2100
submitted 1 year ago by sv1sjp@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Resonosity@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

Did you read the quote? 15-20 years, as in decades before 1 nuke plant is built. I agree in that politicians of the past should have led us to a more sustainable and resilient energy future, but we're here now.

Advanced nuclear should still be 100% pursued to try to get those lead times down and to incorporate things like waste recycling, modularity, etc., but the lead time in decades absolutely means nuclear power might not be something worth doing.

The IPCC puts the next 10-20 years as the most important and perilous for getting a hold on climate change. If we wait for that long by not rolling out emission-free power sources, transit modes, or even carbon-free concrete, etc., then we might cross planetary boundaries that we can't come back from.

Nuclear is a safe bet and bet worth pursuing. I would argue that, along with that source from the IAEA, old nuclear is note worth it.

[-] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

How much concrete does it take to build a nuclear plant? Concrete production is currently 8% of global emissions, so if you have to scale up construction capacity 10x for the next decade, don't you end up destroying the environment with concrete before they are even operational?

[-] Resonosity@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 year ago

Great point. You need concrete for wind, solar, and li-ion battery storage too (including pumped hydro), but out of those I'd say pumped hydro is the only one that remotely compares in the amount of concrete needed for construction.

So purely looking at the emissions from materials needed to build these power sources, renewables have the edge due to less concrete. These emissions might show up elsewhere in raw material extraction like with silicon for solar, and then the rare earth metals needed for generators in wind, all the lithium/nickel/cobalt needed for batteries, etc., but I want to say that the Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) from places like the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the US or the International Energy Agency (IEA) worldwide have taken that into account and still show that renewables + storage are cheaper on a carbon basis compared to fossil fuels and nuclear.

[-] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

The cool thing about concrete for renewables (excluding hydro dam) is only the very base pad needs to be virgin. You can make a lot of the rest of the base and fill material with down cycled concrete. So tearing down part of an old factory on land near the solar panels are? Crush it up and only move it a few miles over to where you need it. Rather than hauling that to a landfill where it sits forever, costing energy use to haul, and more energy use to bring the fill and other bade materials from a further destination.

this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
2100 points (94.3% liked)

World News

38949 readers
1521 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS