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[–] 16 points 3 years ago (56 children)

Don’t push nuclear power like it’s the only option though.

Where I live we entirely provide energy from hydro power plants and nuclear energy is banned. We use no fossil fuels. We have a 35 year plan for future growth and it doesn’t include any fossil fuels. Nuclear power is just one of the options and it has many hurdles to implement, maintain and decommission.

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  • [–] 32 points 3 years ago* (31 children)

    Honestly, if you can, hydro is brilliant. Not many places can though — both because of geography and politics. Nuclear is better than a lot of the alternatives and shouldn't be discounted.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 years ago (3 children)
  • [–] 12 points 3 years ago* (2 children)

    Which each have their drawbacks. Just as an example, though not representative of the majority, what do you do about months of no sun in the Arctic Circle for solar power? There is no single solution to this problem. Nuclear is better than fossil fuels by far, and we should not just throw it away out of fear.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago

    And yet nuclear has killed less than even wind. Obviously death is not the only factor, which is why it should be a combination of both.

    Again, it's just an example. There are loads of situations where solar and wind just don't work — and they are both inconsistent, without battery technology nearly good enough to work on the order of days for an entire national grid, which could be potentially needed in the event of a storm.

    Nuclear waste is a problem, but one which is much more easily contained and much less dangerous than the CO2 that's constantly being spewed into our air.

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  • [–] -1 points 3 years ago (26 children)

    And what do YOU know about radioactive waste disposal?

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    We can bury it in the ground and it will literally turn into lead. How are you doing with carbon emissions? Got a fix?

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago*

    I think it's photosynthesis. 'Bury in the ground' is an extreme simplification btw. Also, I am finished with this topic scince long anough. It feels politically biased. If you'd like to reply, I'd hear it gladly. But I m not going to be involved into a discussion.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (8 children)

    It would be cool to see huge investments into battery storage. If we could create a battery that doesn't just leak energy from storing, we could generate power in one location and ship it out where it's needed. There could be remote energy production plants using geothermal or hydroelectric power that ship out these charged batteries to locations all over. It would let us better utilize resources instead of having to have cities anchored around these sources.

    Or we could generate a ton of power all at once, store it and use it as needed rather having to have on demand energy production

    Hell with better batteries even fossil fuels begin to be climate friendly since you could store the massive energy created and know you're using close to 100% of it.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago* (2 children)

    It would be cool to see huge investments into battery storage.

    Globally humanity already invests over 10 Billion dollars per year in advancing battery technology.

    If we could create a battery that doesn’t just leak energy from storing...

    In order to build what you are talking about will almost certainly require real room temperature super conductors. We can get close, maybe, with the next generation of Aluminum-Air or Iron-Air batteries but this is big pimping. It's incredibly complicated and difficult.

    It's like Fusion Power. We can see a future where we have it figured out and working but it's still some years, if not decades, away.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    Kind of an unconventional battery, but I've heard of solar and wind being used to pump water uphill into reservoirs and then released through a hydro plant when the sun/wind aren't shining/blowing. I'd be curious to know the amount of production lost from storing it this way.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I heard the loss comes from evaporation. Another cool idea I heard was using a mining cart. So its not practical but I think the idea is cook because I'm pretty science illiterate but it got me thinking about what a battery actually is. So you drag a mine cart up a hill with energy produced using renewable energy and then let it go down the hill and collect the stored energy with its motion. Technically there isn't anything like evaporation so you could store the mine cart up the hill with no energy loss.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Interesting. Didn't consider the evaporation. I imagine friction could effect the minecarts, but no idea to what degree. Some loss is gonna happen so matter what. If I'm understanding correctly, even nuclear, built away from population centers, will lose some power due to transmission distances.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    Moving batteries seems like a terribly inefficient way of replacing power lines.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago

    Power lines would still mean we need energy on demand though wouldn't it. And if we can transport energy from an area like a huge solar array in the Sahara to Kazakhstan or China it would be better. I was just raising it as an off thought like maybe theres more ways to think about solving this problem than just building plants. What level of storage ability could we have that would let us build a large solar array in the Sahara to power Africa and Europe vs just building more plants. I think our end goal will be energy storage and like you brought up transport/transmission. I think that because I think we have energy production pretty well solved

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