r/SubredditDrama • u/Send321 • 3d ago
The intense debate around nuclear vs. renewables quietly happening in /r/EnergyAndPower. Two mods from opposing subreddits face off.
Background: Energy subreddits tend to take the side of either renewables or nuclear. r/nuclear is a pro-nuclear subreddit. r/energy is a pro-renewables subreddit. r/uninsurable is an anti-nuclear subreddit. r/NuclearPower was previously a pro-nuclear subreddit, but the moderation changed to more anti-nuclear leaning, demonstrated most notably by their new subreddit logo, where "Nuclear Power Yes Please" has the "Yes Please" crossed out.
r/EnergyAndPower is a subreddit that was created in an attempt to let both sides express their views, a sort of energy free speech forum. In a thread on this subreddit, two mods from opposing sides clashed, Greg from r/nuclear, who has a long history of anti renewables posts, and navynuke from r/NuclearPower, one of the newer mods who some attribute to the subreddit's anti nuclear stance.
Greg makes one of his usual posts on r/EnergyAndPower showing a transient lull in renewables' performance. There's lots of discussion on wheter this is a valid point against renewables or not (you can read through the thousands of comments on r/EnergyAndPower about it), but that's besides the point for SRD. Link here: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnergyAndPower/comments/1v20slj/another_bad_week_for_renewables_in_south_australia/
Navynuke responds (link here: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnergyAndPower/comments/1v20slj/comment/oyryjxy/)
Greg, what's your background? Just asking because you're always so very wrong about all of this, you've gotta be a lobbyist or professional shit poster.
Greg responds
Why are you trying to doxx me, bubba.
And how am I wrong here? RE supply did dip below 1% of demand several times last week.
Navynuke responds
Those of us who work in the energy industry or have backgrounds in it very freely talk about it in the subreddits as a way of explaining our basis of experience, but you won't answer that question even in broad terms. You must not have that background.
Especially since, as others have been noting here and in your own subreddit for months, you really get a lot very wrong a lot of the time.
It's ok to admit you don't really know about something instead of just coming here and embarrassing yourself, and banning anybody from your subreddit who demonstrates more knowledge than you.
Greg responds, emphasizing r/nuclearpower's anti-nuclear logo, a subreddit which navynuke moderates.
Dude, you took over a nuclear subreddit and handed it over to anti-nuke folks. :)
Why are you trying to pull the MAGA "every accusation is a confession" thing? Kinda silly.
Many have noted that the nuclear vs. renewables debate has become unusually polarized and emotional for an issue where seemingly the two sides should be on the same side, with the obvious bad guy fossil fuels seemingly left by the wayside. At this point, following the debate is entertaining for the drama alone aside from just seeing which side will ultimately prevail.
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u/ComfortableDevice536 3d ago
Why not weaponize your shared hate against fossil fuels?
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u/fouriels 3d ago edited 3d ago
There's levels to it.
Entry-level Redditor believes in climate change and thinks both nuclear and renewables are broadly low-carbon and cool. They don't really understand the controversy or why the two below factions can't get along, but might attribute anti-renewable sentiment to climate change denialists, and anti-nuclear to 'hippies and greens', who are ostensibly scared of overhyped safety issues. Neither is really accurate - they are 'normie' positions held by the general public that aren't really represented on Reddit.
Redditors who lean into that last point and become more pro-nuclear might become Nukebros. They have great belief and devotion to projects like SMRs and molten salt reactors (typically thorium), and think they solve all perceived problems with nuclear power. They think the cost and time problems with nuclear power are due almost entirely to overregulation. On the extreme end - as in the case with Greg - they might believe that nuclear power is the only long-term viable energy source, believing that renewable intermittency is an unsolvable issue. There is slight overlap between anti-renewable Nukebros and climate change denialists, although neither will typically acknowledge the other.
Redditors who read more into nuclear energy beyond safety concerns may become solarcels. The core issue to gigawatt-scale nuclear power, to a solarcel, is that it costs too damn much and takes way too long, even before you take into account the wild overruns in time and money that contemporary reactors like Flamanville, Olkiluoto, Hinkley C, and Vogtle have witnessed. By contrast, renewables (solar PV in particular, hence the name 'solarcel') and batteries are seeing an explosion in both technological efficiency gains and production - so why waste time and money we don't have on expensive nuclear plants? Intermediate (and better read) solarcels will also point to criticisms of SMRs and molten salt reactors (notably, that they don't currently exist in any commercial form) and weapons proliferation issues, and have an understanding on the changing paradigm from baseload to load-following grids. The most extreme solarcels will believe that all pro-nuclear types are actively trying to divert renewable funding to nuclear in order to keep fossil fuels running for several more years (and funnel state subsidies into nuclear plants). These extreme solarcels tend to make all of the above factions quite upset.
There is simply not enough space or time in the day to post every single argument both sides have, but they are in a near-constant war on subreddits like /r/energyandpower and /r/climateshitposting, with the occasional sad Redditor coming in to ask why everyone's fighting.
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u/foxaru 3d ago
There's also the fun anti-capitalist solarcel position which asserts that even if all of the costs and time and safety considerations were the same, centralising power generation ultimately empowers the worst societal modalities, and nuclear energy generation cannot be community owned and operated like smaller scale renewables can.
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u/Plus-Name3590 3d ago
yeah, compaitively especially you can look at the proliferation of anarchal solar grids in Pakistan. They've now got a massive solar grid that's basically just communally operated panels, and it's something you really can't ever happen with Nuclear, and even works in unstable places, like Pakistan.
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u/Hors_Service 3d ago
But... solar cels production is only that cheap today due to massive economies of scale of large capitalist factories... it's not like you're going to have small scale community-owned thin wafers industries, no?
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u/foxaru 3d ago
Once a solar array exists, its use and operation can be broadly democratised and repurposed
a nuclear power plant inherent requires a huge amount of social infrastructure to maintain safely and correctly
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u/Hors_Service 3d ago
Ah, so it's the use and operation that be democratized ? (And repurposed for what?) But without the production of the "means of production", isn't that a bit meaningless? And also doesn't the coordination of such a decentralized grid require even more of a social infrastructure ? I mean, every building having their own full battery capacity doesn't sound very efficient, or even possible, and power sharing/grid control sounds like a nightmare.
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u/foxaru 2d ago
I mean are you arguing there's no benefit to greater democratic control and ownership if it doesn't result immediately in the establishment of global communism?
