Comment on US slows plans to retire coal plants because of AI power usage
bobtimus_prime@feddit.org 1 month agoAs long we don’t have a way to deal with the nuclear waste, nuclear is not safe.
And even if we had a way to deal with this, Mining, preprocessing, building the reactor, running the reactor and treating the waste has to be cheaper than renewabls, which I doubt.
Last, but not least, building such powerplants takes years, if not decades, to build, which we do have. At the current rate of emission, we have less than 6 years left before we miss the 1.5°C target[1], which is way to short for any nuclear facility.
Sure, for nuclear to help not reach the 1.5°C threshold it should have been built decades ago.
For nuclear to help not reach the 2°C threshold it can be built now. But surely in a few decades it will also take too long to build.
Right now there are new fossil fuel plants being built, I think nuclear is a better alternative than that.
If we had to decide between nuclear and coal, the clear winner is nuclear. As I stated in the other comment that renewables are more cost effective than nuclear, and thus, we can convert more coal to emission free energy than with nuclear.
As I’ve stated fossil fuel plants are being built right now. I just say that we should build nuclear instead of fossil, not nuclear instead of renewables.
Clearly we can all agree there should not be fossil fuel power plants being built.
We need all the clean energy solutions and we need to build them much faster. I’m not optimistic about nuclear because it is by far the most expensive and time consuming to build out: we need to make a difference sooner than possible fr nuclear to help. But by all means, let’s give it a try: if we can get past this crisis, there will always be increasing energy needs
stoy@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
Nuclear waste is a solved problem.
Dig a deep hole, put the nuclear waste in the hole, backfill with clay.
Solved.
Now I understand that different places on earth have less suitable bedrock for this storage, so I voulenteer my home municipality in Sweden as a global storage site, we have stable bedrock, the technical skill and a stable government.
As for the “we don’t have time” bullshit, I have heard that for more than ten years, it is pure bullshit, the best time to build nuclear power was ten years ago, the second best time is today.
You can yell about solar/wind as much as you ever want, but they can’t deal with the baseload as well as nuclear or coal can, coal is buring the entire planet, nuclear MIGHT at worst create a temporary inconvenience where a relatively small area has to be closed to humans. Continued use of coal will cause far, far worse harm.
bobtimus_prime@feddit.org 1 month ago
Your language is rude. Please adress your point in a more formal way, without claiming that I would be yelling or bullshitting.
I still don’t see the deposition of nuclear waste as straight forward as you claim. We have accumulated waste for many decades and, so far, have establiahed only a single site. If this was new technology I would give it the benefit of the doubt, but we have decaying castors, wich will become more and more difficult to handle, as the fule rods become brittle. Just building new Reactors and think we will handle the waste eventually, is not enough to convince me.
If we had the resources to build nuclear powerplants and renewables, we should do both, but we have not. Thus, every Cent spent on nuclear is not spent on renewables which give more power per invested money.[1]
Baseload: The grids might not yet handle a widespread dunkelflaute, but they can be, and currently are, extended to shift energy from production places to the regions where they are needed. Furthermore the cost of energy storage is falling every every year[2], while the the cost of nuclear remains more or less stagnant.[3]
I agree that coal does more harm than nuclear, but as states above, we should put our effort in renewables.
[1] theguardian.com/…/nuclear-power-australia-liberal… [2] ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline [3] statista.com/…/cost-of-nuclear-electricity-produc…
stoy@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
Sorry for being rude, I have just heard the same arguments over and over and over, and I am getting tired of them.
The reason as to why we haven’t built more storage sites is our fear, our fear of radiation, most people don’t understand how radiation works and have seen horrible photos and videos from Chernobyl and think that it is impossible to go there still.
It is the nimby crowd who has messed it up so completely.
Add to that the odd report about how to prevent future humans from the waste sites, something not needed, which plays on the fears.
bobtimus_prime@feddit.org 1 month ago
I agree that fear and NIMBYs are one key issue that hinders us into progressing into a green future. Although we may not agree how to proceed best, it is important that we take quick and large steps, and stay united against continuing the emissions of CO2.
Thanks for the discussion :)