this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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Nuclear push would drag out energy transition, PM warns (www.thenewdaily.com.au)
submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

building nuclear power plants isn't just like putting a leg of lamb in the oven though.

it would take a gargantuan investment of money, skills, labour, et cetera. All of which ought to be directed to building out renewable facilities.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It's a long-term investment. Once it's built, nuclear outright breaks the pricing scheme on fossil fuel energy. Surely the prudent thing is to have both it and renewables? To have one to shore up the other?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I agree that nuclear is an option that ought to be considered as part of the mix.

I'm not convinced that it's right for Australia given our unique circumstances.

I disagree on cost. We've never built nuclear. We not only need a reactor, buy need to buy all the relevant skills and build all the supports to create an industry. I genuinely believe that the cost per kWh would be far greater than our other options.

The many hundreds of billions is better put to renewables, storage, and hydrogen cracking.

There are some next gen reactors being built in different places. Smaller output, less waste, salt cooled. We should let others bear the cost of development and see how it pans out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

We’ve never built nuclear. We not only need a reactor, buy need to buy all the relevant skills and build all the supports to create an industry.

Oh, that does change the calculation quite a bit. I wonder if this push has more to do with those submarines than any energy considerations.

excited to see how the thorium rock-salt reactors progress