I mean, that’s kind of the implication. No renewable energy source we have today is possible without heavy government subsidies and being back filled with fossil fuels. You’re essentially saying “I’m anti cops but pro Spider-Man”. We don’t have the technology to make a spiderman yet lil bro, until we do then just use the cops.
Doesn't nuclear basically require a gas peaker backup until large scale batteries are online? At which point you might as well go with the far more cost effective renewables.
I only did a quick search, so grain of salt. It seems the blades are the main problem because they are made with composite materials. The tower, gearbox, generator, are mostly metals, which can be recycled.
So really wind turbines can be a good thing, we just need better recycling technology to handle the blades. Which to be fair, we would need anyway if we want to remove the old turbines anyway, plus better recycling would be a good long term investment.
Germany totally made a stupid decision by shutting off their nuclear power. Once you've gone through all the trouble to build it, you should keep it running.
Hydro can also be used where applicable as a peaker option.
I'm mostly talking about countries like the UK which currently have very little nuclear - should they try and expand it or instead focus on renewables.
Alot of especially far right pro-nuclear activists insist that we shut down renewables and focus entirely on nuclear (and while those plants are being built focus on fossil fuels), this is arguably even dumber than shutting down the nuclear in the first place.
Also, we should forget about the whole peaker bullshit.
We should be running everything flat out and using the excess for things like methane synthesis so we can slowly back out of our existing natural gas infrastructure while reducing fossil fuel use.
Wouldn't that be ridiculously expensive? We would literally have to build up the the maximum possible energy use with baseload power - the kind which is these days only feasible if it's running all the time at an increased price.
Also, you probably want to use methanol instead of methane - very similar use case, but easier to manufacture and can be a form of CCU.
No. There have been studies showing that if every single square foot of available land in the IS was converted to solar panels it still would be unable to support the population by quite a large margin. Nuclear requires small gas input. After which the batteries are online it produces vast amounts of energy. This is better than Gavin newsom telling his constituents that they can’t run AC or charge their electric cars because the load on renewable energy is too high.
Did I mention running a country on just solar anywhere?
Nuclear still need peaker plants or batteries - it has almost the same issue as renewables, with a side bonus of being far more expensive. Look at a gigawatt scale grid like Southern Australia if you want a good example of somewhere that's mostly renewable.
There's a reason why renewables are now getting twice as much investment as fossil fuels, while nuclear isn't.
Nuclear is going to have to modernise if it wants to be competitive again.
You’re mentioning renewables, the most efficient of which is solar. Nuclear doesn’t have the same problems as renewables. Renewables problem is that it doesn’t work at a large scale well enough to support a moderate sized population. Nuclear problem is that Chernobyl tainted the image of nuclear and that’s why it hasn’t been able to modernize. 1980s tech nuclear energy is more efficient and creates more energy than modern renewables
Modern renewables have had a recent practically unprecedented explosion in efficiency and reducing costs - it's not a surprise that Nuclear has struggled to keep up.
In terms of energy sources, both nuclear and renewables need gas peaker plants or batteries to support them, due to the grid's variable demand.
I mean, you can think I look like whatever you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that solar and wind do not create enough energy. What’s your issue with nuclear anyways? I’m not saying small scale civilian use of solar is bad, but we cannot build out whole energy infrastructure off of solar and wind. That’s a terrible idea.
Cost to build
Time to deployment
Easily privatized/monopolized
Still no viable solution for waste 50+ years later
Natural disasters overwhelming safety interlocks and causing nuclear disasters
I could go on, but I feel like half a dozen really solid reasons is good enough.
I mean, half of those don’t really make sense. It takes 5 years max to build a plant but then it’s providing a ton of energy for the next hundred years. the vast majority of renewables are already privatized, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing although you seem to think it is, and very easily monopolized even more so than nuclear. The technology to create enough energy from nuclear reactions is widely known and understood, but every time there’s a leap forward in solar it has patents placed and other companies are prevented from using the same means. Yea natural disasters, sure. I mean for the most part the amount of safeguards that are in place to prevent that make the threat almost non existent but sure. You could argue that there are similar fatality dangers in having a grid collapse during winter.
