this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Perfect. Now that renewable technology is finally cheap and quick to build, the oil and gas lobby is trying to redirect attention to nuclear, which takes decades to build in most places.

[–] maevyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 16 hours ago (4 children)

We can do both. There’s nothing preventing us from doing both, and the most effective way for the oil and gas lobby to get what they want is to divide us.

If pro-renewable people say “we must only have renewables, nothing else!” It makes us seem like ideologues. If we seem like ideologues, moderates get confused because they think “well I do like to hedge my bets and try all things out.” And pro-nuclear advocates (who are all over the spectrum) get louder, complain more, and swing more moderates and politicians back toward nuclear and away from renewables. Then you can repeat the cycle in reverse.

The conservative trick is not to substitute something that doesn’t work for something that does. It’s to keep us divided, blaming each other, and going back and forth between different solutions so often that we never get anything done. Chaos is a ladder.

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[–] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 21 points 18 hours ago

We've postponed nuclear for +40 years, causing climate change to get further and further out of hands.

Thanks Greenpeace /s

[–] Blackmist 40 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Yeah, because it'll tie budgets up for ten years building it, and in the meantime all the fossil fuel people can tap those final nails into our coffin while they line their pockets.

[–] leisesprecher@feddit.org 24 points 22 hours ago

Ten years? More like twenty. Hinkley point C was started in 2013, supposed to be finished 2023. This year the estimation was corrected to 2029-2031.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago

And even if they do finally build it, it's still a centralized system that regulatory-captured monopoly utilities can gouge the public on.

Solar and wind threaten them by being decentralized as well as by not relying on fossil fuels.

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[–] Wilzax@lemmy.world 43 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If America hadn't responded to Chernobyl with fear of atomic power and instead adopted a "this is why communism will fail, look how much better we can do it" attitude, the climate crisis would be a non-issue right now

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Funny forget about three mile island. I think much spin on the Chernobyl situation can be attributed to the embarrassment of the self failure

[–] Wilzax@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

Threee mile island was only a partial meltdown, and very little fission product was ever released to the environment. Nowhere near as blatant and drastic of a failure as what happened in Chernobyl.

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[–] Orbituary@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago

About fucking time.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (9 children)

I used to be pro-nuclear and I am still not worried about the safety issue. However, fissile material is still a finite resource and mining for it is an ecological disaster, so I no longer am in favor of it.

[–] Rossphorus@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Breeder reactors produce more fissile material than they consume.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago

As far as I can tell from looking, there are no breeder reactors for large scale power generation, there never have been, and while multiple countries are trying, none of them have actually done it.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 8 points 18 hours ago (9 children)

fissile material is still a finite resource

We have reserves that will last centuries, and it can literally be extracted from seawater just like lithium if the economics allow for it. Can't comment on the mining impact, though. Is it any worse than rare earth metals?

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[–] dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As someone who isn't well versed on the topic, is the impact from mining fissile material worse than the impact of mining the stuff we need for batteries and storage of renewable? Big fan of renewables, and not trying to start some shit. Trying to learn. Lol

[–] leisesprecher@feddit.org 7 points 22 hours ago (8 children)

Batteries can be made from literal saltwater nowadays.

Otherwise, lithium mining is certainly not exactly good for the environment, but can be managed. Uranium (even the non-fissile) is pretty toxic and can contaminate the whole area.

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[–] StraponStratos@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

How disappointing.

Renewables and storage are far superior, in almost every conceivable metric it’s not funny.

Yet we let conservatives hype up nuclear garbage and carbon recapture as the solution to climate change.

[–] joyjoy@lemm.ee 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Still better than coal in every way.

[–] StraponStratos@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Right so if you’re moving off of coal, the cheaper and better option (renewables) is the right move.

[–] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 5 points 18 hours ago

Not really, not right now it isn't. If you want to cover baseload with wind and solar you'll need energy storage. We haven't got a solution that scales well, yet.

[–] maevyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I just don’t see it in terms of fundamentals. We’ve heard this for years, yet countries that have denuclearized have not been able to go full renewables, they have become more dependent on fossil fuels. Storage has just not been able to keep up with demand, baseload is still necessary, and we don’t have other options.

We should absolutely keep investing in renewables and pushing forward, they help. There is no reason at the same time to prevent investment in nuclear and other non-carbon emitting solutions, and if tech companies are willing to foot the bill we shouldn’t complain. Every gigawatt counts at this point.

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 7 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

We’ve heard this for years, yet countries that have denuclearized have not been able to go full renewables, they have become more dependent on fossil fuels.

Which countries are you referring to? Germany for example denuclearized and replaced them with renewables, they didn't become more dependent on fossil fuels (even if people like to say that).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File%3AGermany_electricity_production.svg

[–] maevyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

Japan for one, whose coal and natural gas consumption has gone up significantly: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan

Germany has stayed fairly steady, fair enough. Imagine if they had just focused on replacing fossil fuels instead of nuclear, they would be nearly carbon free by now.

I have no problem with the majority of funding going to renewables and making progress right now, but I also don’t see why we can’t break ground on new 4th generation nukes and continue investment in nuclear research at the same time. We can hedge our bets, make progress on both. If the 100% renewables + storage plan pans out, cool, we stop the nukes. If they don’t, then cool, we have our carbon free baseload production and we aren’t a decade behind on it when we need it.

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