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We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

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Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#331

Post by willis936 »

dan-robertson wrote: post #13

It seems very unlikely to me that there will ever be sufficient desire for fission based power in most countries, no matter how safe scientists say it is. I still think nuclear power will be important. It seems plausible that governments will continue to fund research into fusion power but I am doubtful that much more money could be raised than was raised for ITER, especially as the results from ITER will not be part…

Fusion is great and important and if society can afford it they should continue to fund it. However, if the goal is slowing damage to the environment in the next 80 years then fusion shouldn’t be seriously considered. Fusion is the answer to what humanity does to make large amounts of electrical power not from fossil fuels when renewables stop scaling for baseline loads. Humanity will benefit from it, but the window for it to be the technology to keep the planet habitable has passed.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#332

Post by manicdee »

deepnotderp wrote: post #128
dane-pgp wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything. While that is true in principle, there is apparently some evidence that investing in nuclear energy causes countries to de-carbonise more slowly (perhaps because of the upfront costs of nuclear power stations, and the time it takes to build them). "Researchers found that unlike renewables, countries around the world with larger scale nat…

Isn't there an obvious hidden random variable there? The only countries that are really actively building nuclear power are growing developing countries like India, so of course their emissions are increasing. EDIT: So yes: > "The study found that in countries with a high GDP per capita, nuclear electricity production does associate with a small drop in CO2 emissions."

There's also the confounding element that the CO2 emissions could have dropped faster if the money was spent on renewables instead, plus the infrastructure for large centralised power generation is not really compatible with distributed generation.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#333

Post by stjohnswarts »

bccdee wrote: post #258
aplummer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define short term; I think by the time a reactor you start today comes online, we are already pretty screwed

Yeah I'm a big fan of nuclear energy, but it just takes forever to get reactors online. We just don't have that kind of time. By all means, let's invest in nuclear, but we need to be building acres and acres of solar panels NOW. "We've got some reactors on the way" is not enough.

If the alternative is the end of the human species I think we might find some motivation to build them a bit faster and better. Just saying.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#334

Post by rayiner »

shawndrost wrote: post #320
rayiner wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not merely a social justice document. It’s about achieving social justice in a specific way: through government, union, and activist group-led “national mobilization.” It’s far from the market-oriented approaches being implemented in Europe, such as carbon pricing.

It's very similar to what is being implemented in Europe. The European Green Deal is a government-, union-, and activist-led (inter)national mobilization. They summarize the plan as a "Europ[ean] growth strategy" with a primary goal of "no person and no place is left behind". https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/euro...

The EU plan you link to is completely different. It’s actually about environmental issues. It uses words like growth, efficiency, and competition, markets, economic incentives, etc. It’s a serious plan for addressing climate change using modern tools of governance. (The “no person left behind” point isn’t an amorphous reference to social justice, but is referring specifically to those affected by decarbonization, like coal workers.)

The GND, by contrast, spends tremendous amounts of ink addressing unions, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed housing, racial justice, gender equity, income inequality, indigenous people, the disabled, migrants, historical oppression, etc. It’s a wishlist, not a serious framework for addressing climate change.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#335

Post by adamsea »

nickpp wrote: post #295
adamsea wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a proposal; it can be negotiated and changed until it becomes law. The main purpose is: a) Help give future generations a reasonably livable and enjoyable planet. b) Help Americans by creating jobs.

You forgot its actual main purpose: Help politicians get elected.

Yeah but you can say that about anything any politician ever does.

I mean you can also say all code written by developers for for-profit companies exists to create revenue.

Both are true yet incomplete statements.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#336

Post by adamsea »

wutbrodo wrote: post #179
adamsea wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a proposal; it can be negotiated and changed until it becomes law. The main purpose is: a) Help give future generations a reasonably livable and enjoyable planet. b) Help Americans by creating jobs.

OK sure, but if you want words to mean something, you can't just define "green new deal" as "all the good things" instead of the current proposal.

Fair point.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#337

Post by carlosdp »

tertiary wrote: post #30

First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything. Second, I'm on the fence over whether I support more reactors and not because nuclear==bad. I trust the technology, but my concern is whether we can maintain a stable political environment for the decades/hundred years required to responsibly take care of nuclear. Buying into a fission reactor means you pay billions up front, but you also…

> First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything.

The FAQ AOC released after the document explicitly ruled out nuclear energy, iirc.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#338

Post by kova12 »

tertiary wrote: post #30

First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything. Second, I'm on the fence over whether I support more reactors and not because nuclear==bad. I trust the technology, but my concern is whether we can maintain a stable political environment for the decades/hundred years required to responsibly take care of nuclear. Buying into a fission reactor means you pay billions up front, but you also…

If your concerns are valid, perhaps we should just stay with coal and gas. Renewables amid other problems are not going to work without massive energy storage systems, which we don't and won't have anytime soon

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#339

Post by skitout »

xupybd wrote: post #323
iron0013 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t think that’s a desirable goal?

It is desirable however impractical given currently available technology. We need significant developments in energy storage to make it work. We could have zero carbon now using nuclear with no new technologies.

Why impractical??? Whith a diversified mix, energy efficiency, a big market for demand response, thermal storage, and a bit of electrical storage, there is no problem with current technologies. Coming tech could decrease the cost and make it easier to implement.

And nuclear is much much more expensive than most renewable now (https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/)

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#340

Post by skitout »

econcon wrote: post #328
tertiary wrote: post #30

First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything. Second, I'm on the fence over whether I support more reactors and not because nuclear==bad. I trust the technology, but my concern is whether we can maintain a stable political environment for the decades/hundred years required to responsibly take care of nuclear. Buying into a fission reactor means you pay billions up front, but you also…

I think we don't have a good way to transport energy which makes green energy slightly impractical as the main source of energy. If we find a way to connect the world on a common electricity grid, we might be able to skip nuclear and go full green (ofc this ignores the cost of producing/disposing those green energy generators)

With a diversified mix (with solar pannel facing different position also), energy efficiency, demand response, thermal storage and a bit of electrical storage, we definitely don't need a world grid
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