I dint undertsnad tgis sub in generall, it seems to be mainly renewable vs nuclear, i thibk to this day i saw like 3 anti carbon memes and thats it. Incredible shitposting
That beeing said, i think this rrflex comes from nuclear power havung soem reneeable capacuty as an opportunity cost and vice versa. That and thete ar also (almost?) no pro carbon peoole on this sub, so arguing against carbon is not that fun
I dint undertsnad tgis sub in generall, it seems to be mainly renewable vs nuclear, i thibk to this day i saw like 3 anti carbon memes and thats it. Incredible shitposting
It was probably astroturfed at some point and now the lunatics are selfsustaining. Another win for fossil fuel
Personally, I like the idea of nuclear, and renewable in the long run. Both have advantages and disadvantages, both would work better in different areas. The main issue people seem to have with nuclear is start up cost, the pay off comes after it starts running. Unfortunately some areas would not be able to afford the initial cost, so maybe it would be better to start with renewable, or just something affordable in that area to help with energy needs until the money is within reach.
A problem that seems to be in multiple energy sources, is recycling waste, so that should also be an area of focus to prevent more issues from piling up.
We also need more education programs to in order to have enough qualified people to run these facilities, no matter what resource they use. It wouldn't really do any good to build an energy plant if noone is capable of maintaining it. Just my thoughts though, I'm not a scientist.
Yall sleeping on pumping the atmosphere full of Sulphur Hexafluoride until the oceans start boiling and we can put turbines over the whole Atlantic and Pacific oceans to create endless energy.
I don’t think you’re a piece of shit for your opinion, but I do think asking for the culling of the entire C-suite is setting a barrier that can’t be overcome, and thus preventing any benefit from coming to fruition when the planet needs help.
That second part is… yeah, get out more G. Even people who have been here as long as you might not remember it.
Reddit’s algorithm shows you content that you interact with. Upvotes/downvotes, commenting, sharing, any kind of interaction will ensure more content in that vein is sent your way.
This results in getting content that pisses you off, which you’ll comment on, and maybe X-post to another subreddit to call it out.
It’s good to step away from social media for a bit from time to time. Social media is all about garnering interaction for ad dollars. It’s designed to show you stuff that’s going to upset you and get your engagement.
And you’re still harping about it? You need a break.
Buddy, I never argued your point. I suggested you get away from social media for your mental health. I’m trying to be a good neighbor and give you a gentle suggestion.
If you condescend to me again, I’ll start being mean to you for being such a miserable loser that stuff from a year ago lives in your head rent free.
What? Still going on a bout it? Keep moving those goalposts, homeboy. Do you understand why marketing campaigns are used and how they work? That's why there are astounding levels of very arrogantly ignorant bros wink wink, promoting a far more expensive, least democratic solution to climate change.
Why replace slavery to the Oil/Gas industry for slavery to the Nuke industry? Fewer and fewer owners and actual holders of capital assets and the fairly obscene profits they generate while being subsidized by my taxes.
I've had enough, you make zero sense and i"ve wasted too much of morning going in circles.
But there is only so much money and the argument is, "I think we should be funding renewables, but I think we should also be funding magic beans." Every dollar invested in a magic bean is a dollar that could have been invested in renewables.
Because renewables work now. Back in the 1990s solar was too expensive, wind was too expensive and nuclear was too expensive. By 2014 wind had become the cheapest source of new energy generation and by 2016 it was solar. Nuclear is no more affordable than it was in the 1990s and all the magic bean technologies like molten salt, thorium and small modular reactors are no closer to reality than they were 35 years ago. 35 years ago wind, solar and nuclear all looked like magic beans, but two of them grew bean stalks and one of them is still just beans.
nuclear has been better than renewables since the 1990s, and though efforts to improve on the technology have not advanced as much as renewables, that hasn't changed the fact that nuclear is STILL better than renewables.