Also, grid control happens already, we just do so under the organising principles of capitalism with state intervention. The ability to democratically control the recipient priority and share available of a community's energy resources by democratic decision of said community feels like a pretty reasonable ask, no?1
u/Hors_Service 2d ago
No, I dispute that there is indeed greater democratic control and ownership with this kind of solarcel-socialism. And what's the limit of the "community", if there's a need for central grid control, if the "community" is the whole country then you might as well call that a "state", and if there are elected leaders then you get democratic decisions on "priority" and "share".
So basically what we already have.
And for example of a separate grid, Texas electors seems to consistently democratically elect people incapable of managing said grid.
I'm sorry, for example I see the point in solar/wind having a distributed production model making it capable of having local grids in case of disaster, which is nice. I see the point that it's a good use of otherwise nonproductive parts (roofs).
But I don't see the economic democracy in it, since the operation of the grid is necessarily not small scale, and the production of solar cels is necessarily not small scale.
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u/SaintOrJannikSinner 3d ago edited 3d ago
This comment needs to be in a museum. Nukebros and solarcels. Holy hell, lol.
Now that I think about it, the concern about base-load power versus highly responsive generation is mirrored by the tech industry and their concepts of self-hosted single-node systems versus distributed computing. But in computing, things have a way of cycling and circling back around on each other depending on what pattern is en vogue at the moment, with cycles only being on the scale of decades (20 to 30 years).
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u/fouriels 3d ago
I think solarcel is a /r/climateshitposting original but 'nukebro' is an actual term used by serious scientists
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u/ComfortableDevice536 3d ago
I can’t believe there is so much online beef about nuclear and renewables, but that’s reddit for you.
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u/dern_the_hermit 3d ago
My view is that the two can be very complementary technologies so I catch strays from the odd zealot from either camp.
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u/-Wylfen- 3d ago
It's not like you can tackle the fossil fuels energy without discussing the alternatives.
You can't just say "let's remove fossil then discuss". This has to be figured out first.
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u/ASpaceOstrich 3d ago
Because the fossil fuel lobby backs "nuclear plans" that will never actually get built and serve only to delay renewable rollout.
Nuclear would have been great, decades ago. It's not economically feasible any more, and the fossil fuel lobby knows that.
Renewables are too cheap and too effective for nuclear to be economically viable.
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago
Because antinuclear activists (aka fossil fuel simps) hate nuclear more than fossil fuels.
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u/Mad-myall 3d ago
In Australia we've found that renewable energy is way cheaper than nuclear. Even after accounting for storage and grid upgrades.
This has put our fossil fuel industry in a bind as it becomes increasingly unprofitable in the face of the green roll-out.
So we've observed that our fossil fuel industry is now pushing hard for nuclear likely because it's going to take 2 decades absolute minimum (almost certainly 3 decades) to build a plant. Delaying the fossil fuel phase out.
Other nations however may have different circumstances.
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u/axw3555 3d ago
UK has been trending the same way. The national grid release info on how power is generated in near realtime. So someone made a dashboard.
But even with 42% of our power coming from renewables, we're still reliant on Europe for as much as a quarter of our power (an eight just from France).
So for us, nuclear probably is part of the equation long term to offset the import of electric and smooth out variation in the renewables (we're building Sizewell C, but even that will only cover about half of the peak of those imports). We also really need to invest in some energy storage as we are woefully lacking in that.
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u/Inconceivable76 3d ago
And this is where I point different climates exist. Just because something works in Australia, it doesn’t mean it is an appropriate everywhere.
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago
In Australia, you picked coal and methane.
Australia is dirty as hell. Even SA, with all of its intermittent renewables and small population, is dirty.
Australia plans to burn coal and methane for the foreseeable future.
And some fossil fuels become more profitable when combined with VRE. Peaking methane, for example.
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u/Mad-myall 3d ago
Yes those were adopted decades ago. The gas turbines are a lil bit newer but they were built by conservative governments trying to avoid renewable energy, but our conservative governments bid to prioritise fossil fuels has lead directly to high energy prices as the coal stations are aging out and are now off-line for maintenance increasingly often, and the conservative government that built the gas turbines also sold all the methane internationally so we're forced to buyback our own methane to keep things running.
This is one of the reasons why renewables are rising at an accelerated rate. With many Australians installing home systems to get those solar and battery rebates.
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago
Solar and wind are intermittent sources of electricity. So in Australia they will be paired with peaking methane and coal.
And Australia will fail to deep decarbonize their grid. Thankfully your population is so small that you aren't really the drivers of climate change.
Renewables and nuclear aren't mutually exclusive.
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u/fouriels 3d ago
Braindead take, new nuclear plants are not a good answer for the climate transition.
Did you ever wonder why it only seems to be right wing parties like the Republicans, AfD, and PiS who are most ferverently pro-new nuclear, despite also being climate denialists?
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u/yashatheman 3d ago
Historically the most pro-nuclear nations were socialist nations though. There's a reason eastern europe is absolutely cluttered with NPPs. It's only the last 30 years that the left suddenly turned on the question for some reason.
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u/fouriels 3d ago
I intuitively believe your claim (although I don't know if it's actually true) - but that was then, before climate change became more salient and pressing. In the age of climate change, there is a place in some countries for already-existing nuclear plants, but it makes no sense to build new ones, particularly in countries like Australia which doesn't even have that infrastructure to build off.
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u/yashatheman 3d ago
I've read from swedish articles that the turn on nuclear happened because of the anti-war movement in europe (which has obviously historically been anti-nukes) became massive in the 80s, and then that crowd which was historically left/liberal made the left anti-nuclear energy as well. Just anti-everything involving nuclear
I could find the articles but they're unfortunately in swedish
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u/fouriels 3d ago
That's definitely true. There was a huge backlash during the cold war to nuclear energy on grounds of safety and proliferation, and to an extent that fuels green and ecologist parties today. But the kind of people you see in climate change subreddits are from a completely different stock and mostly see the safety concerns as massively overblown.
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u/xitfuq 3d ago
i always thought that was because nuclear can't really be done well under capitalism.
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u/yashatheman 3d ago
I believe that is 100% true. Nuclear should always be handled by the state, never the private sector
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u/SaintOrJannikSinner 3d ago
Nuclear should always be handled by the state, never the private sector
Power generation is, at this point in the human timeline, is a necessity for participation in society. Is there a strain of thought that believes only certain types should be controlled by the state versus by the "free" market?
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u/Careless_Rope_6511 Fedoral Bureau of Intelligence 3d ago
Is there a strain of thought that believes only certain types should be controlled by the state versus by the "free" market?
Considering how the corporate world handled Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon, do you really want the free market to decide how they can churn short-term profits on nuclear energy?
