• Zagorath@aussie.zone
    2·
    5 months ago

    Safe, sure. Efficient? Not even close.

    It’s far, far more expensive than renewable energy. It also takes far, far longer to build a plant. Too long to meet 2030 targets even if you started building today. And in most western democracies you wouldn’t even be able to get anything done by 2040 if you also add in political processes, consultation, and design of the plant.

    There’s a reason the current biggest proponents of nuclear energy are people and parties who previously were open climate change deniers. Deciding to go to nuclear will give fossil fuel companies maximum time to keep doing their thing. Companies which made their existence on the back of fossil fuels, like mining companies and plant operators also love it, because it doesn’t require much of a change from their current business model.

  • Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    lol nuclear is really uneconommical, way too expensive and therefore really inefficient. You need 10-20 years to build a plant for energy 3 times more expensive than wind. For plants that still require mining. That produce waste we cannot store and still cannot reuse (except for one small test plant). For plants that no insurance company want to insure and energy companies dont like to build without huge government subsidies.

    I know lemmy and reddit have a hard on for nuclear energy because people who dont know anything about it think its cool. But this post is ridiculous even for lemmy standards.

  • Caveman@lemmy.world
    1·
    5 months ago

    There are downsides to nuclear these days. Incredibly high cost with a massive delay before they’re functioning. Solar + wind + pumped hydro + district heating is where it’s at in 2024.

    • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
      1·
      5 months ago

      This.

      Also, tie together more countries’ power grids to even out production and demand of renewables, and reduce the need for other backup sources.

      For a fraction of the cost of nuclear, increase the storage capacity as well. We’ve had days where the price per MWh was negative in many hours, because of excess production.

      The barriers to carbon free energy aren’t technical, they’re purely political.

  • elfahor@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    1·
    5 months ago

    There are two main problems in my opinion, and they are both related to the “fuel”. First, uranium is rare and you often need to buy it from other countries. For instance, Russia. Not great. Second, it is not renewable energy. We can’t rely on nuclear fission in the long run. Then there’s also the issue of waste, which despite not being as critical as some argue, is still a problem to consider

  • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    5 months ago

    If you’re interested in energy solutions and haven’t read the RethinkX report on the feasibility of a 100% solar, wind and battery solution, it’s definitely worth taking a look.

    Whilst I agree that we need to decarbonise asap with whatever we can, any new nuclear that begins planning today is likely to be a stranded asset by the time it finishes construction. That money could be better spent leaning into a renewable solution in my view.

  • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    1·
    5 months ago

    In Spain we are starting to get negative prices every weekend for electricity thanks to renewables. France is not even close to those prices with their bet for nuclear.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love nuclear power. And I’m not a big fan ok what thousands of windmills made to our landscapes. But efficiency wise renewable is unbeatable nowadays.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      Meanwhile in Georgia (USA) they completed a new nuclear power plant and they have to raise rates because it went 100% over its $14 billion budget.

    • The Menemen!@lemmy.world
      01·
      5 months ago

      They don’t need to be exclusive. Power generation should be diverse. Otherwise prices will go through the roof on times without wind (happens in Germany). This can lead to higher energy prices in combination with high energy exports.

      • ShortN0te@lemmy.ml
        1·
        5 months ago

        Nuclear power does not solve the issue here. Nuclear reactors take hours or even days to ramp up or down. They are not quick enough to react to such occasions.

        • The Menemen!@lemmy.world
          01·
          5 months ago

          True, it wouldn’t be enough, This is why Germany still has a lot of coal-fired power station and natural gas power stations, despite huge investments into renewables, and is also investing a lot into wood-fired power stations (imo a really terrible idea). The nuclear plants could still ease the situation by giving a stable basic load that has some planable variability (wind models are getting also better every year and aren’t that bad as it is). For now renewables cannot really provide a very stable basic load (at least not here, might be different for other areas).

          There are great concepts to improve all of this with stuff like pumped-storage hydroelectricity, but those cannot be build everywhere and take up a lot of space. It is going forward and I think nuclear power will come to an end eventually. For now, I think they still have their place (and imo Germany acted irrationally by shutting them all down).

          I mean, we’ve been lucky that France completly fucked their energy sector up (hints towards that nuclear plants probably also won’t be the ultimate solution), otherwise we’d have lost a loooot of money and would have had energy prices even worse.

          Here an imo interesting read: https://gemenergyanalytics.substack.com/p/capture-price-of-importsexports-in

    • Mubelotix@jlai.lu
      01·
      5 months ago

      Energy is expensive in France because we are legally forced by european regulation to sell at those prices. Our energy is the least expensive to produce

    • fellowmortal@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      01·
      5 months ago

      Negative energy prices are a bad thing! That means that someone is dumping energy into the grid (you should be paying the grid if you have solar panels!!) In the UK all renewable energy had to be called ‘experimental’ so that the pricing was fixed and the government picks up the tab - that’s not good. Check this map - right now the wind isn’t blowing and solar hasn’t got out of bed - so most of the countries using renewables are looking shit - later today solar will kick in, but tonight it will be bad again. That isn’t a solution.

  • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
    01·
    5 months ago

    Hi, I work in waste handling, and I would like to tell you about dangerous materials and what we do with them.

    There are whole hosts of chemicals that are extremely dangerous, but let’s stick with just cyanide, which comes from coal coking, steel making, gold mining and a dozen chemical synthesis processes.

    Just like nuclear waste, there is no solution for this. We can’t make it go away, and unlike nuclear waste, it doesn’t get less dangerous with time. So, why isn’t anyone constantly bringing up cyanide waste when talking about gold or steel or Radiopharmaceuticals? Well, that’s because we already have a solution, just not “forever”.

    Cyanide waste, and massive amounts of other hazardous materials, are simply stored in monitored facilities. Imagine a landfill wrapped in plastic and drainage, or a building or cellar with similar measures and someone just watches it. Forever. You can even do stuff like build a golfcourse on it, or malls, or whatever.

    There are tens of thousands of these facilities worldwide, and nobody gives a solitary fuck about them. It’s a system that works fine, but the second someone suggests we do the same with nuclear waste, which is actually less dangerous than a great many types of chemical waste, people freak out about it not lasting forever.