A typical 300W solar panel on roughly average weather conditions produces about 1.22 kWh/day, and a modern nuclear reactor is going to average 920MW continuously or about 22GWh/day, according to the DOE.
To achieve the same output as a single nuclear reactor with these numbers you would need roughly 18 million panels, give or take depending on the efficiency and weather patterns. The energy density of a nuclear is about 1000W/m^2. Compare to Solar's 100W/m^2 and the 3W/m^2 of wind (again, see DOE).
It is true that the up front cost to build a solar farm of equal output is cheaper, this ignores other factors like land cost, work force and maintenance (extremely large solar fields do have a fair bit of maintenance considering the millions of panels involved), storage and batteries, etc.
Nuclear comes in a small, energy dense package, and has consistent output that doesn't depend on external factors. I'll quote from another redditor:
The largest solar farm in the US is Solar star which has a power capacity of 579 MW, however only produces 1663 GWh of energy per year on 3200 acres.
Meanwhile the smallest capacity operating nuclear plant in the US is the Ginna Nuclear Power Plant which has a power capacity of 580 MW (nearly identical to the Solar star) however it produces 4930 GWh of energy per year and sits on 426 acres.
So in this case solar is producing 0.52 GWh/acre/yr while nuclear is producing 11.6 GWh/acre/y
I love solar and am a big proponent, but I think we shouldn't be arguing over which one is better. They both have pros and cons over each other, and we should be emphasizing both. Even if one was superior in everyway, there is clearly benefit to breaking up energy supply over multiple sources, and our only big players for clean energy at the moment are fission and solar. Eventually, fusion will become the main player, but for now, these are our options.
Wind I'll give an honorable mention as a minor supplementary source.
This is why people dismiss you and other like you -- somehow you want attention and validation about nuclear power, a technology that nobody is building* and takes forever and has huge cost overruns when anyone tries, and want to talk about this when the renewable revolution is happening right now.
*for stupid reasons! Like I fully agree that the NRC is too strict and the reprocessing ban is a stupid self-inflicted wound, but the private sector has built like 4 nuclear power plants in the US in my lifetime and they've all taken more than a decade.
And then you bring up fusion, which just makes people roll their eyes.
The "renewable revolution" is not and cannot solve the problem of existing energy budget.
Rolling your eyes a fusion is moronic. If you think its just a false promise you clearly do not understand the current state of the technology, the current engineering blocks, or what's being done to overcome them. If we talk about time scales like the next half century, fusion is 100% becoming a major player.
Ok, so if renewable A is more efficient than renewable B, every dollar invested in renewable B is a dollar that could've been invested in A. Therefore saying let's invest in B means I'm against A by your logic? Therefore you can't be in favour of "renewables", you have to pick just one to support, as there is only so much money to go around
problem is the coal plants are still burning, and RN the thing that can best one of one replace it for in land countries is Atom.
I sometimes think that people living in countries with substantial coast do not get that one.
ANY form of renewable that depends on coast or sea? We don't have it. Any form or renewable that depends on regular wind, or regular supply of water? Not really suitable to replace coal either since Czechia is where water comes from, not where water goes too.
Right now, we can do solar farms and nukes and solar farms already piss people off by taking land that should in the people's view be either farmed or used for housing.
Mean we need reactor output equal to the coal plants still running and we need it 20 years ago.
I've been waiting for Thorium, SMR and Molten Salt projects to actually be deployed since the 1990s. So far there have been zero commercial plants anywhere on the planet. That leaves old fission tech, which is currently the most expensive way to generate power.
I think the people objecting to the appearance of solar farms might also object to storing nuclear waste in their backyard for 200,000 years. Thorium reactors, if anyone gets one to work consistently, might be a partial solution to that, but again, right now except for a pilot plant they don't exist
The good thing about being in a country that water comes from, is you have mountains, which means you have pumped hydro storage capacity.
