“with wind the single-biggest contributor… Power production costs have declined “by almost half” … And the clean energy sector has created 50,000 new jobs… Ask me what was the impact on the electricity sector in Uruguay after this tragic war in Europe — zero.”
Nuclear fanbois: GASP! How dare you?!
I don’t understand the nuclear energy hate. Of the nonrenewables it is the cleanest, and it is not always possible to run 100% renewable, (they depend on natural factors such as sun or wind), while nuclear is constant and always producing. Look at Germany and how it is polluting using gas and fossiles, it would be a million times better it they used nuclear energy.
But the issue is you still need something for when the sun isn’t shining like what happens every night, and when the wind isn’t blowing, which can also happen at night. What will power everything during that time? Nuclear can be the backbone that keeps things running when renewables aren’t keeping up with demand. Sadly we can’t fully rely on renewables, and between having gas and coal as the backup or nuclear as the backup, I’d prefer a billion times nuclear over the other option
Decades and decades of fossil fuel company FUD about nuclear that they managed to get the greens to buy into a long time ago.
Because it’s an obvious psyop that took over almost every social media platform. No one was talking about nuclear then BOOM everyone was talking about nuclear all of a sudden with exactly zero mainstream public input from politicians or even marketing from nuclear power companies. People hate nuclear, because some of us have been alive long enough to remember Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima (the worst nuclear disaster in human history, 2011).
Here’s a list of every single nuclear meltdown/disaster/catastrophe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents
The fission reaction to boil the water to spin the turbines is clean, but literally every single other facet of nuclear production, from mining, to enriching, to transport, to post-reaction storage (where nuclear waste inevitably always leaks) is disastrous for the environment.
I’m pretty sure you’re glossing over Germany replacing nuclear with coal, which has been probably been the largest story in nuclear since Fukushima.
Even including major disasters, nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest sources of power, and the only one poised to seriously displace fossil fuels in many places.
If anything, “Sunshine and rainbows” renewables are a psyop to help entrench fossil fuels long-term.
Nuclear is just not practical. Even if you discount the risk of severe impact if anything ever goes wrong, and the long term impact on the environment if the fuel and waste chain. we’ve countless case studies that it’s just too expensive, too complex to build, too much putting all your eggs in one basket.
Making up some numbers but I think the scale is right …. Which would you choose:
— $12B and 10-20 years to build a nuclear plant, requiring highly specialized fuel and employees.all or nothing: you get no benefit the whole time it’s under construction so payback is multiple decades. Given the specialty fuel, employees, security, it’s the most expensive choice to operate
— $1B and 10-12 years to build a wind farm, but you start getting income as soon as sections come online. Fuel cost is zero and one being out for maintenance has negligible impact in production/profit. You get payback practically as soon as the project is built and it’s all gravy from there
Adding to this, while the wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun doesn’t always shine, nuclear needs water to evaporate. In a world where droughts during summer get ever more common, nuclear/coal is not the 24/365 solution it once was. The future has to rely on a diverse mix of different energy sources, if it wants to be resilient.
Even worse, they prematurely closed their nuclear power plants, even recently. 🤦♂️
You seem to be the type of person that doesn’t understand that you just can’t easily decide from one day to another to keep nuclear power plants online, that where decided to go offline soon over 10 years ago. Supply chains already adapted, technically necessary inspections weren’t performed because it would soon shut down etc. You just cant easily revert a plan to turn off all nuclear power plans by a certain date from 10 years ago just days or weeks before that date.
It’s a good energy source in principle and Germany definitely should have let their reactors run longer, but it’s just too damn expensive to build new ones. I’m not aware of any serious private installations of nuclear that are being built right now. One small modular reactor company in the US recently announced they will need twice as much money as previous estimated to build one.
Meanwhile, a ton of people and companies are building solar and wind everywhere.
Well, not every country has wind farms or water turbines as viable option. You know, geography and stuff…
My country of Belgium. Unless by “100 % renewable” you include fossile gas generation “offset” by summer’s overproduction (which would be disingenuous).
Middle of January: 100% overcast for weeks on end with only 8 hours of daylight, some days with little to no wind. Geography does not support more hydro or any geothermal generation. Country is way too densely populated for meaningful biomass fuel production (not that it is a climate-friendly practice anyway).
