Unfortunately, it feels like too many people in power would rather go down with the ship than change their ways. Since that would threaten their current privileges.
Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target
41–50 of 205 posts
Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target
#42Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target
#43I searched for 'nuclear' on that page, and found no mention of the word at all. Whatever you might think of nuclear energy, I don't think such a drastic energy cut is even possible to implement without it. (After all, I see little point in cutting CO2 emissions in the US if people in other countries emit an amount equivalent to whatever gets cut here.)
Funny, one of the most often heard argument of those, who try to fight against reducing CO2 in Germany is, that other countries, e.g. the US, are not reducing theirs and we should wait until they do.
That sounds to me, that every country should do its best to cut CO2 and not wait for others to lead first.
Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
The time for nuclear has passed (at least fission. Fusion may still be a good future energy source). I say this because the cost of building a new nuclear plant is more expensive than wind and solar. Nuclear might still be a good solution for northern and southern habitats. But, at this point, where most pollution is produced, solar and wind are viable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source With…
Here is what you get some days with solar and wind: https://i.imgur.com/m2snJgg.png . Germany using a lot of standard gas and coal generators.
That doesn't really answer the point, which was that new solar and wind tend to be cheaper than new nuclear as of 2019.
Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target
#45According to EIA global emissions are growing and predicted to grow through 2035. In 2035 global emissions are 40% higher than today. When the developed world can gradually reduce CO2 emissions, China, India and the rest of the developing world will continue to increase emissions.
naive question, if renewable become cheaper than fossil fuel options, why would they continue to increase emissions.
Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Greenpeace isn't that influential, the reality is that the economics of nuclear never added up. Also, there really is something off-putting about leaving behind waste that lasts longer than civilisation has.
France is a shining counter-example to your claim.
That isn't that clear-cut. France has lots of nuclear power, but most of the power plants are getting quite old and eventually have to be dismantled and replaced. We will see how affordable the nuclear electricity is, after all costs have been paid. I don't think they will be replacing nuclear power plants with new ones, at current costs.
Still, currently electricity is way cheaper and much cleaner than in Germany. I certainly disagree with the amount of coal used in Germany.
Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target
#47I searched for 'nuclear' on that page, and found no mention of the word at all. Whatever you might think of nuclear energy, I don't think such a drastic energy cut is even possible to implement without it. (After all, I see little point in cutting CO2 emissions in the US if people in other countries emit an amount equivalent to whatever gets cut here.)
Just to add to the two very insightful replies you've already got, yes, nuclear power could have been a great contributor on the fight against Global Warming, 30 years ago. And yes, it is a shame that "environmentalist" movements made so much noise that they ensured we took the most harmful possible path. Those movements should be shamed, and very loudly so because they still didn't give up on fighting improvements and waste the popular focus on useless feel-nice ideas.
But, well, today is not 30 years ago, and the same way that nuclear power never could be the complete solution to carbon based fuels, today it is too late for them to even be a large component of it. So, today pushing for nuclear does more harm than good.
Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target
#48I don't think I've ever seen this here :
https://theshiftproject.org/en/home/
It's a think tank working on handling the climate crisis with excellent, pragmatic, efficiency-focused studies, without ideologies or dogma. They have recently been known to put some numbers on the CO2 emissions caused by the digital industry, that is less visible but very real (4 percent of total emissions, 4x more than air travel!)
They have Jean-Marc Jancovici in the management, who also founded Carbone 4 - a consulting firm working on enabling companies to make their transition to a carbon-neutral world. He's an original figure among ecologists in France because he pleads in favor of nuclear energy in France, to avoid emitting CO2 (it's mainly thanks to nuclear energy that France emits 7 times less CO2 for the same amount of electricity produced compared to the OECD). I highly recommend his conferences.
Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nuclear power is 20% of electricity in the United States. If you could replace it all in 3 years, wouldn’t we be better off replacing 20% of coal power over 3 years and wait a little longer on the nuclear power? If your math is right, half the grid would be zero carbon in 5 years.
Yes, you would absolutely want to stave off nuclear generator retirements as long as (safely) possible to displace carbon producing generators. I use the example only to demonstrate the ease of renewable deployments versus nuclear. You could go do a green bond offer (or PPA contract), bid out the construction project, and build a solar generation facility next to a nuclear power plant to replace its capacity. You can…
China started building coal again, and global coal production is rising.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/years-afte...
Re: Cut global emissions by 7.6% per year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target
#50I searched for 'nuclear' on that page, and found no mention of the word at all. Whatever you might think of nuclear energy, I don't think such a drastic energy cut is even possible to implement without it. (After all, I see little point in cutting CO2 emissions in the US if people in other countries emit an amount equivalent to whatever gets cut here.)
Funny, one of the most often heard argument of those, who try to fight against reducing CO2 in Germany is, that other countries, e.g. the US, are not reducing theirs and we should wait until they do. That sounds to me, that every country should do its best to cut CO2 and not wait for others to lead first.
Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement sought to do that. Unfortunately the time span between the launch of such talks and the agreement of terms is around the time in office for 1 US Democratic president.