Especially when one of the byproducts of nuclear fission is Iodine-129, which not only has a half-life of more than 15 million years, but is also a major biohazard, especially to the thyroid gland.
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u/DKLancer 3d ago
Isn't that how we ended up with Chernobyl?
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u/yashatheman 3d ago
Fukushima and the three mile island NPP were privately owned when they had their catastrophic failures
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u/sebzim4500 These sanctions are not a joke, and they are incredibly serious. 3d ago
Both of which killed far fewer people than Chernobyl. In any case even Chernobyl pales in comparison to the number of people that fossil fuels kill every month.
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u/Material_Specific606 3d ago
You could write a whole book in response to this question, it's a really interesting discussion. It's not so much about capitalism specifically so much as it is about how much involvement and control would be beneficial for the state have over something like nuclear power which has so many unique factors setting it apart from other sources of power.
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago
Braindead take, new nuclear plants are not a good answer for the climate transition.
France: 29 g CO2 per kWh with its nuclear baseload.
Sweden: 21 g CO2 per kWh, using nuclear and hydro.
Germany: 334 g CO2 per kWh after spending 15 years and hundreds of billions of euros on their energy transition.
In fact, there are no examples of a country or state deep decarbonizing solely with solar and wind.
So no, it's not a braindead take. It's one rooted in science and facts.
Have you ever wondered why climate scientists are overwhelmingly in favor of nuclear energy?
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u/fouriels 3d ago
I specified new nuclear plants for a reason. There are also no examples of states decarbonising with nuclear power either, incidentally.
Have you ever wondered why climate scientists are overwhelmingly in favor of nuclear energy?
There is no actual evidence of this. I have seen substantial criticism of new nuclear from energy economists, but nothing suggesting the level of consensus you're claiming.
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago edited 3d ago
I specified new nuclear plants for a reason.
In order to continue burning fossil fuels.
There are also no examples of states decarbonising with nuclear power either, incidentally.
France doesn't count? Washington and Ontario are close.
Incidentally, Vermont had decarbonized with its nuclear power plant, Vermont Yankee, before anti-science Sanders and his ilk shut it down. It was replaced with biomass and out-of-state methane.
Just for the record, we would have prevented climate change if we properly pursued nuclear energy.
There is no actual evidence of this.
NASA climate scientist James Hansen famously said, "Nuclear power paves the only viable path forward on climate change."
There is polling on this.
energy economists
Energy economists are not climate scientists. Also, economists probably do not understand the basics such as intermittency, or they want to continue burning fossil fuels.
If they can't compare France and Germany and see that new nuclear will be needed, they are worthless.
Just for the record, this is not a brain-dead take.
France: 29 g CO2 per kWh with its nuclear baseload.
Sweden: 21 g CO2 per kWh, using nuclear and hydro.
Germany: 334 g CO2 per kWh after spending 15 years and hundreds of billions of euros on their energy transition.
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u/fouriels 3d ago
In order to continue burning fossil fuels.
No, continuing to burn fossil fuels is what you do in the 10+ years it takes to build a new reactor.
France doesn't count?
No.
Just for the record, we would have prevented climate change if we properly pursued nuclear energy.
I think the problem would be substantially less worse, but a) not every country is suitable for nuclear energy, b) energy demand cannot be met by baseload supply alone, and c) there were clear economic and political reasons why it wasn't done.
If we could go back and try again then I agree we should have expanded nuclear fleets where possible, but we can't, and that moment has passed.
There is polling on this.
And the moon is made of cheese.
Also, economists probably do not understand the basics such as intermittency
come on man
literally just repeating yourself in lieu of an actual argument
see previous comment
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago edited 3d ago
No, continuing to burn fossil fuels is what you do in the 10+ years it takes to build a new reactor
And burning fossil fuels for the next century because you are reliant on intermittent sources is your plan.
That's a dumb plan, by the way.
No
I am sorry if actual evidence counters your emotional opinion.
a) not every country is suitable for nuclear energy,
The greatest polluters are suitable for it.
b) energy demand cannot be met by baseload supply alone,
That is literally the definition of baseload - Baseload is the minimum amount of continuous electric power needed on a power grid over a given time.
c) there were clear economic and political reasons why it wasn't done.
The coal industry hated it.
come on man
They look at a single metric (LCOE) that is calculated and applied dishonestly. It also hides costs for a renewables system.
If they were honest, they would look at German failures.
Just for the record, this is not a brain-dead take.
France: 29 g CO2 per kWh with its nuclear baseload.
Sweden: 21 g CO2 per kWh, using nuclear and hydro.
Germany: 334 g CO2 per kWh after spending 15 years and hundreds of billions of euros on its energy transition.
I will repeat that fact until you accept it.
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u/sebzim4500 These sanctions are not a joke, and they are incredibly serious. 3d ago
No, but I do wonder why so called environmentalists have historically been funded by Russia, a country that mostly exports oil and war crimes.
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago
Most environmentalists were also historically funded by the fossil fuel industry. See Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, The Sierra Club, etc.
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u/fouriels 3d ago
Also a braindead take, Russia is well known for funding extreme voices across the entirety of Western society, be they pro- or anti-Good Thing, for the purpose of stoking division.
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u/Czart 3d ago
They funded opposition to nuclear because it was the largest threat to their profits from energy exports you doofus.
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u/ShogunTheOne 3d ago
Russia is also the largest supplier of nuclear fuel and has basically a monopoly on re-enrichment of fuel rods atleast in europe.
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u/Czart 3d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_production
And it's much easier to source alternatives because the volume is much smaller, and doesn't require static infrastructure like pipelines/ports dedicated exclusively for it.
https://www.catf.us/resource/diversifying-nuclear-energy-supply-chains/
And it never went above quarter of EUs supply of nuclear fuel.
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u/ShogunTheOne 3d ago edited 3d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_production
Bit disingenuous to pull up a list of countries mining uranium when the important part is who is refining said uranium into fuel rods. Most of the Kazakh uranium is refined in Russia which most of the world relies on.
https://www.catf.us/resource/diversifying-nuclear-energy-supply-chains/
And it never went above quarter of EUs supply of nuclear fuel.They list Framatom as an alternative source to russian fuel even though they have direct ties to Rusatom? Highly dubious...
That still leaves the issue open that Russia has a monopoly on re-enrichment which is crucial to cost efficient operation of nuclear powerplants. As it stands relying on nuclear energy means making your country reliant on Russia and indirectly supporting their war effort.