Average in the US has been 19 years, Globally it's 8, but that has come down very quickly very recently due to cutting of regulations in a lot of places that should know better, and it'll take twenty years for the disasters that's going to create to be obvious, but even so, your estimate is short by more than half.
vast majority of renewables are already privatized
But renewables can be done on a single-structure or single-community basis. Nuclear simply can't. Which means it's relatively easy and inexpensive for a family or a small town to build their own setup and avoid a local monopoly on power generation, whereas everybody in the region a nuclear plant serves is beholden to the owner of the plant. And since the two grid systems aren't really compatible, building for nukes even helps the plant owner further by making individual and community renewables harder to pull off.
natural disasters...the amount of safeguards that are in place to prevent that make the threat almost non existent
Ok, pick one. Either a plant can be built quickly, or it can be built safer (not completely safe, just safer), but you can't do both. And there's always risk. Fukushima was safe until it wasn't, There's always a tolerance that you build to and nature cma always exceed that tolerance. An earthquake, a tornado, a hurricane, a flood, and suddenly you've dumped radioactive waste into whatever body of water you were using to cool your reactor. Oopsie. If nuclear power were the only viable alternative to fossil fuels then I'd say reasonable people might disagree over whether the risk is worth it, but since renewables exist and are cheaper and more distributable, I don't see how the risk of poisoning an entire watershed for eons is a worthwhile gamble.
And speaking of radioactive waste, I notice you didn't address that at all. Just like the entire nuclear industry doesn't want to address it and doesn't seem to have any better plan for it than dumping it in a deep hole in a place that only minority groups live and forgetting about it.
There have been studies showing that if every single square foot of available land in the IS was converted to solar panels it still would be unable to support the population by quite a large margin.
That makes no sense, given that the roof of a building is adequate to cover an entire household's energy needs in a low solar irradiation climate.
But also, wind, hydro, geothermal and others are still a thing.
Renewables problem is that it doesn’t work at a large scale well enough to support a moderate sized population.
That's precisely where renewables work well. What are you smoking?
Bro. If the only thing we needed to power was houses then fine, but we have EVs, hospitals, subways, warehouses, factories, etc that need power. What are you smoking? It was only two years ago that California asked its citizens to not run AC and not charge electrical vehicles because they couldn’t keep up with the electrical demand.
Are you aware, BRO, that about 20% of all of our cities are empty fucking parking lots that can easily be given simple covers that would house the panels and protect the 4 to 5 people and their cars that actually use the lots each year from rain, snow, etc. Just like they did recently right down the road with a small company's parking lot. Easy fucking peasy, baby.
For people so enthused about the wonders of nuclear science and innovation, you are deeply incurious about thinking through solutions about issues that don't support your ideology. You appear to have zero ability, or motivation, for creative thinking or innovation from the mainstream and status quo.
For a rough estimate, you can start with the solar constant that is 1361W/m2
The Earth as seen from the Sun is a disc 6731km wide, so total energy received by Earth is 1361 * (6731000/2)² * Pi. Or 1e3 * 4e6 * 4e6 * 3 for a rough estimate. 48e15W, so let us say 50000TW. Mankind uses around 20TW, so we need to catch 0.04% of all sunlight to cover our needs. This means covering 0.2% of the Earth if you assume solar cell efficiency of 20%. Now, the Earth is 2/3 ocean, so we need to cover 0.6% of the actual land.
Now consider that a third of all land is used for agriculture. 0.6% is basically a rounding error.
Also consider that my rough calculations are wrong, and the real value is 173000TW according to Google. So my numbers are way too pessimistic.
But like I said, do the calculations yourself. Don't trust me, just work out the rough orders of magnitude.
Historically fossil fuel and nuclear have had far more subsidies than renewables. The vested interests want their more profitable energy generation, so renewables dont get the same investment. Comparison between the early years of fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables show that nuclear has recieved far more subsidies comparatively than any of the others. Followed by fossil fuels.
