear, if gen 4 designs actually had proper money pushing them forward.
We’d be better suited to reduce emissions, that’s for sure.
Dying forget geothermal. California has a little of that
Geothermal is not quite to the point where we can represent it with a whole number percentage value, but it’s getting there! If we’re going to include sub-1% generators, burning wood has geothermal beat out at 0.8%. Geothermal is cool, though!
Burning wood is extremely important for reaching 100% renewable.
It’s one of the only pilotable renewables energy. Even with a lot of battery there is still long period with very little sun and wind that will require to fire up a thermal power station.
Wood is a very good candidate for that.
Thrashy@lemmy.world 10 months ago
There have been studies (this one, for example that suggest the total radioactivity-related health impacts from coal power exceed that of nuclear power by an order of magnitude. That’s not all pollution-related deaths for coal – just those associated with radon exposure inside of mines, and radioactive materials embedded in coal going out into the environment. For all the fear-mongering about nuclear, it’s hard to find a less dangerous source of base load generation using present-day technologies. Maybe once grid-scale batteries are available at scale, they could replace nuke plants, but that’s a solution ten years too late for an environmental problem we have to fix right now.
_dev_null@lemmy.zxcvn.xyz 10 months ago
They should put it beyond the environment.
r_thndr@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
Tow it outside the environment