this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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With climate change looming, it seems so completely backwards to go back to using it again.

Is it coal miners pushing to keep their jobs? Fear of nuclear power? Is purely politically motivated, or are there genuinely people who believe coal is clean?


Edit, I will admit I was ignorant to the usage of coal nowadays.

Now I'm more depressed than when I posted this

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[โ€“] [email protected] 26 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (25 children)

Yes, countries like Germany are turning to coal as a direct result of nuclear-phobia.

The US, with all its green initiatives and solar/wind incentives, is pumping more oil than Saudi Arabia. The US has been the top oil producer on whole the planet for the last 5-6 years. The problem is getting worse.

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (13 children)

As people pointed out in another thread, nuclear energy is NOT the future and also a really bad short term solution,so countries like Germany are going back to coal short term to make the transitions to renewables in the meantime.

It's not a great solution, but without Nordstream, there's really not much else more sensible to do right now, just to make the transition.

[โ€“] Lemmyvisitor 14 points 2 years ago (12 children)

what makes nuclear energy a bad option?

[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

A single new reactor takes decades to build and costs billions. Investing in solar, wind, the grid and storage instead will generate more energy, faster, and for less.

[โ€“] [email protected] -1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

It's not "instead of".

You're supposed to run nuclear along side renewables. Opposed to running fossile fuels alongside renewables. Either way, something has be running besides renewables.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

Opposed to running fossile fuels alongside renewables.

But that's literally what you're gonna have to do for 20+ years if you decide to go both ways and also build new nuclear plants. Put all your budget into renewables at once and you instantly cut down on the fossil fuel you'd otherwise burn while waiting for your reactor to go online, all while you're saving money from the cheap energy yield which you can reinvest into more renewables or storage R&D to eventually overcome the requirement to run something alongside it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

No 100% renewables is viable. You don't need anything running beside it.

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