Thanks for this. I did ask OP for sources, in other words links to verifiable data to back up the assertion that:
“Has anyone who wants to “go green” without nuclear ever looked at the power output of these things?? It’s not even the same league! AaagggghHhHhhhhhhhh”
The data is widely available and easy to find.
It’s the difference between spending 0 seconds looking it up and wanting “a source”, versus actually looking it up and not finding anything, then asking where the info comes from.
Asking for a source just to ask for a source is called sealioning.
Asking for a source just to ask for a source is called sealioning.
Good grief, no.
I read so much absolute bullshit around nuclear and renewables where people just write out their feelings on the subject. Asking for sources to back up their claims isn’t sealioning, it’s a polite way of asking someone to try and back up their claims with facts.
In this instance, OP said, “Has anyone who wants to “go green” without nuclear ever looked at the power output of these things?? It’s not even the same league! AaagggghHhHhhhhhhhh”
I want to know what they’re talking about. If they’re saying 1 solar panel or wind turbine has a smaller output than a nuclear plant then … well yeah, that’s obvious. If they’re saying renewables won’t work without nuclear then that’s a straight up lie and I’d like them to post sources to back up that assertion.
Here are the claims he made:
We could have had an unrivaled nuclear power infrastructure but those NIMBY assholes stopped it 50 years ago
now we rely on extending existing plants past their lifetimes
Running in fucking circles about how to save the planet.
Has anyone who wants to “go green” without nuclear ever looked at the power output of these things?? It’s not even the same league
So which part do you know to be false, that you couldn’t easily look up and had to ask him where he got this obscure info? Which part do you want him to source? All of it? Even the part where we are running in circles fixing climate change? Or is it the part where current plants are being showered in money to make up for extended lifetimes?
Right, you were just sealioning.
https://www.opg.com/power-generation/our-power/
Fuck you
OPG manages power production for all of Ontario, with 2 nuke plants putting out over 3 GW each, for a total of ~6.5GW, OPG generates about 18-19GW so 30% is covered by two plants
The majority of the remainder is hydro across 66 fucking plants. And nothing else comes even close in output
And these are CANDU reactors, they don’t require refined uranium, and don’t contribute to proliferation like other plants, they also don’t meltdown explosively since boiling the coolant reduces the nuclear reaction rate.
So this kind of got lost in the weeds, and I see the argument below. The real reason I wont provide sources is partly because it is very easy to look up, and the reality is I could write a thesis with a ton of fucking sources and never cover it all. Typically, in an actual scientific debate, the onus is on you to provide a source which debunks my claims. However, I can give a short summary with some general, but verifiable numbers. I did a quick search for all of this, and most of it is on wikipedia with sources listed.
The average American nuclear power plant provides about 800-1000MW of energy, and has a life time of about 35-40 years. The US has 88 of them, most of which have been running since the 70s. Their age means many should be considered for decommissioning soon, but since we haven’t been building new ones to replace them the old ones continue to be serviced while we seek alternatives.
America’s largest solar farm produces ~350MW, which is less than half of a nuclear plant. That’s actually pretty decent, but this is the high end of the scale for solar, and this output is only achievable in perfect conditions (weather, daytime, location). At night it produces nothing. So the major problem many solar / wind enthusiasts ignore when discussing this is what happens then? How do we store enough power to sustain a city, or something larger, through every night? Those mighty big batteries aren’t eco friendly either, since at the moment our best option is lithium. That may change soon but we can’t really move on maybe.
My point to start with was that we should have never stopped building nuclear - we could have pushed fossil fuel out ages ago, but lobbyists really fucked that. Solar is great, but we need like 200 more of those major solar farms and an absolute fuckload of massive batteries, and the logistics of that is a nightmare that is unlikely to see fruition in time. It will be a long time before we have enough solar / wind to do more than supplement our power grid. We should keep building it in the meantime, but it is also a slow process, much like building nearly any large scale power generation.
To be clear, I am in favor of both. Nuclear should have always been the back bone of our power grid. Solar should be coming online as supplementary power supply allowing us to decentralize and support the transition to greener tech. This is not an either/or situation - we really need both, or fossil fuels will royally fuck our planet first. Maybe someday we will be efficient enough to go all solar, but expecting it to replace fossil fuels AND nuclear in the near future is just unrealistic idealism. We will die before hitting such ideal goals - in the meantime we must compromise.