Maaaybe there is a stretch argument to be made about offshore wind/water, but we have relatively little coastline and very busy waterways due to having some of the busiest shipping ports of Europe, so I doubt even in the most optimistic scenarios this can fill the gap during the winter season.
For any meaningful definition of the concept, we can’t be 100 % dependent on nationally-sourced renewables until we figure out much much denser and cheaper long term storage solutions. Which is alright - maintaining existing nuclear reactors is an option (barely due to legaislative sabotage pushed by the “greens” but a couple gigawatts is nothing to scoff at) and more importantly we are part of the EU which will hopefully allow us to buy southern European solar/wind via HVDC lines in the future, and we’re already very dependent on French nuclear. (Also we don’t have to be 100 % independent to push for renewables, perfect mustn’t be the enemy of good and all that)
Vatican City /s
I think that there are constraints for certain countries, but the majority probably could. And when they can’t, it should be solved by cooperation and trade, IMHO.
For example Czech republic, Slovakia, baltic states, maybe Finland. It’s not like there’s none of these available. It’s they’re not really viable/meaningful options, yet. Sure you can build solar, but with nearly no sunlight in winter it’s almost useless for half the year…
I am not intending to add fuel to this fire of a comment thread, however I was wondering if Stockholm, Sweden’s solution of burning culled rabbits, for fuel, would be considered ‘reneweable energy’?
Looks like that’s just the grid? I’m sure there’s more to go for transportation and eliminating the need for generators and gas, but this is a great start!
does anyone ever assume that it’s anything other than the grid when it comes to some article like this?
electricity is’t the majority of the energy consumed in nearly any country.
it’s a easy way to keep confusing less vigilant people by calling electricity as energy.
Just call things the way they are.
I mean I doubt any reasonable person would think that literally every household in Uruguay has replaced their gas stove with an electric/induction stove and that they use only AC/heat pumps and everyone has switched to an electric car and every bus has been converted to a trolley and or Battery/Hydrogen Electric
and a bunch of other stuff.
You’re right; 2/3 of worldwide energy is actually waste heat.
https://www.businessinsider.com/most-energy-still-comes-from-oil-2015-10
Here’s the chart from 2007: Waste heat / losses are in the top right, although it doesn’t show the transport sector losses which are higher than for coal generation.
What this means is that when we fully electrify all sectors, by using renewable energy such as wind and solar, our total energy generation capacity will only need to be about 1/3 to 1/4 of what we currently produce today to fulfill our current energy needs. That’s huge.
Was the wind blowing all night every night? Or do they have enough hydro (or another power source) to power then while the sun is down?
“Hydropower provides a large percentage of installed production capacity in Uruguay, almost all of it produced by four hydroelectric facilities, three on the Rio Negro and one, the Salto Grande dam shared with Argentina, on the Uruguay River. The production from these hydropower sources is dependent on seasonal rainfall patterns, but under normal hydrological conditions, can supply off-peak domestic demand.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Uruguay
And they burn fossil fuels if necessary or import from Brazil it seems. They would have problems if a season is dry though.
They haven’t for four months though, which is what the actual article is about. You’re all over the thread throwing around negativity about the least optimal conditions.
Are you not keen to see how long they can do this for? If they achieve this for 11 out of 12 months of the year for the next decade, is that not a huge win for them and for our ambitions around the globe?
Very cool. I hope they are looking at reducing demand for power as much as increasing production.
Actually, with clean sources of electricity like wind and solar, the amount consumption doesn’t matter. It only matters if there isn’t enough for everyone, or the power comes from non-green sources (coal etc)
I don’t understand the objection to greater efficiency… Even renewables are not without their own environmental costs of mining, transportation, manufucaturing etc. If we use less power we can more easily transition to renewables, with less disruption to the environment.
You’re right! There’s nothing wrong with efficiency and teaching people to be less wasteful, however I believe including it in your argument for renewables means muddying the message.
Talking about getting production to 100% renewable puts the onus on governments and power companies to change.
Talking about efficiency is about getting consumers to use less, and allows energy producers and politicians to point the finger at people leaving their lights on unnecessarily rather than getting on with the job of making more renewable energy.
This is of course speculation on my part
