• Recant@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    That’s true but couldn’t that also be said for the rare earth metals used in batteries to power phones and EVs?

    No energy production is perfect. Just good to look at the pros and cons.

    • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      So we should back ourselves into a corner when we have alternatives, because we don’t have alternatives for everything?

    • Alto@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Clearly that only matters with nuclear and magically doesn’t happen in any other case

      • Arcturus@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        People also think that nuclear is some sort of magical thing that provides cheap unlimited energy on demand, when really it’s an expensive, lumbering option, that is slow to construct and difficult to maintain. There’s a reason why even China prefers renewables over nuclear, and they have reactors for military research.

          • Arcturus@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            I don’t have to tell China they’re finding it out themselves. Yes, China leads in deploying nuclear, for various reasons. Energy, research, military. But despite this, renewables represents by far the largest investment and growth. Though China’s nuclear energy ambitions seem large, don’t forget, it’s a huge country. It’s just a small piece of the pie, the pie being dominated by renewables.

            • zephyreks@programming.dev
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              1 year ago

              Ah yes… The classic primary source of an op ed from CU Boulder, which isn’t exactly known for having a great Asian Studies program.

              • Arcturus@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                And yet, it’s backed up by studies showing that nuclear is faster for decarbonisation, S&P Global’s estimates for the massive growth of renewables vs nuclear indicating China’s preferences. But really, this is all part of China’s infrastructure push. The funding is going to renewables, but China is keeping a foot in the door for nuclear. At best, nuclear would work, in a majority renewables grid if they cut about 25% off the cost.

                • zephyreks@programming.dev
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                  1 year ago

                  And this relates to China in particular, how? Chinese infrastructure is substantially cheaper than abroad because NIMBYs get fucked.

                  • Arcturus@kbin.social
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                    1 year ago

                    This relates to China because they’re literally by far have invested the heaviest in renewable energy. A good amount of their nuclear reactors are experimental and for research, some are looking at military applications for ships. Renewables growth in China far outstrips their nuclear efforts. As per what the original article I mentioned indicates. China isn’t serious about their nuclear plans, it’s a combined research, military, national pride thing. Unlike their renewables investments, which you can see outstrips nuclear today, and in the future from sources given, backed by scientific papers also given.

        • Alto@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          It’s almost as if that’s why the gold standard is a nuclear baseline with renewable to meet demand spikes.

          • notapantsday@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            That’s not how renewables work. They don’t produce electricity on demand (at least not solar and wind), their energy output is dependent on the weather. If there’s no wind and no sun, they won’t cover any demand spikes. Which is why baseload power like nuclear is pretty much useless in combination with renewables.

            What is actually needed is flexible power that can be quickly adapted to the varying output from solar and wind. This is currently mostly done with natural gas, which we’re trying to get away from. In the future, biomass, water and storage will cover that part, while demand response strategies will help reduce demand peaks during times of low energy production.

            • Arcturus@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              If there is no wind or sun, we’re facing a global apocalypse. There’s always wind or sun. You just need to capture it. Nuclear is not on demand either, most plants aren’t designed to be. Nuclear is designed to be baseload energy, which, for decades, has fallen out of favour in lieu of more flexible doctrines. Octopus Energy is doing quite a bit of work with AI and energy demand, using incentives to control public energy consumption, which reduces the backup you would need for renewables. Also, that study I referenced, presumes about a 25% decrease in cost of nuclear. Again, best case scenario for nuclear.

              • Sodis@feddit.de
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                1 year ago

                You could actually use nuclear for stabilizing the grid. The reason no one does so is that you need to run nuclear power plants at reduced power, rendering them even less economical.

              • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                If there is no wind or sun, we’re facing a global apocalypse.

                No, we’re facing nighttime. That happens literally every day.

              • notapantsday@feddit.de
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                1 year ago

                Growing plants just to use them for energy production is absolutely stupid and incredibly harmful, agreed. But there are types of biomass that are basically waste from food production or forestry. It’s not a ton of energy, but it may play a part somewhere.

                • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
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                  1 year ago

                  Two problems with that:

                  1. Niche energy production methods don’t benefit from economies of scale, and may be cost-ineffective.
                  2. “Drill, baby, drill” thinking led us to this point with fossil fuels; it can be similarly disastrous with biomass. The availability of profitable biomass energy will likely tempt the rich to overuse it, resulting in an artificial global famine.
            • Alto@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Man, the existence of batteries is going to blow your mind

              Edit: Just realized I think you missed the main point. You want a (functionally) 100% reliable baseline to meet your energy needs. That’s why you don’t use renewables, at the moment anyway. You want as much renewable as possible on top of that.

              • notapantsday@feddit.de
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                1 year ago

                First of all, nuclear is anything but reliable. Germany had to supply huge amounts of electricity to France last year because half of their nuclear plants had to be shut down. They would have had major blackouts without support from their European neighbors.

                But my main point is that baseload power does not mix with renewable sources at all. Using batteries and other solutions to store renewable energy during times of little wind or sunlight is actually the goal. But that also eliminates the need for baseload.

                Baseload was never really a feature anyway, it was a necessity. Nuclear and certain types of coal power plants were unable to follow demand, they had to be run at close to full load all the time, either for technical or for economic reasons. To compensate for that, other more expensive plants had to be used to cover times of higher demand.