this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
669 points (92.3% liked)

News

23639 readers
3316 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Shuttering of New York facility raises awkward climate crisis questions as gas – not renewables – fills gap in power generation

When New York’s deteriorating and unloved Indian Point nuclear plant finally shuttered in 2021, its demise was met with delight from environmentalists who had long demanded it be scrapped.

But there has been a sting in the tail – since the closure, New York’s greenhouse gas emissions have gone up.

Castigated for its impact upon the surrounding environment and feared for its potential to unleash disaster close to the heart of New York City, Indian Point nevertheless supplied a large chunk of the state’s carbon-free electricity.

Since the plant’s closure, it has been gas, rather then clean energy such as solar and wind, that has filled the void, leaving New York City in the embarrassing situation of seeing its planet-heating emissions jump in recent years to the point its power grid is now dirtier than Texas’s, as well as the US average.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] yesman 84 points 9 months ago (54 children)

I've always been pro nuclear. But what I've come to understand is that nuclear accidents are traumatizing. Anybody alive in Europe at the time was psychologically damaged by Chernobyl. Don't forget also that the elder Xers and older worldwide lived under the specter of nuclear annihilation.

So you've got rational arguments vs. visceral fear. Rationality isn't up to it. At the end of the day, the pronuclear side is arguing to trust the authorities. Being skeptical of that is the most rational thing in the world. IDK how to fix this, I'm just trying to describe the challenge pronuclear is up against.

[–] fidodo 37 points 9 months ago (7 children)

I'm pro nuclear based on the science, but I'm anti nuclear based on humanity. Nuclear absolutely can be run safely, but as soon as there's a for profit motive, corporations will try to maximize profits by cutting corners. As long as there's that conflict I don't blame people for being afraid.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

This comes off as you're anti nuclear but you know you can't say that, so you do the trick where you say you're pro butttt.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

"Afraid" after seeing unfettered capitalism cut corners in every way it can, with zero regard for human life.

I am not sure it's fear so much as it is a logical response to the current situation to not want more nuclear in this context when renewables are so much cheaper.

I am not "afraid" of nuclear power, I just think it's a really bad option right now and that its risks, like all other forms of power generation, need to be considered carefully, not dismissed out of hand.

[–] guacupado 4 points 9 months ago

Being afraid of what can go wrong is still being afraid. It's not an insult.

[–] fidodo 3 points 9 months ago

Being afraid does not mean it's irrational or unjustified.

[–] IamtheMorgz 2 points 9 months ago

It's risks are pretty minimal, in the grand scheme. I won't say non-existent of course. The possibility of a release is always there, but the impact is going to be measured in negative public perception, not deaths. One of the reasons the plants cost so much to build is because they have to stick a real big concrete dome over the dangerous bit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Except that modern nuclear technologies like LFTR are objectively way safer, and even with 60s technology and unsafe operation, nuclear has fewer deaths per MWh than just about every other form of energy generation. It's just that nuclear's failures are more concentrated and visible.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

You got it. I've had this discussion and the anti nuclear boils down to "somewhat, somehow, something, someone, maybe, possibly, perhaps may go wrong. Anything built by man could fail". There's no logic, just fear.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (12 children)

At this point, you can be economically anti-nuclear. The plants take decades to build with a power cost well above wind/solar. You can build solar/wind in high availability areas and connect them to the grid across the states with high power transmission lines, leading to less time that renewables aren't providing a base line load. One such line is going in right now from the high winds great plains to Illinois, which will connect it to the eastern coastal grid illinois is part of.

We also have a hilarious amountof tech coming online for power storage, from the expected lithium to nasa inspire gas battery designs, to stranger tech like making and reducing rust on iron.

There is also innovation in "geothermal anywhere" technology that uses oil and gas precision drilling to dig deep into the earth anywhere to tap geothermal as a base load. Roof wind for industrial parks is also gaining steam, as new designs using the wind funneling current shape of the buildings are being piloted, rivaling local solar with a simplier implementation.

While speculative, many of these techs are online and working at a small scale. At least some of them will pay off much faster, much cheaper and much more consistently before any new nuclear plants can be opened.

Nuclear's time was 50 years ago. Now? It's a waste to do without a viable small scale design. Those have yet to happen, mainly facing setbacks, but i'm rooting for them.

load more comments (12 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

the solution is never build an RBMK plant ever again. And invest in gen IV designs, which are inherently safe, and have basically no active safety features, because they dont need them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

lived under the specter of nuclear annihilation.

