France electricity is mostly (72%) from nuclear power. Aka the most under-appreciated clean energy that everybody is panicky about and wants to get rid of. Which means, unless you have a luxury of having tons of hydropower or something, nuclear is probably the best way to lower carbon footprint. Of course, this is also the least discussed way.
Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
131–140 of 171 posts
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#132France electricity is mostly (72%) from nuclear power. Aka the most under-appreciated clean energy that everybody is panicky about and wants to get rid of. Which means, unless you have a luxury of having tons of hydropower or something, nuclear is probably the best way to lower carbon footprint. Of course, this is also the least discussed way.
So you came up with a solution for the waste now? I must have missed that. Please explain.
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#133Electric vehicles can be charged overnight and at off-peak times, so it's reasonable to assume they use a higher-than-average share of low-carbon energy. For example, around 50% of the UK's electricity production is from low-carbon sources (renewables and nuclear). But a much higher percentage of off-peak power is low-carbon. After midnight, close to 100% of the grid is low-carbon because the gas turbines spin down w…
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am one of the "panicky" ones and I want to explain my point of view. When I was a kid, living in the equivalent of Kentucky, a nuclear accident in the equivalent of the Bahamas made it so we couldn't eat wild berries from the woods anymore. Now a middle aged man over 30 years later, sheep from my home area still measure levels of radioactivity too high for human consumption. That's why I feel most options are bette…
If you look at the seriousness the human race dedicated to creating safe nuclear energy, it looks almost comical:we settled on the first technology we found(pressured water reactors), because it fitted best for the requirents of the Navy at the time, not because it offered the best safety for citizens, far from it.And than, in the name of safety, we created an environment that prevented from new designs to become com…
The most dangerous types of reactor is graphite moderated ones. (Because graphite burns lot more readily than water.) Practically all of the actually severe accidents happened with those. They have not been built since Chernobyl.
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Amsterdam, the city creates an electric car parking spot (with charger) near your house if you get an electric car. This is effectively a private parking spot if you're the only electric car owner in the street, and that's incredibly valuable in a city where parking spots are hard to find.
This will not scale as more and more people make use of this though. I agree it's a very strong incentive though.
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#136France electricity is mostly (72%) from nuclear power. Aka the most under-appreciated clean energy that everybody is panicky about and wants to get rid of. Which means, unless you have a luxury of having tons of hydropower or something, nuclear is probably the best way to lower carbon footprint. Of course, this is also the least discussed way.
So you came up with a solution for the waste now? I must have missed that. Please explain.
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you came up with a solution for the waste now? I must have missed that. Please explain.
Breeder reactors use today's waste as fuel, burning up 90% or more and leaving behind short lived isotopes.
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Breeder reactors use today's waste as fuel, burning up 90% or more and leaving behind short lived isotopes.
So they will get rid of all the waste that is currently lying in rusty containers all over the world? Or do we have enough to clean all of the waste that is being generated? Please provide sources since I know some countries who are struggling to find a hole deep enough to make it disappear.
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you came up with a solution for the waste now? I must have missed that. Please explain.
Do you prefer spreading the pollution over the vast area around the thermal power plants? Because that's the current alternative in most of the countries. Nuclear waste is treated securely enough for now in Europe, and future may bring us scientific development to resolve this problem in future.
> Nuclear waste is treated securely enough for now in Europe, and future may bring us scientific development to resolve this problem in future.
No it's not. We have quite big problems with storage in Germany[1]. Other waste is stored next to the nuclear facilities who created it or on the road to and from La Hague where radioactivity is leaking into water and air[2,3].
[1] https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/niedersachsen/braunschweig_ha...
[2]http://www.taz.de/!5154538/
[3]https://www.greenpeace.de/node/11699
Or hey, don't forget Sellafield where 2014 the employees have been asked to stay at home but everything is totally OK. Unfortunately nobody told that to the birds who were drinking contaminated water from open SFPs.
Re: Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
So they will get rid of all the waste that is currently lying in rusty containers all over the world? Or do we have enough to clean all of the waste that is being generated? Please provide sources since I know some countries who are struggling to find a hole deep enough to make it disappear.
We don't build them for political reasons, otherwise we wouldn't have to store waste in rusty barrels.