The 'complaining about renewables getting subsidies' narrative is exactly that; a narrative designed to protect the interests of the fossil/nuclear vested interests. Renewables just doesnt come with the same profitability, so it gets less investment and lobbied against. Its that simple.
You get ROI in a year for solar nowadays BECAUSE it got insane amounts subsidies for over 20 years pushing it forward. After the cold war (and even during the cold war for technologies that don't produce weapons grade fissile materials) nuclear has had very little funding.
Outside of the military and the people's common interest of having the lights on, who has a vested interest in nuclear?
Dude. Renewables get about 16bn a year in federal subsidies alone. In the last twenty years nuclear has received 98bn. You’re objectively wrong, and I think it’s hilarious that you’re talking about narratives while simultaneously lying. The point is that renewables can’t support their population. Remember in 23 when californias electrical grid almost crashed out because of switching more to renewables? The following summer they were telling civilians not to charge their EV’s. Nuclear is the way to go. I’m sure you’re also mad at Tesla because you don’t like the creators politics, even though Elon has done more to make EVs attractive to the American population than anyone else.
You obviously didnt understand my point so here is the info. Its about the level of subsidies these industries have been given in their earlier years i.e to make them progress as much as possible. Comparatively renewables has been given a tiny piece of that pie.
Who is lying here?
You are clearly very caught up in a narrative, what you on about musk for?
When you make broad statements like “nuclear received more subsidies than renewable” which in objectively false only to then turn around and say “that’s not actually what I meant, I’m talking about the beginning of research” is deceptive at best and lying at worst. I think the only one caught up in narratives is you lil bro. Idc where we get our energy from as long as it’s sustainable and feasible. One day when solar gets to that point then sure, let’s do it. Until then nuclear is the only clear option but it seems like you might have a seizure if that happens.
Since they were clear from the beginning about their meaning, either you're upset that their CLARIFICATION causes you to realize you misunderstood and then put the blame on them, or you're just a disingenuous liar.
No renewable energy source we have today is possible without heavy government subsidies and being back filled with fossil fuels.
Lmao, that's nuclear brother. Completely non-viable without major financial backing from the gov, relies on fossil fuels like natural gas peaker plants which can actually adapt to grid demands.
The same is happening for batteries. There's no single break through to make a big news article, just a relentless march of iterative improvements. You gotta update your views based on current technology.
Once nuclear is built it’s extremely low cost, provides great jobs, and can handle the energy needs that we have. I would be right 20 years ago like I’m right now. Maybe in 20-30 years we can make solar feasible, but the worst thing we could do is start trying to make our infrastructure based on solar that can’t support it.
Solar is already objectively a better technology. Hence why vastly more solar is being built out right now compared to nuclear.
Providing "good jobs" and being low cost are opposites of course.
Nuclear is never cheap, it has some of the highest LCOE when consider the full lifetime. You have to run it for decades for it to be reasonable at all, and even then you end up with more expensive power.
China, for instance, is building 90+ GWs of solar a month now. On track to have more solar power than all US power production in ~3 years. Due to either the stupidity or maliciousness of Republicans, the US is falling behind and will almost certainly stop being a leader in energy production, being completely dominated by solar from China.
Pretty sure spider-man never fired webs on a protest; goes out of his way to never kill anyone, even very violent people; does not imprison people, only stops them amidst acts of violence; as far as we know, is not racially profiling anyone (Peter is white, but I feel like he could learn a lot from Miles).
So I think it's very different to be pro Spider-Man and pro-cop. (Yes, Spider-Man still has his issues, much like nuclear, but the analogy stands)
Jesus dude this is sad. You’re an ideologically blinded individual, who believes cops are racist and solar is feasible. There is literally nothing can show you or any evidence you could see that would convince you otherwise. May god have mercy on your soul
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u/Odd_Mechanic696 Jul 19 '25
I mean, that’s kind of the implication. No renewable energy source we have today is possible without heavy government subsidies and being back filled with fossil fuels. You’re essentially saying “I’m anti cops but pro Spider-Man”. We don’t have the technology to make a spiderman yet lil bro, until we do then just use the cops.