• NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    27
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Nuclear power provides energy that is largely free of carbon emissions and can play a significant role in helping deal with climate change.

    This is a giant hoax of an argument anyway.

    Nuclear plants consist mainly of a shitton of concrete (and only the best sort is good enough). The production of that concrete causes a terrible amount of carbon emissions upfront.

    But in most industrialized countries, the construction of nuclear plants tends to grossly exceed their budgeted cost and run years over schedule.

    LMAO I didn’t know that. So they tried to solve the problem of human stupidity? ;-)

    modular nuclear reactors, which can be built in a centralized production facility and then shipped to the site of their installation.

    Yea, sure… make it even better by adding an extra lot of carbon emissions for the transportation.

    I have to take back my statement from above: they did NOT try to solve stupidity, but rather exploit it.

    • matlag@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Nuclear plants consist mainly of a shitton of concrete (and only the best sort is good enough). The production of that concrete causes a terrible amount of carbon emissions upfront.

      Actually, if you compare them to solar or wind at equivalent service, it’s not that straightforward:

      Renewables installed capacity is nowhere close to their actual production, nuclear can produce its nominal capacity in a very steady way.

      Wind turbines also need a lot of concrete, and much more metal for equivalent output. Solar panels need a lot of metals.

      Renewables need a backup source to manage their intermittency. It’s most often batteries and fossil plants these days. I don’t think I need to comment on fossil plants, but batteries production also has a very significant carbon emission budget, and is most often not included in comparisons. Besides, you need to charge the batteries, that’s even more capacity required to get on par with the nuclear plant.

      With all of these in consideration, IPCC includes nuclear power along with solar and wind as a way to reduce energy emissions.

      • oyo@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Solar plus batteries are already cheaper than nuclear, and only going down. Nuclear has always gotten more expensive over time. For the cost of the most recently completed nuclear plant in the US they could have built 12 times the nameplate capacity worth of solar with 24 hours of battery backup. (A totally unnecessary amount of dispatchability.)

        Solar and batteries easily “pay” for their manufacturing carbon emissions within 1-2 years max (as does nuclear). This payback period only goes down as the grid gets greener.

    • NoSpotOfGround@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      ‘Interesting’ analysis. Now do the same for an equivalent-power thermal power plant, over its lifetime.