Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life

Post by xbar » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

lukeschlather wrote: post #153

xbar wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your criticisms and support of the parent, but the thesis also included a chunk of "here is why I switched from a purely clean energy perspective to one that tolerates a bunch more nuclear." I have in the past year undergone a similar shift, so perhaps I felt more tolerant of some of the article's slickness. A few centuries of "financially expensive" nuclear energy feels like it could provide a longer ru…

It's really strange for me to hear people saying that. I was pro-nuclear a decade ago and thought solar/wind were pipe dreams. The cost situation is now so much in favor of solar/wind now that I no longer really see the point in nuclear. We should be subsidizing scaling up of storage technologies, not nuclear plants. If the cost of storage gets cut in half in the next 10 years, we won't need subsidies, nuclear plants…

Post by fghorow » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

hairytrog wrote: post #197

fghorow wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long term nuclear storage is one problem. Who pays for the decommissioning is another one. In many cases it turns out to be the taxpayer.

This is not true. Every power plant that produces waste must pay money into the waste repository fund totaling nearly $50B - which is probably overkill for building a long term facility by a factor of 5 or more.

Post by efields » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

jamie_ca wrote: post #188

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rooftop solar in Seattle pays for itself in 7-9 years Can you show me the arithmetic for that? I understand rooftop solar to cost $20,000 - $25,000. Is your non-solar electric bill over 7-9 years really more expensive than that? Seems impossible.

Victoria BC area here (practically next door), it wouldn't work for us. My annual hydro bill was $2400 in 2018 with baseboard heating, and $2050 for 16,500kWh in 2021 after we put in a heat pump. 3 bedroom detached. A recent article suggested a typical 4 kW system around here would cost $10k for 3261 kWh a year, or about $405 in credit at a blended rate. Another suggests an 11 kW system at $27,500, which could maybe…

Post by jakewins » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 5:13 PM UTC

ShockTohp wrote: post #115

elil17 wrote: post #26

Clever writing can let you argue for any viewpoint. That doesn’t make it true. >I used to think solar and wind power were the best ways to reduce CO2 emissions. But the biggest reduction in CO2 emissionsduring the past 15 years (over 60%) has come from switching from coal to natural gas. Upgrading coal to gas is a great intermediate step. However, it’s not a long term solution because natural gas reserves are limited…

But solar and wind are no where near sustainable, or efficient. They are extremely fragile and have serious detrimental effects on their local environment. Nuclear is the best option and gas is a massive improvement. The whole point of this article is that we are chasing a utopian ideal instead of actually fixing the problems. Once again, perfect is being the enemy of improvement.

Post by IX-103 » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

EricE wrote: post #42

Finally a rational and spot-on discussion about energy. Great article! Especially a rational take on the nuclear boogyman - if you care at all about CO2 emissions then nuclear should be your highest priority! Instead of burying "nuclear waste" we should be burning it in modern reactors.