That specter's back though.

[–] geogle 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Not quite the same level as the cold war, but yeah, it's back baby

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's putting it mildly. Most people alive at the time were as certain as they could be that a nuclear apocalypse was right around the corner. Kids were told as much in school. Right now it's floated as a possibility, but most people don't take it seriously or aren't aware of it much at all.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Nor will they. Nuclear bombs have been coopted by the ever churning content machine that is western media into "this is an explosion, but it's really fucking big".

Shit, look at what's happened to Godzilla. We have Godzilla Minus One vs Monsterverse Godzilla. I don't think I need to break down how trivial Monsterverse Godzilla is by comparison. "Very big, very cool, big explodey lizard wow" is about all Godzilla amounts to in the West, and it is a walking metaphor for a nuclear bomb.

Why would anyone be afraid of something so trivialized? We've been fucking powerscaled into not caring about nuclear bombs.

[–] guacupado 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Nuclear weapons weren't "coopted." It's extremely unlikely because any country that uses would similarly be glassed. Sure, it's not zero, but probably not too far off.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I clearly meant nuclear bombs as a concept.

[–] orrk 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

i'm sorry, we power scaled a 3kilometer wide sun on earth?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

As far as something to be afraid of on a day to day basis, yes. This is speaking of both the real world and fiction. Fiction is obvious as to why, Goku can fucking blow up galaxies or some shit. Superman becomes God at some point or whatever.

In the real world, when is the threat of a singular nuke ever the case? Seriously, when? It's always total thermonuclear annihilation. You never hear about a singular nuke. Most people fear being shot or stabbed more than total nuclear annihilation. The idea is too abstract.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

I use to be very pro nuclear. I'd write letters to papers and such explaining how the waste, which is the main concern most people have, is not as big of a problem as people think - and that certain manufacturing processes produce other waste products that are very bad and people just don't think about those...

Anyway, I changed my mind some time back. There are three main things that have turned me against nuclear.

  • The first thing was that I read a detailed analysis of the 'payback time' of different forms of energy generation. i.e. the amount of time it takes for the machine to produce more energy (in dollar terms) than it cost to build and run it. Nuclear fairs very poorly. It takes a long time to pay itself back; but wind was outstandingly fast; and solar was surprisingly competitive too (this was back when solar technology wasn't so advanced. That's why it was surprising). So then, I got thinking that although nuclear's main advantage over coal is its cleanliness, wind is even cleaner, and easier to build, and safer, and pays itself off much much faster. And Australia has a lot of space suitable for wind power... so I became less excited by nuclear energy.
  • The second thing is that as I grew older, I saw more and more examples of the corrupting influence of money. Safely running a nuclear power-plant and managing waste is not so hard that it cannot be done, but is a long-term commitment... and there are a lot of opportunities for unwise cost-cutting. My trust in government is not as high as it use to be; and so I no longer have complete faith that the government would stay committed to the technical requirements of long-term safe waste management. And a bad change of government could turn a good nuclear power project into a disaster. It's a risk that is far higher with nuclear than with any other kind of power.
  • The third and most recent thing is that mining companies have started turning up the rhetoric in support of nuclear power. They were not in favour of it in the past, but they smell the winds of change, and they trying to manipulate the narrative and muddy the waters by putting nuclear into the mix. They say nuclear is a requirement for a clean future, and stuff like that. But that's not true. It's an option, but not a requirement. By framing it as a requirement, they trigger a fight between people for and against nuclear, and it's just a massive distraction form what we are actually trying to achieve. If the fight just stalls, the mining companies win with the status-quo. And if nuclear gets up, they win again with a new thing to mine... It's not nice

So yeah, I'm not so into nuclear now. It's not a bad technology, but the idea of it is a bit radioactive, just like the waste product.

[–] CosmicCleric 3 points 9 months ago

Don’t forget also that the elder Xers and older worldwide lived under the specter of nuclear annihilation.

This movie didn't help.

(Good movie by the way; Jack Lemmon's "I can feel it" line at the end of the movie really scares the crap out of you.)

[–] guacupado 2 points 9 months ago

Being skeptical of trusting "authorities" is only rational if you're still living with boomer information. There are plenty of designs now that would have made Fukushima a non-issue. Until fusion comes along, nuclear is easily our best option alongside renewables.

load more comments (47 replies)