I'm all for nuclear power. We need to get off gas and coal ASAP, and nuclear is a reliable baseload power source that doesn't require massive arrays of lithium or lead batteries, and doesn't fluctuate with the rainy season. Ideally, I'd like us to go to more advanced nuclear power like molten salt reactors, but even light water is appreciated. I wouldn't mind it even in my own backyard. We need reliable energy.
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
37 points (75.3% liked)
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
5194 readers
1262 users here now
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:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
how is a salt reactor better? i tought reactors were all just glorified water boilers?
It is, but it's safer, since it's a fuel salt loop that has radioactive fuel mixed in, which is too dilute to melt down. It powers a second, independent molten salt loop that goes to a water boiler elsewhere in the system. This has a variety of benefits, and also depends on the tech. But one, it stops meltdowns. And two, if the salt loop or boilers fail, it doesn't release superheated, radioactive steam since the boiler is elsewhere in the complex.
Some can also recycle radioactive fuel that is already spent too.
Molten salt technology also has other benefits, nuclear energy aside. In solar towers with molten salt technology, it boils salts which then power a steam turbine. The salts are fucking hot, and stay hot enough to boil water for 12 hours after the sun has stopped shining. In the morning, some fuel is used to heat up the salts in prep for the sunlight. So, while it does use a bit of carbon, it provides reliable baseload energy that can serve the grid uninterrupted at night/during storms :)
Can't get the pic to link right. Here's a solar tower
Numbers wise, it probably makes sense.
California is so huge and growing all the time, that while they're updating the energy grid and installing new truly sustainable energy, the electricity for two and a half million houses that one power plant provides is probably a huge help in the intermediary time.
The grid really needs to be decentralized. Neighborhood backup batteries and solar panels would go a long way towards this.
I feel like I watched a YouTube video about some guy who was working on commercializing personal home thorium power plants because they were totally safe but produced more power than you would ever need?
We should be moving in that direction, just security wise.
How many solar panels and backup batteries would that buy? At $20k per home, that’s 50000 homes that could have their own power system.
According to a couple of articles, a nuclear plant like this can power 500000 homes. So not too shabby of an investment?
Not only that, the nuclear plant will be producing power at its stated capacity 80% of the time or more, only coming offline for maintenance and refueling. Those solar panels will only produce its stated capacity 30% of the time of so.
IIRC, Diablo Canyon, as a base load, was also created to lift a whole bunch of water backwards across the Sierra Nevada mountains to send south towards Los Angeles. In its absence, moving water around the state could become increasingly challenging.
Because renewable energy sources are too expensive?
Nuclear power is the best option available and I'm confused why you're confused about that.
If you want to talk about subsidies, let's talk about how fossil fuels and renewables get MORE subsidies than nuclear energy. https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/pdf/subsidy.pdf
Now do cumulative subsidies over the last 80 years. Nuclear had its shot and failed.
Please read my other comment here https://feddit.nl/comment/6219531 But the TLDR of where I'm going is: This subsidy is barely leveling up the playing field between fossil fuels and nuclear. Even if we do a cumulative comparison between the two, fossil fuels had got much more, order of magnitude even. Not a single nuclear plant that was shut down in the US was replaced by renewables. They were all replaced by new fossil gas or energy imports generated by coal.
This subsidy is barely leveling up the playing field between fossil fuels and nuclear... Not a single nuclear plant that was shut down in the US was replaced by renewables.
Nobody cares about these points. Instead we care about getting away from power sources that threaten our future.
So, you're then saying that nuclear is somehow more threatening to our future than fossil energy is? Wow. Thanks for being clear where you stand I guess.
Just for the record: fossil fuels not only change our planet's climate, it also kills millions of people each year due to air pollution.
getting away from power sources that threaten our future.
Which are fossil fuels and fossil fuels alone:
I remember reading the change of heart by the environmental activist / journalist George Monbiot[0] some years ago when he described in public why the fukushima disaster changed his opinion on nuclear power[1]
It's old but worth a read and is the reason why I still think that although the industry might be run by cunts (name one that isn't) nuclear power isn't a bad option in/of itself
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Monbiot#Nuclear_energy
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima
Haven't seen a nuclear power plant that isn't basically paid for by the taxpayers and the people that need to buy that energy even more.
Remember, only actually renewable energy is good.
Nuclear is an important stop gap in the process of replacing fossil fuels.
Trouble is, we're now so short of time that there's probably little benefit from making loads of new nuclear plants as they take too long to build.
We're out of time. We crossed short of time 10+ years ago.
So we should all just give up doing anything then because it's too late?
No.
A top gap cant take 10 years to build, its faster, more efficient and more economically to just go straight to renewables 100% shure, already standing ones don't need to be shut down, but we shouldn't focus on making new ones and decommission those that get too old (seriously looking at France here)
That's is precisely my point.