this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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German Chancellor Scholz speaks out against new nuclear power (www.reuters.com)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Growth in german wind capacity is slowing. Soo... then the plan is to keep on with lignite and gas? Am I missing something?

Installed Wind Capacty - Germany

German Wind Capacity

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago (64 children)

Compared to nuclear, renewables are:

  • Cheaper
  • Lower emissions
  • Faster to provision
  • Less environmentally damaging
  • Not reliant on continuous consumption of fuel
  • Decentralised
  • Much, much safer
  • Much easier to maintain
  • More reliable
  • Much more responsive to changes in energy demands

Why would anyone waste money on the worse option? An analogy: you need lunch and you can choose between a nutritious and tasty $5 sandwich from an independent deli or a $10 expensive mass-produced sandwich from a chain. The independent deli is tastier, cheaper, more filling, and healthier, and it’s easier for you to get since it’s on your way to work. Why would you ever get the $10 sandwich?

According to you, I'm an idiot, and yet no one has debunked a single one of my arguments. No one has even tried to, they immediately crumple like a tissue as soon as they're asked directly to disprove the FACT that nuclear is more expensive, slower to provision and more environmentally damaging than renewables. If I'm so stupid it should be pretty easy to correct my errors?

Either that or you can loftily declare yourself above this argument, state that I am somehow moving the goalposts, say that “there’s no point, I’ll never change your mind” or just somehow express some amount of increduiity at my absolutely abhorrent behaviour by asking you such a straightforward question? You may also choose “that’s not the question I want to talk about, we should answer MY questions instead!”

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (12 children)

You forgot:

  • Not able to provide energy during the night/calm days
  • Not energy dense - require enormous amount of land that can be put to better use
  • Rely on battery storage - huge fire and explosion hazard
  • Need to be replaced and serviced much more often - the lack of density means that repair and maintenance crew have a lot of ground to cover
  • Energy output wildly fluctuates due to weather conditions.

Renewables have their place, but they cannot sustain the entire grid. At this point, going all in on renewables means either prolonging fossil fuel usage, or condemning vast swaths of the population to brownouts and energy poverty.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 years ago (11 children)

Look at all of these wrong arguments. It’s so thoughtful of you to bring them all together like this.

  1. It’s always day somewhere. Also there’s still wind, wave, geothermal, hydroelectric, etc. not to mention interconnectors. Additionally, energy demand during the night is very low. Peak energy usage is at the same time as peak solar generation. The idea is that if you spread renewables across a large enough area, natural shortages of wind/sun in one area is compensated for the wind/sun being in another area.
  2. It’s true that it isn’t energy dense, but it’s definitely not true that it can be “put to better use”. 5% of the US is covered in parking spaces, enough to provide 8 spaces for every car. If 10% of that land was allocated to solar power it would be enough to meet the electricity demand of the entire United States.
  3. Doesn’t rely on energy storage. Just build interconnectors. Electrical energy can be moved from where it is greatest in supply to where it is greatest in demand. Additionally, electrochemical batteries aren’t the only choice, there are countless ways to store electrical energy - pumped storage, thermal storage, etc.
  4. This is outright wrong. Source your claim that nuclear is easier and cheaper to maintain than renewables. I’ll wait.
  5. This is the same as your first point. See 1.

You’re wrong. There are numerous studies which say a 100% renewable future is entirely possible with current technology. Since you’re incapable of googling this basic fact here’s a link for you. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

For #2 to add: you can just install them over a parking lot, too

Makes people happy that their car isn't exposed to the sun/rain anymore and not removing anything from NIMBYs that fear for their car-privileges

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