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
I want to pay for something that works. That’s how you wisely invest money. And what works is a mix or nuclear and renewables.
But ecologist are pushing hard their propaganda against nuclear so we would have to use gas or coal for decades before the smart grid can work.
As for the cost, it doesn’t account for storage. Unlike nuclear that does account for dealing with wastes. Wastes that are far, far less of a problem than what ecologists are afraid of.
Again, that’s simply false. Around the world, the taxpayer ends up paying the major portion of the cost needed to dealing with that. Look it up.
And a mix of nuclear and renewables isn’t that smart. These two don’t complement each other. Nuclear doesn’t ‘balance out’ the fluctuations of renewable by pushing the rods more in or pulling them out. Look at the diagrams. Nuclear produces a constant amount of energy, day and night. It is theoretically possible, but practically not feasible to cycle this too much. They do not complement each other. You’d need almost the same energy storage facilities you’d need without nuclear being in the mix. It’s a waste. And I don’t know who listened to too much propaganda. If the studies and numbers tell a different story, maybe reflect a bit on your previous knowledge. I’ve also grown up learning nuclear is a cheap way of generating energy and it produces less CO2. But technology has made advancements and the first thing just isn’t true (anymore).
And you’re generating more cost for future generations. Dealing with the waste. Dismantling those reactors is a huge ordeal. You end up with vast amounts of concrete that is expensive to treat. That isn’t an investment, that’s a liability. On the other hand, a wind farm is an investment.
(Sorry. I don’t want to argue with you specifically. I’m more annoyed by politics for making the wrong decisions. And getting us to in the situation where we now burn all that coal that we wanted to get away from. This was the original subject of this discussion anyways. We’re now in that situation and we can’t change the past. But we can make the right decisions for the future, now. And I expect politicians to know how much for example 100 billions of money is. And they should do scientific studies with the current state of knowledge and then do the calculation and do what’s best.)
You know that there are fou tries already having most of their power from nuclear right? There is no theory crafting to make about it. We’re already doing it.
Meanwhile there is no country running with wind or solar. Balancing those is theoretical because we never did it on a country scale.
That’s hard facts. The only renewable energy that’s proven to work on a country scale is hydro/marine.
And no, nuclear is not so expensive. Germany for example spent much more on renewables than France did to build its whole nuclear parc.
Finally, talking about wastes and stuff is a distraction. Co2 is a life threatening problem on a global scale. Nuclear will never be dangerous like that, so the point is moot. Anything that can help remove co2 emission should be used. This includes nuclear.
