In many places, a lot of the time, they can. But not everywhere, all of the time.
The problem is that if even fellow environmentalists like yourself keep thinking of nuclear like a boogeyman, or just not knowing how a power grid works, then we stand no hope of decarbonising power generation. Did you know fossil fuel use is growing worldwide in electricity generation while nuclear is stagnating? The way to decrease that that brown area is by increasing all the other colours in similar proportion. There are circumstances where a fully renewable grid is possible, but those conditions aren't the same everywhere, and those niches will continue to be filled by fossil fuels until we stop being afraid of the much better alternative. The fact is countries with higher percentages of nuclear in their power mix have much lower emissions per GDP per capita than their neighbours. So I may not be able to convince you, but I'm going to keep trying to educate anyway.
Tell me, then, how can you have a stable grid with renewables alone in places where (or when) pumped hydro isn't feasible or can't provide enough power by itself? Or in countries prone to lengthy droughts, like my own? I'm not asking this to argue, but because our disagreement may come from a misunderstanding of the base working principles of the power grid.
Because they fill different roles in the power grid? They don't replace each other. Haven't you been reading what I've been saying all this time or what? Nuclear works WITH renewables. It's fossil fuels we need to phase out, and nuclear can fill their role when renewables can't.
Well, so has France. And at a larger percentage. While emitting disproportionately less carbon, which, again, is the whole point of this conversation. I'd rather not sacrifice climate for the sake of economy. Especially because the economy will suffer a lot more if we don't get emissions under control.
30 years ago it was the same argument. "It takes too long, we needed to have started earlier". Well, here we are now. Let's not have kids 30 years from now saying the same thing.
So why is your country's emissions per capita more than 50% higher than France's (from here), despite a much higher renewables percentage in the power mix? Might it have something to do with how much more nuclear they have?
Looking through your post history, we seem to be aligned in advocating for decarbonisation. If you really want to reach zero emissions as soon as possible, don't you think we should be exploring every carbon free avenue, and shutting down every single fossil fuel power plant?
Don't fall for your government's justifications, or fearmongering around nuclear. If we want to decarbonise the grid, we need it to complement renewables and fill the roles that renewables can't by themselves. The longer we take to realise that, the longer we'll keep burning greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
No, it really does not. That compares power generation mix, not total capacity, over the same periods of different years, which you can't interpret in a vacuum. Look at the neighbouring countries' data so you can normalise the data and analyse it properly. It may very well be that total power generation in the period they're comparing is down overall due to a warmer winter. So it stands to reason that so would fossil fuels.
If you want to interpret it properly, we can go over it, but it won't tell you much about what we're talking about. The matter is that while we're in a fullblown climate crisis, and what we're doing is insufficient, they reopened coal plants:
And none of it would be necessary had they not closed their very well performing NPPs.
We need to be doing everything we can to decarbonise, and I honestly don't understand why we keep having this 60 year old discussion, the same as the previous generations that have led us to this point. It really only serves so that fossil fuel magnates can keep lining their pockets as the world burns. Somehow they've convinced people that nuclear is competition for renewables instead of complementary, it's really incredible to me.
In that case you should be in favor of nuclear, as it's the only real replacement we have for fossil fuels, no matter what Shell and BP will try to tell us.
10.500 tons of highly radioactive waste until 2080
Ok, but in 2022 alone Germany emitted 746 000 000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. I'll take the 10.500 of easily containable waste over 60 years, please. In fact, let's do 5x that. Or even 10x.
Sure, but we don't talk about solar vs wind power, do we? They all have their place. It's the same thing here. Renewables and nuclear each have a place in a zero carbon grid.
I know all that, but I don't think you're understanding the point I'm making. Grow all those plants, and leave the carbon there. It's a much better use of our resources than burning it all again straight after. Let them become coal. And then continue not burning it.
They should have started sooner and with more plants. But it's still much better for that nuclear plant be complete in 2030, than never. Delays and mismanagement aren't unique to nuclear, and no excuse to stop from building it.
Renewables are way faster to install, for a fraction of the cost.
So why are we still using fossil fuels then? The best time to start building alternatives is yesterday. Second best time is now.
Sure, but the carbon in coal was captured from the atmosphere by plants previously (that's what I meant by "by that measure"). Let's just leave the carbon where it is, whether coal or plants, and not burn any more of it back into the atmosphere, please.
Point is that's just as big an "it" as the nuclear costs. Which, in a zero emissions world, is a very small "it". I'm not arguing against renewables, I'm arguing against fossil fuels. We need to replace all of it ASAP, and realistically nuclear is the easiest, most reliable way to reach that goal. Just compare Germany and France's emissions per capita, and then the distribution of their power source, and electricity costs.
That's what their marketing would like you to believe. But they're only carbon neutral if you take into account the carbon being sequestered by the growth of plants before they're burned. By that measure they're just as carbon neutral as coal.
Nuclear also produces CO2 mainly due to the mining, processing and transportation of the fuel.
That's not nuclear that produces CO2, that's mining, processing, and transportation. It's transversal to anything you build, be it nuclear, bioenergy, wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, anything. In the ideal conditions of your power being entirely carbon-free, then so is all of that.
Claidheamh @ Claidheamh @slrpnk.net Posts 0Comments 184Joined 2 yr. ago
In many places, a lot of the time, they can. But not everywhere, all of the time.
The problem is that if even fellow environmentalists like yourself keep thinking of nuclear like a boogeyman, or just not knowing how a power grid works, then we stand no hope of decarbonising power generation. Did you know fossil fuel use is growing worldwide in electricity generation while nuclear is stagnating? The way to decrease that that brown area is by increasing all the other colours in similar proportion. There are circumstances where a fully renewable grid is possible, but those conditions aren't the same everywhere, and those niches will continue to be filled by fossil fuels until we stop being afraid of the much better alternative. The fact is countries with higher percentages of nuclear in their power mix have much lower emissions per GDP per capita than their neighbours. So I may not be able to convince you, but I'm going to keep trying to educate anyway.
Tell me, then, how can you have a stable grid with renewables alone in places where (or when) pumped hydro isn't feasible or can't provide enough power by itself? Or in countries prone to lengthy droughts, like my own? I'm not asking this to argue, but because our disagreement may come from a misunderstanding of the base working principles of the power grid.