But building new plants uses a shit ton of concrete. So we’re paying the carbon cost up front, and it can take years or even decades to break even.
That’s not remotely on the same scale, carbon-wise. Global output is like 4 billion tons of concrete per year, a nuclear plant uses like 12 tons per megawatt; an all-in nuclear buildout would use a tiny, tiny fraction of global concrete production and the carbon costs aren’t even remotely equivalent.
Small scale reactors that require almost no maintenance and produce enough power for a single city are the hot topic right now due to what you just mentioned. As a side product, they provide hot water for the city.
Imagine living in a snowy city where hot water is pumped through the sidewalks to people’s homes. No frozen pipes, no shoveling snow. No people freezing to death…
8 years to build, not 30. Instead we are building many many more coal and gas plants. What a terrific alternative. Fallacy of renewables without storage is done. It’s never going to happen.
Long term nuclear is great…
But building new plants uses a shit ton of concrete. So we’re paying the carbon cost up front, and it can take years or even decades to break even.
So we can’t just spam build nuke plants right now to fix everything.
30 years ago that would have worked.
That’s not remotely on the same scale, carbon-wise. Global output is like 4 billion tons of concrete per year, a nuclear plant uses like 12 tons per megawatt; an all-in nuclear buildout would use a tiny, tiny fraction of global concrete production and the carbon costs aren’t even remotely equivalent.
(also, wind power uses way, way more concrete)
(What’s with the downvotes?)
Small scale reactors that require almost no maintenance and produce enough power for a single city are the hot topic right now due to what you just mentioned. As a side product, they provide hot water for the city.
Imagine living in a snowy city where hot water is pumped through the sidewalks to people’s homes. No frozen pipes, no shoveling snow. No people freezing to death…
Small scale reactors are actually more expensive than larger reactors. Even compared to Vogtle 3 and 4…
8 years to build, not 30. Instead we are building many many more coal and gas plants. What a terrific alternative. Fallacy of renewables without storage is done. It’s never going to happen.