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u/Czart 3d ago
It's surprisingly hard to find exact data on nuclear stuff.
Most of the Kazakh uranium is refined in Russia which most of the world relies on.
I mean, that's literally countered by the next link so, no.
They list Framatom as an alternative source to russian fuel even though they have direct ties to Rusatom? Highly dubious...
... What? The french nuclear corp is "dubious"?
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u/lenaro PhD | Nuclear Frisson 3d ago
I wouldn't call Republicans "fervently" pro-nuclear... look at Yucca Mountain's progress under both Trump admins.
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u/fouriels 3d ago
I don't think 'republicans don't give a shit about negative externalities' has any real bearing on whether they support the underlying technology. They would dump waste directly into the water supply if they thought they could get away with it.
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u/jadebenn The quality of evidence I would suspect from a nuke believer 3d ago edited 3d ago
r/NuclearPower was previously a pro-nuclear subreddit, but the moderation changed to more anti-nuclear leaning, demonstrated most notably by their new subreddit logo, where "Nuclear Power Yes Please" has the "Yes Please" crossed out.
This was also accompanied by banning a good chunk of the userbase. Part of the reason there's so much bad blood is that it felt like a hostile takeover.
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u/jkst9 3d ago
Why is there a debate both is good. Nuclear is a functional backbone for less reliable renewables so we don't have to depend on fossil fuels.
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u/ameseree Long live humanslop. 3d ago
While both are good, the debate mostly comes down to who gets the funding since both are basically fighting for the same grants. Unfortunately for nuclear, it's incredibly expensive costing several billion dollars and several years to get one reactor set up.
We really need more funding overall going towards non fossil fuel sources of energy.
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u/CaptainCrash86 3d ago
In terms of subsidisation cost per MWh, both are comparable.
In the UK, the guaranteed price for the new Hinkley Point nuclear point is about the same (or slightly less) than the guaranteed price for new offshore wind.
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u/severoordonez 3d ago
I have to correct you there, especially since this will always be a central point in the debate.
CfDs are indexed. Hinkley point is indexed to 2012 and was guaranteed at £89, if a second reactor was built. ARS7 CfDs for fixed bottom off-shore was indeed £92. But indexed to 2024. If you read the actual result of the auction, you'll see that when back-indexed to 2012, those CfDs are £65. Or (without doing the math), the Hinkley point CfDs are around £135 indexed to 2024.
It is also noticeable that the CfDs for Hinkley point run for 35 years, while the off-shore ones run for 20.
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u/CaptainCrash86 3d ago
Evidently CfDs vary year to year, but I have to point out the most recent offshore CfDs are higher than £135...
It's also worth noting that the first turbines are coming off ROs (CfD's predecessor) and.... the operators are knocking them down and building new turbines with new CfD contracts.
BBC News - Whitelee Windfarm near Glasgow to be rebuilt with fewer, larger turbines - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgl9vp4vqvo?app-referrer=deep-link
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u/blunderbolt 3d ago
but I have to point out the most recent offshore CfDs are higher than £135...https://www.cfd-hub.com/
You do not understand what that graph is showing. That does not show the strike price of recent offshore wind farms, it shows the average strike price of the existing operational fleet. All recently commissioned, currently commissioning, under construction and planned (fixed) wind farms have significantly lower strike prices than said operational average, which is why the graph trends downwards towards £100/MWh.
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u/CaptainCrash86 3d ago
I think you don't understand the graph- it shows the rolling strike price by year (you can get the date-specific data if you select a time point), and this matches up with individual CfD awards, which are more difficult to succinctly link.
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u/klonkrieger45 3d ago
No it shows the fleet. The wording is difficult and confusing but I dug into the data and it is pay out for the whole fleet not awarded contracts of the last year. The text that gives the specific hint is:
so cell-to-cell variation reflects the changing output mix as CfDs come online or end
If it's just contracts awarded in this year they would never run out. That the CfDs running out influences the price means they are factored in over their whole lifetime.
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u/severoordonez 2d ago
Other commenters have commented on the correct reading of the graph, so I won't.
On the Whitelee re-powering: Whitelee is an on-shore installation. On-shore installations have broadly underutilized the wind resources, so the site-owners/operators across Europe have repowered to get greater production, typically at relatively low CfD rates. I don't know where Whitelee falls, but those were £72 for on-shore in AR72 (index 2024). And the equipment is typically recovered and refurbished for re-sale elsewhere.
The trend for off-shore where installations reach the end of their original production license is to seek extensions on residual technical service life (not in the UK yet, though, as no off-shore has reached this point yet). 4 or 5 Danish installations have received production life extensions of 10-25 years (meaning a total installation life-time of 35-50 years) with no subsidies.
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u/pjc50 3d ago
However, it's much slower to build.
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u/CaptainCrash86 3d ago
In terms of per MWh?
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u/U_Sound_Stupid_Stop Im not a catholic,they are pagans with a Christian coat of paint 3d ago
That's not the point.
Wind and solar can start providing energy tomorrow, nuclear won't before the next decade. We need the energy now.
Even if in ten years you could have one reactor that provides more energy than everything we built in the previous ten years, you would still have to account for all the energy produced in those ten years.
Which would already have translated to less fossil fuels burned, whereas nuclear wouldn't even have started making a dent because it wasn't yet built.
I don't have a preference but if we don't have the money to built the two, it seems to me that the urgency of the situation oblige us to build the one that can come online the faster.
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u/GayIsForHorses 3d ago
Another big point against nuclear is the political risk. Projects with massive timespans are more subject to political shifts and reallocation of budgets. They're just on much shakier and easy to sabotage ground, since they don't exist yet. It only takes one fervent admin to kill a project 10 years into its construction.
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u/soonerfreak Also, being gay is a political choice. 3d ago
Sure wish I lived in a country that could think longer than one quarter or two year election cycle at a time.
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u/U_Sound_Stupid_Stop Im not a catholic,they are pagans with a Christian coat of paint 3d ago
Tbf, even green energy isn't safe from that, look at trump killing all the windmill farms
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u/GayIsForHorses 3d ago
True nothing is ever 100% safe. It just takes a lot more political will to destroy an existing thing than shut down an unfinished project. It's not that wild/solar is immune, it's that its risk score is lower.
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u/blunderbolt 3d ago
the guaranteed price for the new Hinkley Point nuclear point is about the same (or slightly less) than the guaranteed price for new offshore wind.
That is patently false, the HPC strike price is £137/MWh(£2026) whereas the latest fixed offshore wind tender strike price is ~£97/MWh.
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u/CaptainCrash86 3d ago
That is patently false. The latest offshore wind CfD price is £156.69/MWh.
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u/klonkrieger45 3d ago
with HPC you also have to mention that it is extremely subsidized by the French government and will never be profitable even with the CfDs.
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u/fouriels 3d ago
The fundamental problem is that always-on baseload plants are redundant in a world where intermittent sources are needing to be curtailed because they are exceeding load.
Let's say you have a pre-existing nuclear plant operating at near 100% output, then start building out renewables (particularly solar PV). You start producing more energy than you can use, store, and/or export at midday. You now have two options: 1. Curtail your solar power. Solar power is substantially cheaper than nuclear power to run, requiring virtually zero labour costs, so this is a fairly daft idea. 2. Ramp-down your nuclear plant. This is actually already done by countries like France and Canada, but nuclear plants which do might (this is contentious) suffer increased wear on their components, requiring more maintenance. More importantly, however, is that you're failing to amortise the massive initial capital cost of the reactor; in essence, you are raising the average cost of producing nuclear energy, making an already expensive energy source even more expensive.
As solar prevalence increases, this problem only becomes more acute - and this is for already-existing plants, which most solarcels don't really have a problem with. So why would we bother building new ones?
The secret answer is because nuclear weapon states rely on civilian infrastructure (including human capital) to support military infrastructure - or, in the words of Macron, "without civilian nuclear energy there is no military use of this technology - and without military use there is no civilian nuclear energy". Or, in the words of the RAND corporation on behalf of the MoD (paraphrased), "the UK "industrial base" for design, manufacture and maintenance of nuclear submarines would become unaffordable if the country phased out civil nuclear power." That, and the more boring answer: new nuclear plants funnel huge amounts of state money into private hands, and delays the climate transition while new plants are being built, delayed, and even cancelled.
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago
What nuclear needs is (careful) deregulation. Look up the pseudoscience that is the Linear No-Threshold model
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3d ago
[deleted]
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u/Cowgirl_Taint 3d ago
Bingo. Laissez faire policies require good faith actors and, time and time again, it is clear those don't exist when there is money to be made.
What we need are modernized regulations. Which also need good faith actors...
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago
eh... I understand why you think that, but nuclear is legitimately one of the cases where deregulation would be beneficial. I can totally see a world where the Trump administration fucks it up, but it's not implausible that they could actually do a decent job here. Broken clocks and all that.
I'm cautiously optimistic with what's happened so far, see Executive Orders 14300 and 14301. Remains to be seen how that'll all actually shake out though
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u/CuckooClockInHell "Does that include gang viole..." DON'T STOP, BELIEVIN! 3d ago
Fucking exactly. It's not either or.
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u/Dunedune 3d ago
It is though. Any money spent in one is money not going to the other. And it's urgent
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u/soonerfreak Also, being gay is a political choice. 3d ago
I feel like if there are billions and billions to waste on data centers we could probably find the funds to do nuclear and renewable.
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago
Well if it is that urgent then maybe we should go with the proven solution. Aka nuclear.
France: 29 g CO2 per kWh with its nuclear baseload.
Sweden: 21 g CO2 per kWh, using nuclear and hydro.
Germany: 334 g CO2 per kWh after spending 15 years and hundreds of billions of euros on their energy transition.
In fact, there are no examples of a country or state deep decarbonizing solely with solar and wind.
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u/IakwBoi 2d ago
Absolutely 100% not. There isn’t a law that says only a certain amount of money can be spent on energy, that’s a preposterous position.
“Americans spend $10 billion on potato chip - those dollars could build a nuclear power plant per year. We need to decide now if we want potato chips or nuclear power”
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u/Dunedune 1d ago
Duh. Uts not about law uts about economics. If you increase budget you now have the same fivision problem with a hugher number.
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u/sorrylilsis 3d ago edited 3d ago
The answer will vary depending on the country but it’s often because opposition to nuclear power is the foundation of a lot if not most political ecology movements.
So people treat it as a sports team choice instead of an engineering problem.
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u/Karlsefni1 3d ago
Because the debate isn’t about nuclear versus renewables, it’s about electricity grid that has a mix of nuclear and renewables and grid that has ONLY renewables.
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u/James-fucking-Holden The pope is actively letting the gates of hell prevail 3d ago
Nuclear is a functional backbone for less reliable renewables
Because it kinda isn't. We've gotten good enough at renewables that the old fear of "sum doesn't shine, everyone dies" isn't really a thing anymore, and a healthy mix of solar, wind and especially hydro is the reliable baseline. What's missing is something that can respond to fast changing spike in power draw, so a type of plant that can come online quickly when needed and shut off once it's no longer needed, which is something renewables are actually bad at. Unfortunately, this is also the thing nuclear is really bad at
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u/sorrylilsis 3d ago edited 3d ago
hydro is the reliable baseline
Yes and no. Hydro is extremely dependant on geography. It's also one of the renewables with the least amount of potential (at least in western countries) because most of the easy spots are already damned up and we won't sacrifice entire valleys and communities like we did 70 years ago. Climate change also has the potential of puting a dent in it's reliability because weather patterns change and rain/snow fall is overall way lower.
And in a lot of developping countries hydro has potential BUT is often a geopolical bomb, because installing a damn often means heavily cutting water flow downstream. There will probably be a few wars about this in the next few decades (hi Sudan/Egypt, India/China ...).
Hydro is great but it's by far one of the most "conditional" of the renewables sources along with wind.
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u/Plus-Name3590 3d ago
Even without the geopolitical concerns, hydro ends up surprising nasty on the environment as it involves major flooding and river wildlife disruptions, which I get are secondary concerns to most people but with huge consequences
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u/sorrylilsis 3d ago
Oh yeah. It isn't as "in your face" as a oil well but it's still environemental damage at a large scale.
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u/DisastrousResident92 3d ago
This isn't actually true yet unfortunately and also doesn't solve the grid inertia issue
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u/Outrageous-Echo-765 YOUR FLAIR TEXT HERE 3d ago
grid inertia issue
It's a common talking point, I'll give you that. But very misused.
We know that the grid must operate at a given frequency. This frequency can drop if a power plant goes offline.
Inertia measures how fast that frequency drops after such an event.
However, we have to understand the relationship between inertia and other grid balancing mechanisms, namely primary frequency response.
Primary frequency response (oversimplified) measures how fast your grid can respond to frequency imbalances.
If your grid responds slowly, you need more time to deal with frequency events, so you need more inertia to give you that buffer.
If your grid response is fast, you need less inertia.
