Coal ash (from some mines) contains so much uranium that if emissions like this were detected near NPP all hell would break loose, but nobody cares. Energy content of that uranium can be higher than what was released during coal combustion
Comment on New clean energy comes out. *look inside* It’s just boiling water again…
chaogomu@lemmy.world 13 hours agoExtremely.
Even adding in construction and mining, it has the lowest carbon per KWh out of any option. Even Hydro comes out worse, due to the years of carbon and methane emissions from the decaying plant matter at the bottom of the newly formed lake.
Wind and solar are down there, but the mining costs and the low output per unit tend to bump the numbers.
Noted, that’s just the carbon released. There are other metrics, and nuclear tends to meet most all of them because it’s very heavily regulated.
fullsquare@awful.systems 2 hours ago
woelkchen@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
“coal ash is worse” doesn’t make nuclear waste clean and non toxic. Both are dirty, just different kinds of dirt. Geothermal is an excellent “boil water” technology independent of weather and without toxic waste.
fullsquare@awful.systems 1 hour ago
there are still coal powerplants around and any replacement is better. geothermal doesn’t work everywhere
Zagorath@quokk.au 5 hours ago
This page’s “Life cycle CO2 equivalent (including albedo effect)” page says Nuclear is just a hair worse than onshore wind in the median case, significantly worse than both on- and offshore wind in the worst case (worst for both types), and slightly better in the best case. In best case, hydro actually beats nuclear.
Also, TIL tidal power isn’t commercially in use. I swear we were learning about it in school 20 years ago, and were not even told then that it wasn’t viable.
Including the effects of albedo seems rather straightforward and worth doing. Of course it neglects some more complicated factors, like opportunity cost of staying on fossil fuels in the meantime for the 20+ years it takes to build nuclear. A convenient part of the reason that the biggest proponents of nuclear tend to be those politicians and special interests who also support fossil fuels.
woelkchen@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Radioactivity isn’t clean.
cynar@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Coal plants put out more radioactive material than even the bomb factories they call nuclear power plants. Newer plant designs are FAR more fail safe too, and some can actually ‘eat’ the waste from older plants.
New nuclear is right up there with renewables, with the added bonus of being great for baseloads. The only problem is we needed to be building it 20 years ago, since it takes a long time to design, permit and build them properly. If we try to rely on them now, it will be too late.
0x0@lemmy.zip 40 minutes ago
since it takes a long time to design, permit and build them properly.
That’s been rigged by design due to… interests… it doesn’t take that long to build one.
cynar@lemmy.world 21 minutes ago
Fully agreed, though it’s also something you really don’t want done on too much of an accelerated timeline. Rushing the construction, when the fail-safes rely on it, and it will be an absolute bitch to fix later, is a poor plan.
Unfortunately the red tape has become far too risk adverse. E.g. the reactors china is now building were designed in the UK. The UK government killed 5 attempts to get them built through red tape and time killing. Eventually a Chinese scientist found out about the plans. (With permission) he contacted the Chinese government. Sufficient to say, those plans formed the basis for the newer Chinese reactors they are building out now. They are also exporting the expertise, since most western countries have had their skilled engineers reach retirement, before passing on their skills and knowledge.
In practice, you are looking at 5-10 years minimum, from site selection to power on.
woelkchen@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Class A whataboutism. Both are dirty, neither is clean.
vithigar@lemmy.ca 1 hour ago
Perfect is the enemy of good.
cynar@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
It’s relative harm. New nuclear is far cleaner than coal, and can slot into it’s place in the grid. We should have done this decades ago, but the plans languished till china found out about them. (Much to the designers joy)
It’s also not an either/or situation. As china is demonstrating, there is a limit to how quickly you can roll out renewables. Doing other, pollution reduction in parallel makes sense.
Taking nuclear off the table was the biggest win the oil barrons pulled off.
On a plus side, we will finally find out if fusion is viable in the next 5-10 years. The first over-unity test reactors, designed for sustained operation are being built.
ricdeh@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
That’s one hell of a claim. In fact such an outrageously bold one that you shouldn’t be able to post a comment like that without citing a reputable source.
SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 40 minutes ago
Not OP but
Image
ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy