Is nuclear power a fix for climate change? Experts think it's too dangerous
Is nuclear power a fix for climate change? Experts think it's too dangerous
Some climate activists are pushing for expanded nuclear power — most experts think the risk is too high
Nuclear power is still better than burning fossil fuels regardless, and probably has a role to play as a scaleable demand-responsive source.
However for the past decade or so, every time a new nuclear project starts the cost of wind and solar drops substantially before it's complete. This absolutely ruins the nuclear project's original cost/benefit analysis and makes continued spending on it look irresponsible. Wind and solar are outcompeting everything else, which is probably a good thing overall. If energy storage tech becomes more affordable/effective we might not need nuclear at all.
The appeal of solar and wind for me is how they can enable a decentralized grid. Anyone could set up these utilities according to their needs, which builds societal independence. Also means less resources are likely to be needed overall.
If by decentralized you're mainly referring to rooftop solar, it's unfortunately the least cost-effective way to generate electricity. The $/MWh for rooftop solar is even higher than nuclear on average. Wind and solar are more cost-effective in grid-scale installations. A decentralized/individualized grid would actually require more resources.
has a role to play as a scaleable demand-responsive source
Nuclear is best used a base load, it scales in the sense that you can build more plants, but the plant output can't be adjusted as rapidly as the tiny natural gas turbine plants, reservoir-storage, battery array, or other sources.
The best use for nuclear output in a surplus phase would be storing the energy (water reservoir pumping, battery arrays, etc.) or expensive wasteful processes (electric steel plant ovens, hydrolysis to generate hydrogen fuel.)
Salon has no respect from me, so I'm not going to generate a click for them.
Since I'm not too familiar with nuclear - how would the on-demand scalability work? My impression has always been that reactors are generating energy at a fairly constant rate.
Oh no, the whole point of control rods is to adjust the rate of reaction in the core, which adjusts the rate of neutron output which adjusts the rate of steam production. Newer reactor designs are even more flexible in how the rods can be used.
"Experts" don't think it's too dangerous. Paid OPEC shills like this journalist pretend it's too dangerous.
Ontario, Canada is a fantastic display of safe nuclear, we CANDU anything!
No, its not scalable and turning drinking water into vapor isn't future proof either.
Also it takes to long and if something goes wrong it goes wrong very very much. Furthermore uranium mining and enrichment isn't clean either.
Yes its better than coal or oil, but investing in real renewable energy is better by a order of Magnitude. Don't build new nuclear energy, build renewables.
Vapor really isn't a problem, most of the water in nuclear return back to the source as water, and the vapor rains back.
Renewables are definitely the way to go, but nuclear is needed as base source when renewables are not bringing in the needed electricity/heat.
Something that pollutes both ground and water is not a fix for climate change lmao
A nuclear power plant doesn't pollute either of those more than any other large building, and sure uranium mining is still mining, but renewables and battery storage also depend on raw mined materials.
I hate the argument that nuclear is unsafe. Sure its unsafe, but how is killing the ocean with record temperatures caused by coal and other fossil fuels any safer?
Greenhouse gases are polluting the air we breathe. Seems pretty unsafe to me to be emitting literal metric tons into the atmosphere for all of us to choke on.
Because fuck logic.