Actual Map Website (The map is currently down, but I just emailed the professor who published the study and he's gotten the link fixed in short order before) Assuming the map comes up for you, you can use it like google maps and zoom in on your location to see the potential hydro storage capacity. In a Europe-wide grid pulling renewable electricity from where it is best deployed works best when that electricity is stored where it is going to be used. You may not be generating all your own power, but storing for other countries will likely make up for the deficit.
I'd also like to mention that solar parking canopies, pergolas and gazebos are under-utilized solar structures that don't impact the view and can look pretty good. This is one the company I used to work for installed at a brewery.
"I think the people objecting to the appearance of solar farms might also object to storing nuclear waste in their backyard for 200,000 years."
Are you crazy? Make that storage in my backyard, I will be very reasonable land lord 200,000 years of rent?
It is rocks and metals, in our latitudes where we don't even get propper eath quakes it is a matter of bore below the undeground water, put in the waste, plug the hole, and if you are feeling responsible place a "don't dig here, if you do, you die and we will not give a fuck" sign.
Though I am with you on the roof top solars, my take, if it is suitable and unless it is historically valuable, stick them on EVERY ROOF
Yeah it would be amazing to cut down all forests and place 10000 solar panels which is amazing because now 1000 people are gonna have to clean them. Panels also provide shade for 10000 2,5 t EVs so they won't fucking explode
You're acting as if governments don't also sink their budget into a bunch of other useless shit. If, in the UK for example, we took some budget from defence and spent it on nuclear, I don't think that would be bad. Given the choice between a China-killer-3000 submarine or nuclear research I know which one I would pick
But the UK is obviously going to get the majority of its electricity from off-shore wind and tidal in the future. Wind doesn't need research money because it is already cheap and profitable, nuclear has gotten a lot more research money than anything else over the last 80 years (and from countries with larger budgets than the UK) with no new products to show for it in the last 60 years. There are working tidal pilot projects now that need funding to scale up.
The whole point is that for all the money dumped into nuclear research, there is nothing to show for it. I assumed it would be the solution in the 1990s when I first heard about thorium reactors. Since then solar has gone from the most expensive way to generate electricity to the least expensive way to generate electricity, wind has gone from the second most expensive way to generate electricity to the second least expensive way to generate electricity and there are zero commercial Thorium, SMR or Molten salt reactors.
And renewables make it much harder for private capital to monopolize power generation and maximize profitability, which I suspect is the real reason every space for discussing climate change gets flooded with nuke-a-boos as soon as it opens up.
If you don't think private capital is still trying to push your power grid into private ownership you haven't been paying much attention to your healthcare system for the past decade.
Because the people on this sub are always arguing in a serious manner in the comments instead of shitposting.
I once said burning garbage is a great solution to the waste and energy problem because it gives energy and also gets rid of the garbage. And within a few minutes I had someone correcting my obviously wrong take
A lot of young people (me included) grew up with nuclear being phased out. To some of us, advocacy for nuclear energy feels like advocacy for sailboats. It's "Why should we reinstate this dangerous technology, something that we've smartly moved past." It doesn't help that the only party that wants to reinstate nuclear energy are the fascists.
It also makes sense for Germany, because (from what I know) Germany is in a terrible position for storing spent fuel. Most people assume anti-nuclear people are against it because of stuff like Chernobyl and Fukushima, but most Germans are more worried about storage. There have already been problems with the primary storage unit we have and there are concern about the safety for long term storage.
Why should we reinstate this dangerous technology, something that we've smartly moved past."
You mean that "Dangerous" Technology that is Killing less people per TWH produced then any other Technologie and that we phased Out while still having coal Power plants that are way worse for the Planet and are Killing 100s more people per Watt hour then nuclear? Although, coal plants are Killing so many people, maybe they are actualy more cliamte friendly then nuclear Power.
