261–270 of 304 posts
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Nuclear is also "gas-backed" in way. A stable energy grid is not something one can hand wave together.
Nuclear is reliable to a fault . It is rock solid. But it doesn't "go up" very fast - that is where you need gas support. Which is quite different from solar and wind, where you can't predict the ups and downs
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Exactly. Why did holes into the earth to store toxic waste when you have literally infinite energy right above your head (sun and wind)?
Infinite AND intermittent. Renewables don't work for base load yet.
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Aren’t renewables already more cost effective than nuclear? See for example here: https://energycentral.com/c/ec/comparing-costs-renewable-and... Storage issues might be solved before new nuclear plants go online at the current pace of progress. Perhaps a few years of gas until the renewable infrastructure is set up will suffice? At least the issue does not seem to be as clear cut as most people claim they are.
> Storage issues might be solved The problem as I see it as that any '100% renewable' solution which could be ramped up relatively quickly would necessitate technology that doesn't exist yet. Of course there will be some progress in tech, but we have no way to predict exactly what it will be. It will also be extremely expensive simply due to the massive scale required, and there are numerous powerful & well funded gr…
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Aren’t renewables already more cost effective than nuclear? See for example here: https://energycentral.com/c/ec/comparing-costs-renewable-and... Storage issues might be solved before new nuclear plants go online at the current pace of progress. Perhaps a few years of gas until the renewable infrastructure is set up will suffice? At least the issue does not seem to be as clear cut as most people claim they are.
If you essentially stop any technology progress for 40 years in one technology, other technologies might catuch up. But there is a MASSIVE amount of potential for nuclear to be cheaper and better. People in 2000~ were more then happy to predict massive improvement in cost for renewables if money was invested but absolutely denied that the same could happen with nuclear. Had the same amount been invested in nuclear, p…
Meanwhile in France. Because the temperatures are so high and the continuing drought, the nuclear power plants have to decrease their power output. The cooling water comes from the rivers and the plants have limits how hot the water is allowed to get downstream. Everything would slowly cook in the rivers … Even with temporal exceptions of this environmental rules France became a NET IMPORTER of power. France is like…
Yeah the main problem is France basically did amazing with nuclear for like 30 years and then in the last 20 they basically flat-lined in total production. And the dropped all their advanced nuclear and is still planning expensive PWR style reactors until 2050. France had developed a Sodium cooled reactor but because of anti-nuclear sentiment they only built one and killed it. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super…
Mostly due to anti-France lobbying from other nations (Germany and the US mostly).
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Great but I want the same deal for the coal and gas companies that produce electricity, make them responsible for every ton of CO2 they emitted and make them responsible for removing it from the atmosphere.
Pitting nuclear against coal is fighting a straw man. The alternative is renewables. With a tiny fraction of the negative side-effects either nuclear or of fossil energy brings.
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You can dream every solution you'd care to dream, but right now gas-backed solar is how it's done in europe.
Nuclear is also "gas-backed" in way. A stable energy grid is not something one can hand wave together.
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Gladly. But as I said, possible shortages are gas for heating, industrial production, not electricity.
15% of German electricity production is from natural gas. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Economic-Sectors-Enterpris...
It is interesting to note how everyone talks about the dependency on gas in Germany, while nobody mentions France. If we look at the two graphs: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/En... https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/abm6r4/germanys_en... We can see that both Germany and France use about the same percentage of gas in their energy mix. Making this discussion a reason to revive nuclear…
France has less dependence on russian gas , it doesn't have germany's large industry that is also dependent on russian gas, their nuclear will be there in the future, they have 4 LNG terminals and they are quite sunnier. I believe france's nuclear is currently offline that's why the higher gas usage.