this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Renewables are fantastic, but I think we'll need to supplement with nuclear in order to shoulder the demand while we transition off of burning fossil fuels.
So in short, please build more.
Devils advocate, why built more nuclear plants when you could build more renewables? If it’s a scaling issue, in that you need a ton more infrastructure for renewables, and need to supplement with nuclear, wouldn’t that then always be the case in the future? I hear nuclear is needed to bridge the gap often, but it always sounds like it’s temporary, which I don’t understand - seems like nuclear would be needed forever if renewables aren’t able to scale well?
Take solar as an example, the current technology isn't developed enough to generate the amount of Kilowatt hours necessary to provide ample power to users. You can't build to scale yet. Buffering with nuclear power, despite the long-term fuel waste disposal, is an effective way to help eliminate greenhouse gases.
There's a need for high capacity power generation, and at this point the renewable technologies are not developed enough to ween ourselves entirely off coal and natural gas. Then you have to take into account the growing EV demand, which has barely begun to generate user demand.
https://eu.boell.org/en/2021/04/26/7-reasons-why-nuclear-energy-not-answer-solve-climate-change
On top there isn't enough Uranium on this planet. Smaler power plants will use even more of that. One power plant is currently under a war threat.
There is the idea of nuclear power to be the best in our minds, because the nuclear power industry is one of the biggest lobbyists world wide and shapes that picture for us (with smiling people and green trees), but it is just a dream that does not hold up when thoroughly looked at.
Germany does just fine without. Yes we did prolong some of the power plants for security reasons when Russia started a war and we needed to become independend from them. But we would have done just fine without. The owners of the power plants were very reluctant to keep them running because it is expensive.
They are not sustainable without subsidies, because of the fast raising costs the older they get. For the same money New York could have built renewable energy sources in a short time frame.
In France most of the power plants are either closed for repairs, only on a fracture of their estimated output because of drought or damage and France went from exporting power to buying it while Germany is selling more energy than buying.
I know the dream is so beautiful and nice and the reality of nuclear power is all numbers and not at all easy to understand. Still, everyone needs to wake up from their dream.
Nuclear power can do things solar, wind and other renewables cannot.
Not being fully sustainable from a capitalist perspective is not the only variable that matters. France and Germany have in some cases replaced old nuclear reactors with fossil fuels, which themselves have received massive subsidies by the entire planet. How is that helping?
Nuclear is like watering a garden with a hose as opposed to renewables that has a squirt gun. The hose can shoot a lot more, a lot harder, for a lot longer. The squirt gun can do a good bit during the day but has to go be filled up at night from the nearby lake. It also doesn't give nearly as much water nor does it do it as hard. The only benefit to renewables is the 'bottomless' aspect where no matter how much of it we use, there's always more.
And not to go fully into this, renewables like solar panels require rare earth materials that we can run out of so hedging our bets on that is dubious at best. Fission, while fear mongered by media into the ground is amazing in modern times and Fusion is on the horizon to try and win the hearts of those still, somehow, unconvinced.