841–850 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, I have been saying for decades that I agree on almost everything wirh the local Green Party, _except_ the anti-nuclear stuff. Very emotional, very relatable but very dumb.
The anti-nuclear stuff seems to pair up quite well with "you need to start importing a lot of natural gas", which makes me think it is simply an agenda pushed by a certain rather large country to the east.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Burning coal in coal power plants causes more deaths each year in Europe than the total deaths caused by Chernobyl accident (4000-8000). "The health burden of European CPP emission-induced PM2.5, estimated with the Global Exposure Mortality Model, amounts to at least 16 800 (CI95 14 800–18 700) excess deaths per year over the European domain" https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349938542_Disease_b... https://www…
I live in Germany and dead wild animals are still burned instead of eaten because of radioactive contamination
There is a certain threshold for radiation exposure where if exceeded the animal isn't deemed safe for consumption anymore. The vast majority of these cases are from boars in certain areas of Germany nowadays and affect less than 1% of all killed boars [1] [2].
[1]: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/fast-3000-verstrahlte-wildsch...
[2]: https://www.wildtierschutz-deutschland.de/_files/ugd/173a38_...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
have a read through this: https://cleanenergyreview.io/p/baseload-is-a-myth basically, base load means the lowest point of demand on the grid. And you matched that with slow-to-respond thermal power plants (coal mainly, also nukes). Because those are slow to respond and are most profitable running at 100%, so you tried to keep them there. So called base load generation. But note there is no rule of the universe that…
You don't need to run coal power plant close to 100% to be profitable. You want to run nuclear power plant close to 100% because fuel is cheap and you want pay back CAPEX as early as possible. The article you send is perfect example why it's not economic to build new coal or nuclear power plants in US. The reasons are: very cheap natural gas and no CO2 tax. In US natural gas + solar is the cheapest way to generate el…
It's always a peculiar response that outright ignores certain power combos, and it always seems to come in nuclear discussions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The engineering side might be a theoretically solved problem, anybody looking at belgium's crumbling nuclear powerplants can help but feeling slightly nervous! I agree we probably need nuclear to bridge the gap until solar or wind can take over fully, but there are a lot of problems with nuclear and the most pressing ones are connected to the unwillingness of people to spend money before a disaster happens. On top of…
Just to highlight: in contrast with fossil fuels, at least nuclear waste is something we can capture, creating a storage problem.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the storage of the nuclear waste is very far from a solved engineering problem. Nuclear waste is small and solid, not a leaky green ooze like you see in the Simpsons. You can just bury it deep in a mountain, which is where you extracted the uranium from in the first place. - https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-... - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-... - https://ww…
I know it's not a green ooze. But thinking it is possible to store something safely for >10000 years is just wishful thinking. The waste is a lot more dangerous than the uranium we dug out and packaging it in a way where you are sure it won't surface for sure is really not a solved problem. > Nuclear waste is small and solid As long as all goes well. Fukushima has a slightly different experience. > You can just bury…
> Imo it's stupid to put nuclear waste in a place where you can't get at it anymore.
Things obviously need to be weighed against each other. Burying it in a mountain does make it safe to store indefinitely, but obviously not easily accessible. It can be dug out again, however, if it becomes useful again. It's going to be more expensive, but you pay for the safety.
> As long as all goes well. Fukushima has a slightly different experience.
One of the articles I linked makes the argument that Fukushima is not as tragic as people think.
Quote:
> But now, eight years after Fukushima, the best-available science clearly shows that Caldicott’s estimate of the number of people killed by nuclear accidents was off by one million. Radiation from Chernobyl will kill, at most, 200 people, while the radiation from Fukushima and Three Mile Island will kill zero people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the storage of the nuclear waste is very far from a solved engineering problem. Nuclear waste is small and solid, not a leaky green ooze like you see in the Simpsons. You can just bury it deep in a mountain, which is where you extracted the uranium from in the first place. - https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-... - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-... - https://ww…
Nuclear waste is small and solid That would depend on the category of the waste: - High level waste - Transuranic waste - Low level waste where high level waste comes in two classes: spent fuel and reprocessing waste, the latter being liquid (possibly not green). https://ieer.org/resource/classroom/classifications-nuclear-... You can just bury it deep in a mountain Belgium is notably lacking in mountains, which is wh…
Ad hominem. Criticize the argument. Your opinion about Shellenberger or even his other opinions are irrelevant.
I don't particularly like him, but that does not mean all his points are invalid.
Believing we're in a climate crisis and also being anti-nuclear are mutually exclusive positions in my mind, and opposition to nuclear from environmentalist orgs should be viewed as a massive historical mistake as it set us back decades in moving the needle on carbon emissions. The engineering side of running reactors safely is a solved problem, the US navy has > 7500 reactor-years with a perfect safety record.
China which is fairly sensible on this stuff and which plans to be world's largest nuclear producer by 2035 actually added 1GW of nuclear and ~300GW of solar last year because it's cheaper.
I'll give you maintaining existing nuclear makes sense. But as a British tax payer the cost of our upcoming Hinkley C is eye watering (£48bn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Powerprice in Germany today minus 500€/MWh. Nuclear power is economic madness in an environment where we see negative electricity prices practically every day.
If Germany power prices are so low, why are Germans power bills so high ? Maybe you are cherry picking spot/marginal price and not netting the subsides ?
https://blackout-news.de/en/news/electricity-prices-in-germa...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And the West is also largely not keen on producing new humans (time and costs as much as anything else). > And seems to think it can just import people from other, far, away places. That seems fundamentally OK? The #1 problem leading to humans not having enough to live comfortably is that we have an enormous number of humans and limited resources. We can't unlimit resources. There isn't a very nice way to force peo…
> The #1 problem leading to humans not having enough to live comfortably is that we have an enormous number of humans and limited resources. It really isn't. The raw materials in our lives are a tiny fraction of our living costs in the west. 200 tons of concrete, steel, and plastic etc. in appropriate proportions is enough for a very nice house, yet it would cost less than a tenth of the sale price of that house: wha…
There is the point that how wealthy the competing humans are is also a major factor. But you're trying to bypass an argument about resource scarcity by pretending that resources aren't scarce. If you follow that path to its logical conclusion you're probably going to end up in a very confusing world because then it won't make sense why everyone doesn't just get a house (if someone can't afford a house, why not just upskill and learn how to build one? It isn't that hard and there are a lot of people who don't own a house but really want one and are more than happy to work for the privilege).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the sense that the global median income crept from about $0 to $10,000 sure over a few centuries. That's a big achievement but it isn't exactly the best case scenario. We want a world where everyone can live at least a 6- or 7- figure salary.
> That's a big achievement but it isn't exactly the best case scenario. We want a world where everyone can live at least a 6- or 7- figure salary I actually agree with this vision. But I wouldn't say every human not being a millionaire is "the #1 problem" today.
Don't leave us all in suspense.