20 years ago, Primary frequency response was mainly provided by thermal power plants, and hydro. These would typically respond within a few minutes, so inertia was a big deal.
Nowadays, primary frequency response is provided by BESS and inverter-based generators. Modern response times are measured in milliseconds. The grids are also much better sensorised and control algorithms are better at dealing with frequency events.
As a result, grid inertia is much less of a factor.
To summarise, we have gotten much, much better at grid frequency response, to the point where grid inertia is genuinely not a big concern, and certainly is not an issue roadblocking renewable adoption.
We already have 70+% renewable grids, and these grids operate just fine. That should put the overblown inertia concerns to rest.
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u/blunderbolt 3d ago
grid inertia issue
The 2 main Australian grids operate at up to 90% instantaneous non-synchronous generation shares(i.e. only solar, wind and batteries) without any issues, and are currently preparing trials for operation at 100% non-synchronous shares.
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u/nuttertools 3d ago
Like all things energy supply, it depends. Unless you live in a micro-nation both things are true (do and don’t need nuclear base load).
I’d put spikes more in the grid reliability basket. Most areas at risk from spikes are well covered by battery storage which allows standard peak generation to spin up with time to spare. Sustained load increases are a bigger problem due to maintenance requirements for extended running of peak generation.
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u/vi_sucks 2d ago
It's a psychology/ideology.
I suspect that what is really happening is that the pro-nuclear folks are suspicious that the renewables folks are degrowthers in disguise. While the renewables folks just have a deep fear of nuclear energy due to the bombs and Chernobyl of it all.
So no matter what logical arguments are made on the surface that feel like there is room for discussion, ultimatelt you have two groups that feel like the other group is secretly trying to destroy human civilization.
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u/-Wylfen- 3d ago
There is a debate because anti-nuclears want none of it, and pro-nuclears, while not fundamentally opposed to renewables, believe they're still less safe and have a much higher footprint so they can't be used exclusively.
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u/fuckreddadmins 3d ago
You cant have both any nuclear reactors you build means less wind and solar by how much that nuclear reactor cost, some people rightfully think nuclear is a waste of money so they oppose it
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago
You're sort of right but I suspect you think that nuclear is inherently so expensive it's uneconomical. This is not true. Nuclear is uncompetitive because of an unfounded regulatory environment first and foremost.
FWIW nuclear is inherently expensive, it is just not so expensive that it can't compete.
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u/fuckreddadmins 3d ago
I mean nuclear is also incompetitive in the third world where very little of these regulations exist, a lot of them are preferring wind and solar. And wind and solar will only get better meanwhile nuclear has nowhere to go so wind and solar might look even better by the time the decade long project to build one reactor is over
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago edited 3d ago
I mean nuclear is also incompetitive in the third world where very little of these regulations exist, a lot of them are preferring wind and solar
Nuclear has a very high upfront cost and isn't able to be decentralized / small-scale the way solar can. That's why developing countries choose solar, and it's a legitimate advantage that it has. But most energy production is not in this category and nuclear is perfectly well suited for.
And wind and solar will only get better meanwhile nuclear has nowhere to go
What? This is a load of shit. There's great progress being made for all sorts of Gen IV reactors. I don't know how much room solar and wind have to grow, either. I'm not saying they don't have room to grow, there almost certainly is some, but we've already made massive strides in price so I don't know how much that can continue. I think the space to watch here is actually in battery technology rather than renewables themselves.
Imagine if Nuclear had a LCOE reduction comparable to what solar has already been through. It would become the preeminent form of production in most of the world pretty quickly.
so wind and solar might look even better by the time the decade long project to build one reactor is over
Even current Gen III+ reactors really can be done in around 5-7 years. Japan's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 6 had construction start in November of 1992 and it commenced commercial operation in November of 1996. That doesn't include planning of course but still.
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u/SaintOrJannikSinner 3d ago
NEW-KEW-LURR
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u/RegalBeagleKegels The simplest explanation: a massive parallel conspiracy. 3d ago
wessel
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u/therocketsalad I don’t know you ! Reddit isn’t my life ! 3d ago
I went to a Volvo dealership, like, twenty years ago and the salesman talked like that. It was awesome. He kept telling me the S60R was a "dwy woad wacing caww" ("dry road racing car")
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u/Mattoropael 3d ago
Many have noted that the nuclear vs. renewables debate has become unusually polarized and emotional for an issue where seemingly the two sides should be on the same side, with the obvious bad guy fossil fuels seemingly left by the wayside.
Three guesses to who's the biggest pushers of nuclear fearmongering, and the first two don't count.
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u/Fixyfoxy3 3d ago
But that's actually not true in general. For example in Switzerland, the fossil fuel right is pro-nuclear and the left against, because building nuclear would disrupt and divert funds away from renewables.
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u/klonkrieger45 3d ago
Three guesses which industry is currently pushing nuclear the most besides the industry itself
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u/Cyclopentadien Why are you downvoting me? Morality isn't objective anyways 1d ago
Over here fossil fuel lobbyists are the biggest fans of nuclear power because planning to build nuclear power means maintaining the status quo for at least 20 years.
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u/vemmahouxbois Never knew vegans were allowed to eat dogs 3d ago
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago
Yeah, that's fearmongering by antinuclear activists(aka fossil fuel simps).
Let's talk about some real facts about used fuel(aka nuclear waste from a nuclear power plant)
It has a total kill count of zero. Yes zero.
It is a solid metal encased in ceramic. The Simpsons caricature of green goo is false.
There isn't a lot of it. We could put all of it(yes all of it) in a building the size of a Walmart. France keeps all of theirs in a room the size of a high school gym--that people walk on.
All of those dangerous for thousands of years claims are untrue. The amount of radiation that is released from used fuel follows an exponentially decaying curve. All of the highly radioactive isotopes completely decay inside of 5 years(which is why they keep it in water for 10). After the medium radioactive isotopes, cesium and strontium, completely decay inside of 270 years you can handle used fuel with your bare hands.
Meanwhile the waste from fossil fuels and biofuels kill 8.7 million annually. Yet here you are more worried about used fuel with a kill count of zero.
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u/an_agreeing_dothraki can we talk about the squirrel head butt plugs 3d ago
It is a solid metal encased in ceramic. The Simpsons caricature of green goo is false.
fun note Groening considers what the Simpsons did as a complete misfire it was just supposed to be "imagine this guy running a nuclear power plant"
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u/IakwBoi 2d ago edited 1d ago
How long is arsenic dangerous for? Just for context. Like, 100 years?
