Not really, I live in a country where green energy keeps going up but so does the electricity prices. You have to believe in Santa if you think the savings ever reach the consumer.
That’s called artificially inflated prices
Of course it’s artificial, but knowing that doesn’t change the reality for the people who have to pay the bills.
Competition and choice lowers prices. Government “investment” usually raise prices.
Why not nuclear?
There was a time when investing deeper into nuclear would have made a lot more sense. That moment has passed, though. The economics are not on the side of nuclear and the numbers are getting worse by the day - nuclear is getting more expensive over time while renewables and batteries are trending in the complete opposite direction.
It’s basically impossible to get any nuclear built without heavy subsidization because of how poorly they function economically, not to mention how impossible it is to buy insurance for such a venture. This is not inherently bad, but it does definitely displace other areas we could be subsidizing instead. I would be in favour of this if nuclear didn’t have a completely natural replacement in renewables and batteries.
Only in us I think.
You can double check it but I think solar is cheaper now. I was shocked as well, I thought nuclear was the cheapest still.
But solar is unreliable. Night day, snow cover, dust cover. It also has to be local and supplemented by other sources
Most expensive way of heating water
Russia is doing it and their electricity costs are cheapest on the planet
Yep, France has cheaper energy than Germany. France went nuclear, Germany went solar/wind (and even had to re-online some coal plants due to shortages).
The pushback on nuclear from anti-fossil advocates never ceases to amaze me.
Isnt Germany’s costs are absolutely outrageous? Like the most expensive in Europe
Nuclear Energy because green energy is really expensive too
Wrong
Brother in christ, i work with energy companies that do renewable energy and trust me, that stuff is really expensive to maintain for the amount of power you get out of it, Even the amount of environmental disturbance those wind turbines cause alone, un healthy for people, unhealthy for animals(Look it up). Nuclear power is very safe these days and there are storage places like Onkalo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository Which make storing the waste super easy and viable as well as secure for even post human civilizations.
The only thing green energy is good for is politics
And i cant remember when was the last time solar panels poisoned the land for 10000 years
https://rewi.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/REWI-Solar-Energy-Wildlife-Interactions-Summary-2023.pdf Interesting read on fatalities in north america though they mention they could not find a root cause yet due to lack of data
https://sistinesolar.com/solar-panels-and-wildlife/
- Depending on the kind of setup, if a central tower is used to concentrate the light to boil water the concentrated light become a death trap to birds and insects
- These plants can appear as lakes due to the reflection and colors(Especially in deserts where these are build confusing wild life
- The floating solar power systems disrupt fish activity and affect water quality
- It also messes up migrations of birds(Wind turbines can do this too)
It is still infidelity better than carbon in the skies but if you put this against nuclear energy and treat the MAN MADE NUCLEAR DISASTERS for what they are MAN MADE then you can see that nuclear power in this day and age is very very safe because we have years of safety development.
People who do not understand this are still stuck in the past or follow a global anti Nuclear rethoric without putting in the time to actually understand the technology.
Meltdowns are a thing of the past when thorium salt reactors become mainstream because those reactions dont run away they halt the moment you remove the fuel, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_reactor
MSRs eliminate the nuclear meltdown scenario present in water-cooled reactors because the fuel mixture is kept in a molten state. The fuel mixture is designed to drain without pumping from the core to a containment vessel in emergency scenarios, where the fuel solidifies, quenching the reaction. In addition, hydrogen evolution does not occur. This eliminates the risk of hydrogen explosions (as in the Fukushima nuclear disaster).[2] They operate at or close to atmospheric pressure, rather than the 75–150 times atmospheric pressure of a typical light-water reactor (LWR).
Nuclear power is really cool and i highly suggest you give it a chance at least in researching it, there are tons of awesome videos on YouTube to help with this which gave me a ton of insight and storage facilities like:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Power_Generation's_Deep_Geologic_Repository
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Management_Organization_(Canada)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schacht_Asse_II
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repository_for_radioactive_waste_Morsleben
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_dome_Gorleben
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schacht_Konrad
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolseong_Low_and_Intermediate_Level_Radioactive_waste_Disposal_Center
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_repository_for_short-lived_radioactive_waste
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository to name a few give me hope that this nuclear waste has plenty of places to go to sit out their long half time by the end of it becomes inert
I see 2 problems First - human error and human greed.
Second - we solve problems only after we face a disaster, we never know if the system is flawless right now.
And Id rather live near solar grid that might malfunction sometimes and requires maintenance every decade.
But I respect your anti ff point of view. I also understand everything you talking about. I wasted too many years learning chemistry, engineering
Second - we solve problems only after we face a disaster, we never know if the system is flawless right now. This is why the tech is tested in a controlled matter, This counts for everything including wind turbines, solar panels and the food you eat.
human error and human greed.Funny enough this is the exact thing working against nuclear energy, there is big money in Green Energy because it creates a ton of jobs, Nuclear energy is so efficient the surplus of energy would fuck over most fossil power companies thats human greed for you.I would rather live in a city that has a respected and well maintained nuclear power plant so there is more area for nature than to cut down a forest so we can win some power, Molten Salt reactors are the future and its going to be a whole different world compared to traditional reactors, China is ahead in this because they dont have anything blocking this development.
But with projects like ITER i am convinced its only a matter of time before nuclear is in again, Its going to be a combination of Tidal/Hydro, Solar/Wind and Geothermal plus nuclear to phase out fossil fuel, these cannot do that on their own, even nuclear power.
If we want to rid ourselves of the cancer that is gas/oil/coal then we have to embrace the alternatives not fight against them with a mindset from the 1980’s (Fukushima was engineered against twice the highest recorded tsunami, The sendai earthquake tsunami was a freak show) That said it was TEPCO that fucked up royally by sticking with General Electric design which placed the backup gens below sea level(The engineers of TEPCO warned against this vulnerability but TEPCO sided with GE instead) this is why those gens failed.
That said if they had a Molten Salt reactor(Thorium) the reaction would have halted on its own before triggering a meltdown which would have prevented:
- The need to vent radioactive steam into the atmosphere
- The sacrifice of the 50 who stayed behind to halt the reaction
- Marking Fukushima as dangerous
I agree fully that traditional nuclear power has its dangerous if not handled correctly, The future will eliminate most of this danger and compared to other energy(non fossile) Hydro and Nuclear have to be the most mature oldest ones
Btw since you are an engineer too i highly recommend checking a few videos on Fukushima, their reactor design is super cool and has multiple failsafes which prevented the disaster from being worse such as the cooling ring / pool with steam vents to prevent over pressure or cool down fuel in case a meltdown is about to happen.
The movie Fukushima Daiichi is also super awesome and has some famous japanese actors in it, they sticked very close to the actual events, was a thrill to watch :D
Also thanks for keeping an open mind, i respect that
Well turbines kill birds. Just 10000 times less than cats. Good luck aligning budget for 10 - 20 years with this volatile economy. I can sustain myself and my family with solar easily
Educate yourself on Nuclear power, you already got 50% of the work done, Renewable energy needs nuclear power to kick out fossil fuel.
Its not a this or that its the combination of both that will make us carbon neutral
Us is pathetic. Nothing is planned.
No direction. Every 4 years fuckers change shit.Centrally planned china can run circles around