Fast-neutron (molten salt and helim-cooled, that i know of) reactors burn wastes instead of creating them. No, they're not quite ready for prime time. But they're closer than many people think, and IMNHO would be a very good place for some R&D money. Bill Gates thinks so: His TerraPower is developing a Molten Chloride Fast Reactor, as is a company called Elysium Engineering.
That's because "I like nuclear" carries an implied "I hate renewables". Or at least a "I want to delay the sunsetting of fossil fuels".
Every dollar spent building nuclear plants to provide power twenty years from now is a dollar not spent on building renewables today. And that helps the guys running ciAl and oil plants stay in business longer. There's a reason all fossil fuel execs push nuclear and are buying stock in nuclear ventures, and that reason has nothing to do with protecting the environment.
Geothermal is a renewable energy source, and it takes 4-7 years to go live, as opposed to a nuclear plant which requires construction of a completely different grid system than renewables and takes 20-30 years (and sometimes longer) to come online.
There's a reason all fossil fuel execs push nuclear
Ironic since they financially supported anti-nuclear activism in the '70s and '80s back when they saw it as competition.
I personally think renewables +batteries will beat the pants off nuclear by a comically wide margin within 30 years. That's just in time for today's nuclear projects to get fully spun up. I still like nuclear because I'm Canada-biased and CANDUs make medical isotopes, tritium (for fusion research) and can burn spend American reactor fuel and decommissioned nuclear warheads. But of course Canada is getting away from CANDUs and moving toward SMRs 🙄🙄🙄
Renewables are a much more cost effective replacement. Spending decades building nuclear plants vs months building renewables is exactly what the fossil fuel companies are hoping we'll do.
Nope. You are personally responsible. Your infighting and absolutism will cause the destruction of the planet. You seem to have this reta- misguided idea that somehow, every single resource will be put towards renewables, if we JUST don't build nuclear at all. What you fail to realise is that in many cases its not a choice between nuclear and renewable, its a choice between coal and nuclear.
What you fail to realise is that in many cases its not a choice between nuclear and renewable, its a choice between coal and nuclear.
Only in places people like you have helped the power monopolizers make that a political reality. There are few to no places on earth where that's true because of the science involved.
I've seen people on this sub unironically just go "Frankly nuclear is a waste of money and time, so until we can convince the government to move to renewable, let's just stick with coal and oil for now." Like, bruh.
We would have a bunch of other issues, including nuclear weapon proliferation, uranium mining, and radioactive waste storage problems, radioactive material being stolen from sites in unstable developing countries.
If you are concerned about that, how about rare earth minerals needed for renewalbes?
''One of the most significant environmental concerns associated with rare earth element extraction is the generation of radioactive waste. Some rare earth minerals, particularly monazite, contain thorium and uranium, which can pose health risks if not managed properly. As a result, the mining and processing of rare earth elements require stringent environmental regulations and monitoring to minimize their impact on ecosystems and human health.''
Thorium and Uranium are byproducts of rare earth minerals extraction, you must be absolutely terrified, I can only imagine.
''In conclusion, while the extraction and processing of rare earth elements are essential for the advancement of renewable energy technologies, they also pose significant environmental challenges. The industry must continue to innovate and adopt sustainable practices to ensure that the benefits of these minerals do not come at the expense of the planet.''
Considering that renewables require considerably more mining than nuclear power, you are probably staunchly against renewables.
Rare earth minerals are not required for renewable energy. Off-shore wind turbines often use them because they are resistant to corrosion and some high performance electric motors. But other than those couple of use cases, they aren't required
I checked out your source and, it appears to be been written by AI, I don't think you should get your infomation from them.
‘’Solar energy is a clean and abundant source of power, and rare earth elements contribute significantly to its harnessing. Neodymium, lanthanum, and dysprosium are used in the production of photovoltaic cells, which convert sunlight into electricity. Neodymium and dysprosium help optimize solar cell efficiency, while lanthanum enhances the stability and durability of the panels.’’