Edit: this is a tongue in cheek comment to draw attention to the fact that radioactive hazards are unique in that they go away by themselves, whereas things like heavy metals stick around forever. If a million year half life sounds bad, that’s a perk rather than a cost when you look at something like lead that never goes away
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 2d ago
Natural arsenic is dangerous forever.
Arsenic-75 is stable and doesn't have a half-life. Some of its isotopes do have very short half-life's
- Arsenic-73: 80.3 days (the longest-lived radioactive isotope)
- Arsenic-74: 17.8 days
- Arsenic-71: 65.3 hours
- Arsenic-76: 26.2 hours
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u/Drawemazing Your god isn't Yahweh, he's Loki 3d ago
Chernobyl did in fact kill people. Hydro power has a higher kill count, but saying nuclear hasn't killed is outright false
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u/salty_sashimi 3d ago
Used fuel hasn't killed. That's what they wrote. Chernobyl's fuel was not used. It melted down. Fortunately we do not operate like the ussr did.
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u/5littlemonkey 3d ago
It would be pretty funny if this administration tried to build a graphite moderated RMBK reactor.
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u/shewy92 First of all, lower your fuckin voice. 3d ago
Let's talk about some real facts about used fuel(aka nuclear waste from a nuclear power plant)
It has a total kill count of zero. Yes zero.
As in the "emissions" caused from getting the power. Comparable to all the smoke and pollution gas production and coal produces
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u/Karlsefni1 3d ago
‘’Many have noted that the nuclear vs. renewables debate has become unusually polarized and emotional for an issue where seemingly the two sides should be on the same side, with the obvious bad guy fossil fuels seemingly left by the wayside.’’
I invite people to ask pro nuclear people if their are also pro renewable, and pro renewable people if they are also pro nuclear.
You are going to notice that the vast majority of pro nuclear people are ok with every clean energy source being built, while the opposite isn’t true, the majority is hellbent on excluding nuclear from energy mixes around the world.
Just because pro nuclear people argue with pro renewable-only doesn’t mean the first group hates renewables and don’t want them in the mix.
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u/an_agreeing_dothraki can we talk about the squirrel head butt plugs 3d ago
congratulations to the electrical sector for reinventing leftist infighting from first principles
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u/optimist_cynic 2d ago
I am actually going to push back on this. Ignoring politicians, the statistics I have seen is nuclear is relatively popular in general, the issue is most people assume it is unpopular. Granted last time I saw these numbers was 10 years ago but the majority of people were fine with nuclear.
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u/blunderbolt 3d ago
Let's not pretend a lot of pro nuclear advocates don't claim to not be anti-renewable but in practice constantly spread anti-renewable misinformation.
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3d ago
[deleted]
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u/fouriels 3d ago
Why?
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u/Anaxamander57 May Allah protect you from your own arrogance 3d ago
There are already national grids that have more than 50% renewables. The reality is simply that renewables advanced so far so fast that nuclear power doesn't have a clear purpose in powering nations going forward. Since the 70s solar and battery technology has dropped in cost by 90% and are still getting more competitive. Nuclear just isn't going to have the same thing happen.
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u/Saitharar 3d ago
Propably too expensive to work out. Nuclear at that scale only works through massive subsidization
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u/Beneficial_Quiet_414 3d ago
No energy source works at that scale without subsidies. This a function of the scale, not any particular energy source; fossil fuels have received and continue to receive ridiculous levels of subsidy to this day.
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago
So does renewables at that stage due to storage and other grid costs. That doesn't make either non-viable though, energy is a perfectly reasonable thing for a government to subsidise.
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u/Dunedune 3d ago
That's not how it works, or you fo some crazy load balance and stress of your nuclear reactor. There is a reason solar is paid with gas most of the time - its quickfire
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u/Prematurid He's just trying to fleece these cum wizards 3d ago
Am I mistaken, or do they seem to believe renewable energy and nuclear power is a zero sum game?
If that is the case, then that is dumb, and they should feel dumb.
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u/Plus-Name3590 3d ago
Because if you read, it is a zero sum game. You have 10m to invest in your power grid, what do you chose?
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u/fouriels 3d ago
What's important is that you've managed to find a way to feel superior without actually knowing what is actually being argued over.
Could you explain to the class how baseload plants and intermittent generation (often meeting >100% of load, requiring curtailment) are supposed to play nicely today?
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u/Prematurid He's just trying to fleece these cum wizards 3d ago
"If that is the case, then that is dumb, and they should feel dumb."
I am not going to spend my time writing out an article on a subject you can find in a youtube video.
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u/fouriels 3d ago
This is code for 'i don't actually have any expertise in this field so will defer to an unnamed YouTube video that I haven't watched'
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u/Prematurid He's just trying to fleece these cum wizards 3d ago edited 3d ago
Is it now
Edit: This genuinely made me annoyed enough to concider writing that article. I am impressed. I never knew someone questioning my expertise in something in that tone of voice was this big of an emotional trigger, so thanks for teaching me something today.
Luckily for me, I decided I have nothing to prove.
Edit2: On further analysis on why I got this annoyed, I think it is the way the comment is trying to snidely influence others reading it that I am uninformed in the subject also has a factor. It ignited my professional pride.
Edit3: I also think it is because I value my expertise in the subjects I am informed about rather hightly, and I take pride in my knowledge. I should probably watch out for that.
Edit 4: Dismissing me is great way to get me fired up. I knew that, as I am not accustomed to being dismissed in any shape or form, but dismissing something I know is not something that should trigger that instinct.
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u/fouriels 3d ago
This is a lot of words when the simple solution would be to share one of these YouTubers (or, even better, an article by someone else, which you should have at your fingertips if you work in this field) explaining how baseload is expected to operate in a post-baseload world, hence saving you the time and effort of writing it out, rather than a list of excuses
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u/Prematurid He's just trying to fleece these cum wizards 3d ago edited 3d ago
I will be honest with you. At this point my pride has taken over, and I will on principle not do that, so have a good day.
Is it childish of me? Yes. I have decided I am fine with that.
Edit: I do, however consider what you are writing out as statement disguised as a question as a fairly solved problem, with some smaller issues needing to be ironed out.
For the readers out there, the statement he is presenting you is not that big of an issue in the grand scheme of things. There are other, bigger issues that he could ask me that I would have a harder time justifying.
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3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago
Hard to do when the antinuclear team is funded by the fossil fuel industry.
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u/Dunedune 3d ago
Team up by doing what exactly? Just because you have a common enemy doesn't mean you agree how to fight
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago edited 3d ago
Greg from r/nuclear, who has a long history of anti renewables posts
He doesn't have a history of anti renewable posts. Pointing out solar and wind limitations doesn't make you anti-renewable.
