It is not the only source like that at all. It is way easier, cheaper, faster and sustainable to build windmills where the is constant wind, solar cells where there is a lot of sun, hydro where there is… Energy sources should be built depending on the locality so they complement each other.
This kind of talking in absolutes like some of you are doing is just plain wrong and it does disservice to advocacy for nuclear power.
The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, but the second best time is today. We can’t let what we should have done stop us from doing what should be done.
And for other sources, wind and solar are great sources of energy that should be a supplement, but sometimes the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, and we don’t currently have the battery technology to store energy on the scale to handle those fluctuations. We need a stable backup, and nuclear is by far the best clean and stable energy source.
Another person with the incredible wisdom to tell me the is no sun during the night.
Thank you sir!
I’ll make it quick:
Reducing carbon emissions is urgent. Building nuclear plants takes time, is expensive. There is no capacity to build enough to offset any carbon, not to mention building them produces carbon emissions. Plus many are even scheduled to be closed.
Building something that will make a difference 20 years from now is smart, but if it comes at the expense of what is urgent today, it is very very dumb.
Exactly. This person is talking about planting trees and waiting 20 years?
If you’re hot today you don’t plant a tree, you put up a temporary shade (like a tent). Just nailing plywood roof to four posts is better than waiting 20 years for a frigging tree to grow.
People complaining about “the current technology” of solar, windmills, and batteries? Prices per MW are dropping so fast, it won’t even matter soon. Battery tech is only old because we didn’t have a lot of power to store. I bet we have better batteries before the decade it will take to build a single nuclear plant.
we have better batteries before the decade it will take to build a single nuclear plant.
That is quite the gamble though. You’re so sure that we’ll be able to develop a new technology and deploy it on a global scale within the next 20 years, that we shouldn’t even bother with the one clean solution that we know works? Not only that, you’re assuming a technology we don’t have yet will be better for the environment, despite all of our current battery tech being awful for the environment.
That’s not like putting up a tent, that’s like saying we shouldn’t plant a tree because someone is probably going to invent an instant tree service, so we should just wait. Like, maybe someone does invent instant trees, but if it doesn’t happen in 20 years we’re gonna feel really dumb
Solar not working during the night is going to keep being a relevant point until we have the capability to manage it, your sarcasm doesn’t do anything to refute that point. There are plenty of cool ways that scientists and engineers are working on solving those problems with better energy storage, but it’s all still in the experimental stages, and until I see build out timelines for energy storage on national scales, all of the variable output power solutions will be nonstarters for fossil fuel replacement. You say that we can’t wait 20 years for nuclear reactors, but we also can’t wait 20 years to figure out how to build a big battery. We don’t even know what the carbon emissions or time costs of whatever we decide on will be, but we do know that working nuclear reactors are a thing today.
I’m not against solar or wind, I have solar panels on my house right now, but it has only reduced my reliance on the grid, it’s nowhere close to replacing it
Plus many are even scheduled to be closed.
Then don’t! I kind of see your point about not building new reactors, even if I disagree, but what purpose could closing existing plants possibly have? How is that going to save carbon and reduce fossil fuels??
I think you are vastly overestimating the productivity of renewables right now. They are a smart investment to augment what we have, but to take non-renewables offline and to build enough renewables to reach the levels of modern nuclear, we will need an additional decade… Assuming the tech in renewables continues to make massive gains. There just aren’t enough skilled workers, and you can’t run these people non-stop to produce enough windmills to meet demand.
Renewables are only 20% of the US total, nuclear is 18% (and the US is the highest producer of nuclear worldwide at 30% of the world’s total), and the remaining ~60% is fossil fuels.
If we had started, but we didn’t.
It is not the only source like that at all. It is way easier, cheaper, faster and sustainable to build windmills where the is constant wind, solar cells where there is a lot of sun, hydro where there is… Energy sources should be built depending on the locality so they complement each other.
This kind of talking in absolutes like some of you are doing is just plain wrong and it does disservice to advocacy for nuclear power.
The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, but the second best time is today. We can’t let what we should have done stop us from doing what should be done.
And for other sources, wind and solar are great sources of energy that should be a supplement, but sometimes the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, and we don’t currently have the battery technology to store energy on the scale to handle those fluctuations. We need a stable backup, and nuclear is by far the best clean and stable energy source.
Another person with the incredible wisdom to tell me the is no sun during the night. Thank you sir!
I’ll make it quick: Reducing carbon emissions is urgent. Building nuclear plants takes time, is expensive. There is no capacity to build enough to offset any carbon, not to mention building them produces carbon emissions. Plus many are even scheduled to be closed.
Building something that will make a difference 20 years from now is smart, but if it comes at the expense of what is urgent today, it is very very dumb.
Exactly. This person is talking about planting trees and waiting 20 years?
If you’re hot today you don’t plant a tree, you put up a temporary shade (like a tent). Just nailing plywood roof to four posts is better than waiting 20 years for a frigging tree to grow.
People complaining about “the current technology” of solar, windmills, and batteries? Prices per MW are dropping so fast, it won’t even matter soon. Battery tech is only old because we didn’t have a lot of power to store. I bet we have better batteries before the decade it will take to build a single nuclear plant.
That is quite the gamble though. You’re so sure that we’ll be able to develop a new technology and deploy it on a global scale within the next 20 years, that we shouldn’t even bother with the one clean solution that we know works? Not only that, you’re assuming a technology we don’t have yet will be better for the environment, despite all of our current battery tech being awful for the environment.
That’s not like putting up a tent, that’s like saying we shouldn’t plant a tree because someone is probably going to invent an instant tree service, so we should just wait. Like, maybe someone does invent instant trees, but if it doesn’t happen in 20 years we’re gonna feel really dumb
Solar not working during the night is going to keep being a relevant point until we have the capability to manage it, your sarcasm doesn’t do anything to refute that point. There are plenty of cool ways that scientists and engineers are working on solving those problems with better energy storage, but it’s all still in the experimental stages, and until I see build out timelines for energy storage on national scales, all of the variable output power solutions will be nonstarters for fossil fuel replacement. You say that we can’t wait 20 years for nuclear reactors, but we also can’t wait 20 years to figure out how to build a big battery. We don’t even know what the carbon emissions or time costs of whatever we decide on will be, but we do know that working nuclear reactors are a thing today.
I’m not against solar or wind, I have solar panels on my house right now, but it has only reduced my reliance on the grid, it’s nowhere close to replacing it
Then don’t! I kind of see your point about not building new reactors, even if I disagree, but what purpose could closing existing plants possibly have? How is that going to save carbon and reduce fossil fuels??
I think you are vastly overestimating the productivity of renewables right now. They are a smart investment to augment what we have, but to take non-renewables offline and to build enough renewables to reach the levels of modern nuclear, we will need an additional decade… Assuming the tech in renewables continues to make massive gains. There just aren’t enough skilled workers, and you can’t run these people non-stop to produce enough windmills to meet demand.
Renewables are only 20% of the US total, nuclear is 18% (and the US is the highest producer of nuclear worldwide at 30% of the world’s total), and the remaining ~60% is fossil fuels.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3