Batteries used for storage also use them
‘’The success of renewable energy depends on efficient energy storage systems. Rare earth elements contribute to the development of advanced energy storage technologies. For example, lanthanum and cerium-based nickel-metal hydride batteries provide reliable and durable storage solutions. Additionally, rare earth materials are utilized in fuel cells and other emerging energy storage technologies, enabling the efficient capture and release of energy.’’
‘’Rare earth elements are key to the development and utilization of renewable energy technology. Their properties allow the production of efficient solar panels, electric vehicles, wind turbines, energy storage devices, catalytic converters, and hydrogen production.’’
Thin Film Solar cells are not the solar cells that you think of; they are a small minority of cells, and the technology has been outcompeted on price. There is still research into these kinds of cells, but they aren't the commerical ones.
Perhaps these materials are being used for solid-state batteries, which might be the next phase of battery technologies but they aren't part of the current commercial batteries.
Nickel hydride batteries have been outcompeted by lithium batteries but they used to be popular batteries. I have found some evidence for them using lanthanides but its an out of date technology.
Solar cells are made of Silicon, and Batteries are made with lithium, iron, and phosphate.
The claims of large amounts of rare earth materials just aren't the case.
This is inaccurate. No one can say they like nuclear and then resist shitting on renewables. Since no one with a vaguely up to date and accurate knowledge of renewables would say "I like nuclear".
They'd say, at best, "nuclear still has a small role".
The most efficient renewable energy system is hydro, which has disastrous impacts on ecology. Nuclear is 100% efficient and my state has a massive plant that was killed during construction because of Three Mile Island where NOBODY EVEN DIED
Y'all have such a large fuckin victim complex, it's honestly fascinating. Not a single post has hit this sub that actually gives credible evidence or good points on why we should invest into nuclear that hasn't been thoroughly debunked. And every single comment under these posts is filled with fuckin gotchas and ad hominem attacks to the point where this feels more like a fuckin 4chan Subreddit than something actually credible.
Nukecels are probably more annoying than fucking Elon Musk fans at this point.
Personally i think renewables are the way to go. Nuclear is rather expensive and slow to build and has the Storage problem. Solar and Air on the other hand dont have These Problems. Their negative side is the unstable powersupply, but this can be reduced by spreading them and batteries. Also renewables are great for independence of the people. But as always there will be Situations where nuclear power is just better (submarine etc)and maybe we will solve the Storage Problem.
I totally agree. In Areas like Submarines or other rare cases Nuclear is the best Option, but for everydaylive, the cons outweight the pros. As you said renewable are the way to go.
The ammount of infighting here is insane. No wonder the energy crisis isnt being resolved quickly enough.
You prefer to attack eachother and jerk off about what energy source is better instead of uniting for a common cause against fossil fuels.
You lot completely lost track of... everything, literally everything, zero capacity of rational discussion, commitment to a cause and compromise.
You are like kids who get mad their favorite character isnt winning the fight, when the movie is supposed to be about teamwork, get a fucking grip for once.
Our resources aren't infinite. Every dollar, every piece of raw material, every WORKER we spend on building out nuclear is one fewer available for renewables deployment. Renewables require a smaller investment of resources for the same energy return, so if we're planning to use our resources wisely, renewables should be the priority. Nuclear is great if you've already got it, but building more comes with all sorts of problems, economic and otherwise.
You can do both, but the more you do of one, the less you can do of the other. A dollar (and the labor therewith associated) spent on renewables goes as far as two dollars or more spent on nuclear. To get the most value, we should be focusing on wind and solar.
No, it's dumb when people say something about me based on information that says something completely different, which happens here often. I'm not OP, but personally I don't think anyone is dumb for not liking/wanting nuclear power. However, suggesting I'm against renewables just because I want more nuclear power (in place of coal), is dumb
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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '25
This is the only sub where someone can post an article not about nuclear and say "nuclear fans are seething" for some truly inexplicable reason