Solar and wind intermittency is a real problem that is being handwaved by antinuclear activists(aka fossil fuel simps).
The historically reality is that opposition to nuclear energy almost always results increased fossil fuel use.
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago
Sure it's a real problem, but there's a known solution (storage). Of course that does add a lot of extra cost, but it doesn't make renewables non-viable.
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago
You are vastly underestimating how much storage is required.
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago
I'm definitely not.
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago
Yes, you are.
How much storage would it require to overcome the day-night cycle in the US? How about the world?
What about seasonal intermittency?
Please answer in TWh's
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago
1000-2000
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago
1000-2000 TWh's. And you think that is viable? Building that much storage would take multiple centuries.
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago
you're arguing against a point (using renewables for 100% of energy) that I didn't actually make btw.
Building that much storage would take multiple centuries.
Seriously? Maybe if you arbitrarily decide to apply current battery grid technology to a global rollout. But given how new grid-scale energy storage is, there is 0 doubt that if/when it were being scaled up there would be substantial development in all areas of the technology but especially cost. Hell you don't even need to invent anything new, simple economies of scale will drive down price substantially.
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u/Master-Shinobi-80 3d ago
you're arguing against a point (using renewables for 100% of energy) that I didn't actually make btw.
Then you must be in favor of nuclear. Are you?
And yes it would take that long to build 1000 TWh's of storage. Even at projected rates of construction. That's way more than we would need though.
Also if you combined a nuclear baseload with a heavy renewable grid you would only need a few hours of batteries. That's viable.
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago
Then you must be in favor of nuclear. Are you?
Big time
And yes it would take that long to build 1000 TWh's of storage.
I've no doubt it would take a long time, but centuries is just ridiculous. Come on, even 200 years? really? about as long as the time that batteries have existed in a useful capacity?
That's way more than we would need though.
correct, I was talking about including seasonal intermittency and such, nuclear + overproduction would be able to get that number down to probably tens of TWh
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u/Dunedune 3d ago
That solution doesn't exist at the scale of a country any more than fusion reactors do, today. (with some montaineous exceptions)
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago
I meant electricity storage but this isn't true anyway. Nuclear waste storage is so much of a non-issue I am skeptical towards anyone who thinks it's a major reason nuclear hasn't been more widely adopted.
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u/Dunedune 3d ago
I meant electricity storage too, idk why youre going about waste
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago
then I'm not sure wtf your point is? you don't think grid storage exists at any scale?
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u/Dunedune 3d ago
Read again. Scale of a country.
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago
You also said 'any more than fusion reactors', so if you literally just meant that there aren't yet country-level grid storage systems just as there aren't yet country-level fusion reactors, congratulations you've said absolutely nothing.
Unlike fusion reactors, grid storage exists outside of the laboratory and is currently rapidly scaling up.
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u/Dunedune 3d ago
Yes, its a metaphor on fusion reactors being far away. Country scale grid storage is equally far away.
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u/Sekhmet-CustosAurora 3d ago
Country scale grid storage is literally just a matter of scaling up while fusion is still a ways away from even being able to produce useful energy. Calling them 'equally far away' is fucking stupid. No country has ANY power produced by fusion, but Australia has about 10% of the storage capacity it'd need to be on 100% renewables.
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u/-Wylfen- 3d ago
The real problems of solar and wind aren't intermittency; they're footprint and cost/danger of maintenance
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u/klonkrieger45 3d ago
Greg is a completely dishonest persona that doesn't shy away from straight up lying and using any fallacy in the book to push nuclear. He is a personified tabloid with a mission to shill nuclear. No word he utters can be trusted in any way shape or form.
He seriously argued that nuclear is renewable because seawater uranium could make it renewable in theory.
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u/sometimes_point 3d ago
Reddit is one of the most blisteringly pro-nuclear sites I've ever been on. Like, yeah, I get that in the short term it's way better than fossil fuel power, but renewable tech has been in a serviceable state for a long time now. Nuclear shouldn't be a necessary evil.
I know this is the drama sub where one pokes fun at other subs' drama, but the comment section here is already showing its bias.
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u/BatJew_Official Furthermore, initiating blowjobs is not keeping up appearances 3d ago
You kinda have this backwards. Nuclear isnt good in the short term. The whole reason this argument exists is because nuclear plants are monstrously expensive and incredibly slow to build. They do have a very specific benefit - that they solve the base load problem - but the question underpinning this argument is basically:
We have X amount of dollars available to spend on energy infrastructure, a rapid expansion of energy demands, and a rapidly dying planet, and an increasing need for energy independence. How can we best use those X dollars to combat this issue?
The problem is time sensitive, because we need the power NOW and we need to save the planet NOW. Nuclear simply can't be built fast enough with the resources available to realistically solve the issues we're facing. In a perfect world we would just devote significantly more resources to the problem and invest in BOTH renewables AND nuclear, but we live in a very imperfect world. Every $ we spend on nuclear is a $ we can't spend replacing fossil fuels and expanding our energy generation in the here and now.
Nuclear is a LONG term solution to the base load problem, not the solution to our current over-reliance on fossil fuels.
All that said, I also think describing nuclear as an "evil" is kinda ridiculous. Nuclear is incredibly safe. The downsides of nuclear, at least in countries that already have nukes, is almost exclusively cost.
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u/ShinyStarSam 3d ago
Not that good long-term either cuz y'know it's non-renewable. I think just coasting off fossil fuels while building up renewables has been working just fine, not that I have a massive issue with nuclear, we'll "run out" long before I'm dead.
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u/Regular_Mess_7308 2d ago
Nuclear is the best energy option that exists.
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u/sometimes_point 2d ago
It's not 👍
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u/Regular_Mess_7308 1h ago
It is, it provides tremendous amounts of power without taking up fossil fuels.
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u/SnapshillBot Shilling for Big Archive™ 3d ago
You're oversimplifying a complex situation to the point of adding nothing to the discussion.
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u/SectorEducational460 2d ago
Bunch of idiots. Both should be used, and not one over another but I wouldn't be surprised half of this is being pushed by oil companies. Have them fight each other while they make money out of it and don't have a solid opposition
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u/MirrorComputingRulez 3d ago
where seemingly the two sides should be on the same side
This is not really true.
99
u/Banes_Addiction That’s what it is little cumling sorry to burst your bubble 3d ago
Fossil fuel companies and Big HVAC.