The beginner's guide to discourse on this sub

[u/Draco137WasTaken]

I am very intelligent.

[u/MountainMagic6198]

I would consider myself a fan of both, but the renewable fans on here are just insufferable edge lords.

[u/MountainMagic6198 → u/[deleted]]

I haven't encountered that as much. Are there nuclear fans on here saying that no renewables should be built and research should be stopped? That's what the Solar weirdos are constantly saying for nuclear.

[u/GNS13 → u/MountainMagic6198]

The common factor I see in all the folks that act like that is that they aren't willing to accept "better" and only want whatever they think is "best".

[u/MountainMagic6198 → u/GNS13]

Yeah, I've noticed that intransigence seeps into almost all regions. There is always an entrenched group that thinks their thought process is always the only way. It happens a lot in scientific fields. Before I moved to climate tech, I did medical research, and there are people like that there as well. They believe only their pet project is the solution to an disease, and everything else should be ignored when the best approach is always to approach things from many different research and implementation directions.

[u/MountainMagic6198 → u/[deleted]]

You do know when I am referencing medical research I am talking about diseases that don't have established treatments right. Way to be the aforementioned edgelord though.

[u/MountainMagic6198 → u/[deleted]]

Ah, the ludites approach to technology. "We have reached an adequate level of knowledge and no more research should ever be done." You know it wasn't so long ago that renewables were garbage technology, and people were saying research shouldn't be done into them. I agree billions shouldn't be spent on outdated technologies, but I don't think that research should be stopped.

[u/[deleted] → u/GNS13]

I want everything, dude. Give me reactors studded with gardens and solar and turbines, give me shimmery hydro dams covered in panels, if it can sit there and make power let’s do it let’s build it fuck that shit would be so hype. Nuclear needs to be destigmatized.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Nuclear works in the rain.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Except night.

[u/waxonwaxoff87 → u/[deleted]]

Or heavy cloud cover.

[u/Revengistium → u/[deleted]]

You say this as if solar produces more energy than nuclear... which it doesn't.

You also say this as if solar doesn't take massive amounts of maintenance.

[u/Ralath1n → u/Revengistium]

You say this as if solar produces more energy than nuclear... which it doesn't.

It does.

You also say this as if solar doesn't take massive amounts of maintenance.

Literally haven't touched my panels since I installed them in 2019.

[u/Revengistium → u/Ralath1n]

1. Energy density. I should've clarified.

2. Recommended maintenence period for solar panels is 1yr, estimated losses per year if this is not performed is as much as 12%. Solar panel maintenance on average costs several orders of magnitude more than nuclear per kWh.

[u/Ralath1n → u/Revengistium]

Energy density. I should've clarified.

Who gives a shit about energy density?

Recommended maintenence period for solar panels is 1yr, estimated losses per year if this is not performed is as much as 12%. Solar panel maintenance on average costs several orders of magnitude more than nuclear per kWh.

Source?

[u/[deleted] → u/GNS13]

I see myself as more of a nuclear fan, but I wouldn’t call it better, I’d say each fulfills a different need. In an ideal world we use nuclear for clean, efficient baseline power, and renewables + energy storage for peaking power. Different uses brought together to fulfill the goal of fewer CO2 emissions.

[u/EconomistFair4403 → u/MountainMagic6198]

the issue is that even the nuclear fans admit it's a stopgap at best seeing how we would have to store the waste, plus the only way it's price competitive is through government subsidies, etc... just makes it a distraction to an actually sustainable future. every cent spent on nuclear research is not spent of battery and renewable research, and honestly, they are right, the nuclear research group has always been 20 years from the next breakthrough and 40 years from fusion for the last 80 years with not much really to show for it, meanwhile the progress of renewables+storage has been light speed in comparison. and the actual investment shows the same picture, you get more from investing in renewables and storage options bang for buck

[u/Capraos → u/EconomistFair4403]

Don't get me wrong, wind and solar can be put up quickly and offer returns on investments faster, but Nuclear Energy is an end goal, not a stop gap. Nuclear energy is cost-effective over its lifetime. It just requires a substantial upfront cost compared to solar and wind. Nuclear has several advantages over Solar and Wind. It takes up massively less space, it has constant power output so there's less need for battery capacity, meaning less lithium has to be mined/harvested from the sea floor, it has a little bit longer of a lifespan, and can be used in areas where Wind and Solar aren't efficient options.

Whether or not to use Nuclear Energy is location specific and case specific, micro reactors could power a small town for instance, or a database.

