this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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Coal dropped, but looks like natural gass usage jumped. That's only a small difference in carbon output. Nuclear is the way to go until we've got a solid infrastructure that can handle the ups and downs of renewables, grid storage and general upgrades, nation wide.
Yeah, let’s absolutely get more renewables out there, but I don’t see how we can accommodate base grid loads without something like nuclear (especially when grid storage of renewable energy that isn’t consumed at the time of generation seems like a problem that will take a long time to solve).
The anti-nuclear stuff drives me nuts, and as we’ve seen with Europe and their general move away from nuclear (France being a notable exception) is that you can spin up all the nuclear you want but you’ll need more fossil fuel plants to handle base load regardless.
How hydrogen is transforming these tiny Scottish islands
Hydrogen is not free of problems: it degrades metal, leaks above a very low level have the potential to negate the environmental benefits, and it's not particularly efficient because of the cost of compression. And Green hydrogen (which is more like a battery than a fuel) risks providing Big Carbon with a new excuse to pollute with their multi-coloured array of non-Green hydrogens (which are filthy fuels, nothing like a battery).
But I'm not at all convinced about nuclear providing better answers than renewables. It takes decades for a new nuclear plant to come online, the same money invested in renewables starts yielding benefits immediately. And the problem of disposing of nuclear waste is not yet solved.
Idk that it's better than renewables, I'd say they're complimentary. And I'm not sure we'd need new big multi-million new ones, newer models can be much smaller, cheaper, and modular. But places like Germany shutting down perfectly functional nuclear plants drives me nuts, just ups the coal and gas usage.