this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
551 points (97.3% liked)
WTF
791 readers
1 users here now
The average c/WTF enjoyer
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I would love to learn about the mortal danger solar panels put me in
Don't know about solar but I know nuclear at least used to be statistically safer than wind per MW just due to injuries during construction. Gotta remember, it takes a lot of solar or wind to make the same amount of power as a nuclear plant and that means a lot of construction work. But I also haven't seeen those stats for a while so it may have changed.
Nuclear is very safe assuming you don't build the plant in a tsunami prone area which also happens to be practically on top of 4 different fault lines.
I was bullish on nuclear for a while but having looked at how expensive it is to build out I don’t think it really makes much sense anymore
It really depends on the location and situation. With the new generations of reactors they can also do things like seawater desalination with the waste heat alongside power production. You also have situations where the nuclear waste heat is used to heat entire communities far more efficiently than could be done with electricity. There are also many places where solar and wind just aren't practical for various reasons. In those areas nuclear may be a good option for base load power. Nuclear is also still far less environmentally destructive than hydro.
Yes, nuclear power plants are henoiusly expensive and there are definitely areas that they shouldn't be built, but they do still serve a purpose in certain areas. Most of the flack nuclear gets is just because most of our reactor fleet was built durring the cold war. New technologies can acheive far more with nuclear power far more safely and cost effectively than those old reactors.
What about the conversion of coal fired power plants to nuclear ones? I've seen that proposed quite a bit.
Wouldn't only the turbines and cooling tower be reusable? I thought the hard part was the reactor itself.
Even then I don't imagine it would be easy. Anything in a nuclear plant needs to be built to an extremely exacting standard that I'm pretty sure old coal powerplant components wouldn't be. I can't see how you could convert a coal plant into a nuclear plant without having to completely rebuild everything.
From the little I know it's a pipe dream. Just completely different scales.
Most of the cost is regulatory, and for good reason. I’d like to think that the new small modular reactors will allow us to reduce cost but it’ll take a lot longer than we have available to us.
Here’s the argument. The byline every conservative I’ve talked to falls back on is “there’s no way to recycle the materials and they don’t last that long”. “Where’s my recycling?” “Same with wind turbine blades”.
You start to notice the repetition of the same statements across republicans when you talk to any number of them.
The repetition is a bit creepy, but this is how conservative talk radio works. They are fantastic at mobilizing their peeps and this is part of how they do it.
I don't know about solar panels but fiberglass wind turbine blades are kinda recyclable. Fiberglass can be ground up and mixed into concrete to vastly improve the strength of that concrete.
Yep. From people who also say recycling is a scam