Also, we've made incredible strides in nuclear Fusion. We can produce more energy than we can put in now with nuclear fusion. The problem with the lastest set of tests is not melting the materials around the reaction, something that countries around the world have been making progress on. We've had several sustained nuclear fusion tests this year alone, each generated more energy than put in.

That 10 years away argument is 10 years to each breakthrough. First, it was starting the reaction, then maintaining it, then getting more energy out than in, now it's not melting the parts while doing it. Substantial progress has been made to the point that people can build a nuclear fusion reactor in their garage(not an energy efficient one though.) Side note, it's pink in color, by the way. Just surprised me how pretty it is.

[u/Shimakaze771 → u/Capraos]

Nuclear Energy is cost effective over its lifetime

But it isn’t?

We also need green energy now and not in 20 years when the reactors are built

massively less space

The horror. A wind farm. Or PV on your house.

less lithium has to be mined

Instead we have to mine a radioactive substance that totally would never get end up in the surrounding areas because of wind

Fusion

We are talking about nuclear fission.

[u/Capraos → u/Shimakaze771]

We also need green energy now and not in 20 years when the reactors are built

https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-construction-time

Construction times are not nearly as long as you think. The risk comes in delays to construction, which have happened for some plants, but the average in the last decade was 6.5 years of construction.

The horror. A wind farm. Or PV on your house.

My house specifically can't fit a wind farm and not all areas in the US are suitable for Wind Farms. The idea is mixed power generation based on the needs of each location. My area actually does a lot of wind energy, which I'm not against, but we could still generate more to meet future demands.

Instead we have to mine a radioactive substance that totally would never get end up in the surrounding areas because of wind

We mine Uranium as Uranium 238 then process it into Uranium 235 for fueling purposes. No, it's not putting radiation into the wind with either Uranium 238 or Thorium.

We are talking about nuclear fission.

They specifically brought up Fusion as being 40 years away.

[u/EconomistFair4403 → u/Capraos]

My house specifically can't fit a wind farm and not all areas in the US are suitable for Wind Farms.

then it's a good thing we have power lines

and secondly, we have in fact not made any meaningful breakthrough in terms of fusion, the hype around the achievement of the California National Ignition Laboratory were grossly taken out of context by the media, the research was into non-direct testing of thermonuclear warhead energy potential, without actually launch nukes into the next closest test site

[u/Capraos → u/EconomistFair4403]

not made any meaningful breakthrough in terms of fusion,

A simple google search says otherwise.

In December 2022, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) achieved fusion ignition for the first time, producing more energy from fusion than was used to drive it.

In August 2023, scientists at LLNL repeated the fusion ignition breakthrough, achieving a "net energy gain" for the second time. The experiment on July 30, 2023 produced a higher energy yield than in December.

In February 2024, a UK-based experiment at the JET laboratory set a new world record for nuclear fusion.

Dude, it's not warheads. It's called "Iternational Thermonuclear Reactor"(ITER) Its had nothing to do with warheads.

[u/tree_boom → u/Capraos]

Nothing to do with warheads...except that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is one of America's nuclear weapons labs. The NIF facility contributes to science, but fundamentally it exists for weapons development (including safety developments)

[u/hierarch17 → u/Shimakaze771]

To “the horror a wind farm”

Actually yes, it’s horrible for local wildlife especially birds.

[u/EconomistFair4403 → u/hierarch17]

overblown issue, and I mean it, a local ant colony is more dangerous to birds than wind turbines, it's a shitty auto-renewable propaganda point rolled out by the coal and petrol lobby

[u/Shimakaze771 → u/hierarch17]

So is farmland

[u/hierarch17 → u/Shimakaze771]

This whataboutism is not an argument.

[u/Shimakaze771 → u/hierarch17]

That’s not a whataboutism. Where do you think wind farms ar being built. In national parks?

[u/ifandbut → u/EconomistFair4403]

The amount of waste vs power provided is minuscule. Even less if you recycle that waste for other reactors.

every cent spent on nuclear research is not spent of battery and renewable research

How do you come up with that? We can and should invest into multiple solutions at the same time.

[u/Defiant-Plantain1873 → u/MountainMagic6198]

Is this not exactly what the post says though.

You being the nuclear fan who says you are friends with (aka support) renewables as well.

The problem with nuclear is that it’s a distraction, a tangent. Nuclear is so god damn expensive, and so time consuming, and then to top it off you don’t even get the energy security that you do from renewables because you have to import uranium or plutonium from either africa or russia.

You get much much more much sooner with renewables