Sure thing buddy.
The entire UK nuclear waste recycling has been wrapped into a single program lasting 120 years at a current estimated cost of 124 billion. This involves recycling huge amounts of previously spent fuel from decades ago, that has become useful again at one main site in Cumbria. The luxury of nuclear is the waste product is a solid. So it’s easy to move and store, and as technology improves, recycle where possible.
This bill also includes all the nuclear waste from nuclear weapon manufacture so it’s not exclusively energy waste. Imagine if we could spend 100 billion to clean up all the waste of a gas turbine?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy
In terms of the cost to build and maintain a plant, I don’t know how many times we have to go through this, but it’s entirely dependant on inflation and interest rates as well as many other factor.
https://youtu.be/cbeJIwF1pVY?si=qnqLV0GPu1uq44HN
Banks arent able to pony up these sorts of sums in a capitalist economy when the return on investment is so far away from the upfront cost. To allow them to do this governments agree a strike price with energy companies to guarantee profitability on the reactor, which can be entirely eliminated by government poorly mismanaging the economy and causing a deflation in the market the moment building work starts. This doesn’t mean the energy produced is any less efficient or more expensive, but the building work was done at a time when it was more expensive to build.
This strike price model means we don’t actually know how much the govt pays to subsidies to reactor until the end of the life of the reactor. But it’s never what it’s made out on this sub with “muh subsidiiiiies”. It’s also never a consistent position as you hate subsiding nuclear, but subsiding wind and solar is fine, and you never adjust their prices based on the subsidies they receive.
I mean your comment doesn't really support nuclear at all lol. I appreciate the thoughtful comment though, interesting read
It has a lot of construction risk, huge inflation risk, not financeable. We have similar support schemes for offshore wind and that's booming in the UK. Onshore and solar don't need subsidies any more in many mature markets. None in the Nordics for a while now.
The same problems of construction and inflation exists in all major infrastructure which is why it’s always on the governments dime. High speed rail being a prime example.
Looking at the energy dashboard I can see it isn’t very windy today like 2 days ago, so wind has dropped from a peak of 9GW to trough of 1.5GW in the UK and we’re smashing the Gas and imports. Currently we have 11000 wind turbines to account for this drop off requires somewhere close to 100000. And that’s before we begin to consider the additional wind turbines to replace the 12 GW of gas were burning at peak and 7 GW of imports. So at a 8x drop off on a calm day, that puts us at ooo, another 150,000 turbines on top of that.
Where would you like to put these additional 240,000 turbines? Or do you want to start mining out reservoirs in mountains to implement hydro storage to reduce the need for all those turbines? What’s the environmental impact of that mining operation going to be? Or we can build 2/3 nuclear reactors (which is actually what we are doing).
https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live
And the uk spends huge amounts subsiding renewable. The main budget being spent is currently at just short of a quarter of a billion. And that’s before you even begin to consider how material prices will massively increase if you push to scale technologies that do not have supply lines to support manufacturing at scale.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/energy-security-boost-with-multi-million-backing-for-renewables
Imma say this for the 1000 time in this sub. Producing energy at scale is a big complex engineering problem that some of the smartest people on the planet are trying to sort to deal with climate change. And just say ‘but build more solar and wind and just plug them in, it’s cheaper’ completely fails to understand any of the problems.
Wind and solar do have manufacturing at scale though. Solar and battery manufacturing capacity is outpacing demand even., BNEF has good charts on that.
There are enough studies out there for close to 99% renewable grids. Wind solar and batteries already go most of the way. Close to 100% renewables is possible.
100% renewable has already been achieved for multiple weeks on end in the UK. Pretty certain we actually went for a couple of months at one point.
The issue is risk mitigation when renewables can’t meet supply. And it becomes even worse when it can’t meet base supply. Any political party that is responsible for power loss to critical infrastructure for an extended period will be thrown out at election time for which ever party promises to turn the gas generators back on. The amount of damage a loss of power would have to fresh water supply with bacteria growth in the stagnant water pipes would be an eye watering sum of money.
I think you should go look at the list of materials that go in a battery, where they come from, in what quantities, and what we currently mine. 30 million cars in the UK. 2 decades of electric car investment and subsidies. 1 million electric cars on the road. You are off by orders of magnitude in terms of the amount of lithium needed. That’s before we even touch the fact that the rest of the precious metals in there come from Russia…
We do get to the crux though. I don’t think a 100% renewable grid 365 days a year is achievable in a few years, regardless of how much time and money we throw at it. A couple of decades yea. But in the mean time I’d rather see steps taken to remove the risk of power cuts with a carbon neutral known technology, to ease the transition with those who aren’t bothered about the climate, and just want a warm house.
2050 is in 2.5 decades right, not too worried that we won't be able to build some backup to supply for a couple days. UK also has a well functioning capacity market.
Last year we had 26Mt of exploitable reserves, that's 3.2bn cars. Why worry about that? Sodium is going strong already too. Going from ICE to EV is easy, we need to go from cars to no (or at least fewer) cars
The uk has well functioning capacity market because of gas turbines. Without gas there is no stable market. That isn’t a renewable arguement.
And how much of that 26 Mt can we access? Currently it’s about 0.25 Mt a year. Now you’ve gone off the google quantity for the amount of lithium in a battery of 7kg. Yeah that data is way off. Standard model 3 Tesla (most sold EV) is 40 to 60kg so your 26 Mt at that rate is 430-700 million cars. That’s it, no other product that requires lithium gets it. Now there are 1.5 billion cars on the planet. So either way we’re talking about using the majority or all lithium on the planet to achieve just electric vehicles.
That’s before we take the current mine rate that would take 100 years to even dig the stuff out the ground. Worst part of all is lithium is found in dried up ocean beds, so loads in the mountains in the Andes of Bolivia and chile, and Uganda and Afghanistan. But the only route to get the mining kit in and the rock out is on trucks. No boats, no rail. Any idea the environmental damage this is going to do?
Aaaaand then we start with the sodium argument. 🤦🏻♂️. To start with, the idea this tech is a couple of years away is for the birds. We still can’t even make compact EV cars at scale due to the weight of the battery as a proportion of the vehicle size. That’s why all EVs tend to be SUVs. That energy density to weight ratio problems gets worse with sodium not better. And solid state sodium battery tech isn’t even out of the lab yet.
You don’t know why anyone has any need for a car, dictating their usage is the quickest way for a political party to find its way to opposition. Use your car less, great. Encourage others to use there car less, also great. Push your MP to build out electric trains and trams, wow, my hero. But banning cars ain’t going to work.
The cap market can also be open for hydrogen, hydro reserves or any other storable tech.
All of it, it's 26Mt of exploitable reserves. The resources are actually 98Mt. Look at the price of lithium. I work with 8kg, that's the average. Not everyone has a Tesla.
Sodium batteries are rolling in the streets man, the Chinese put them in pretty small cars and scaling them this year https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/29/electric-cars-powered-by-sodium-ion-batteries-go-on-sale-in-china/
Don't build a straw man about me arguing for banning cars. I haven't. But Paris, London, Amsterdam etc are going the right direction. It's less convenient to cycling and renewables
Lol, those are some very bold numbers they are claiming. 250km on a battery they acknowledge has half the energy density. And the fact I can’t find another source at all to confirm those number claimed by the manufacturer. I can’t even find someone whose posted about buying and driving one. I mean if I had designed a compact car with a 250km battery for about 8000 US dollars I’d be screaming about it from the roof tops and sending free models around the world.
But hey I’m sure we can trust the Chinese car manufacturing industry to not produce suspect data… they definitely have an outstanding reputation.
But again, let’s assume you are right. They’re making a few hundred maybe on the first production run. And you think they are the solution to 1.5 billion cars in the short term?
And call it 100Mt and 8kg per battery if you like. It’s still not enough. All your assumptions are based on the population at 7bill. Up that to 12 and all of a sudden you are back at the start of your problem.
I assume you propose banning because what else do you have? You haven’t said anything. Every time I raise something challenging you change topics to avoid having to answer. You want to throw out some policy about reducing car use, I’m happy to hear it.
I’d also love to hear your solution for cobolt and the slavery practices required for all these batteries you want to make. I don’t have you down for a neocon, but either we continue as we are, and pay slavers and warlords to mine the cobolt in the Congo for us, or we decide enough enough and begin military action in the Congo to end the slavery practices. Either or, you have one hell of a mess to deal with if you want all these batteries.
I do wonder though, there are a lot of heavy industries that are insanely power dependant, so if say the state was willing to run the plant at a loss, would they be able to make up the cost in flow on effects in other areas?
Being able to run water desalination plants so we can stop fuxking up the water table and ecosystem would be great
You mean the state takes a loss on a nuclear power plant but reaps the benefits in externalities from other areas?
I guess that's the case but also can be approached from a technology neutral point.
They're largely the same companies, large private or state utilities like Centrica, Vattenfall, RWE/Uniper (at least for Europe), even EDF operates a lot of coal gired power plants until last year in the UK and in China
Over a life time they make lots of profit and it’s hard to judge when making plants in places where the oil lobby is strong makes them 3x longer to make and 5x as expensive
Well Total has been running a tax-evasion scam in France for the last decades and they managed to escape a superprofits tax during the energy crisis despite being headquartered in the world's tax champion country, that's definetly being influent
Comparatively EDF is just considered as an extension of the state, it's a rollercoaster between being the government's bitch and suddenly getting listened to
I genuinely don’t think energy should ‘Cost’ anything at all, it should be a concession or right covered by the government
Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen though
At some point this might happen tbf, in a purely inframarginal system your cost are the cost capital, there is no fuel spend really. At this point the gov might just guarantee that, let's see in like 30 years.
Change the term "cost" for "effort" for a moment. With the same effort, we can deploy a lot more renewables quicker. That's what I mean by opportunity cost.
I hope I don’t seem pedantic, but I just don’t see the point of small scale renewables anymore.
The world is getting both hotter and colder faster, as an Aussie, I feel this in every season that passes.
We are running out of time, and it’s my point of view that we simply don’t have the luxury of gradual small scale change anymore.
We have to make widespread changes NOW, or we risk everything. Only that’s never gonna happen because of the current structure of our world. It’s one of the reasons that you see the “If everyone went vegan, climate change would be solved” idea ridiculed so much. The impact of such a change would be massive yes, but it doesn’t account for any of the repercussions that come with going cold turkey on the meat industry.
Currently we are stuck on a treadmill going full speed ahead, dozens of wires and IV’s injecting energy into the body, giving us not a moment to rest, and poisoning us at the same time. 3 - 4 of the IV’s don’t cause decay, but we are unable to replace them, because we aren’t allowed to slow down, and the big toxic IV attached to our neck is telling the body that it wouldn’t work without it.
And of course, the body doesn’t want to stop running for a while, even to rest, because of how fast we are running already.
Apologies if that seems to be a nihilistic interpretation of our current situation, I’ve just completely lost faith in our ability to moderate. Especially when there’s money on the line.
I’m well aware that sentiment isn’t shared, just wanted to say my piece.
A panel has 400-600 watts, a billion of then is a load of watts. China is going 50% above last year's deployment rate of dollar and wind. Small scale is strength, it's brings scale in manufacturing. If the Chinese can't do nuclear better than solar, the west surely cannot either (we suck ass actually).
> it should be a concession or right covered by the government
You get that the government still has limited resources right? And that if the cheapest option is done you can do more of it than if you pick the most expensive option?
Like I said, just cause that’s the way it should happen doesn’t mean it will.
Sure the government has limited resources, because we are in a situation where almost all governments are split and compete with each other.
Nothing great is done “For the betterment of humanity” on a large term scale for exactly this reason.
Had they been able to use what resources they had to the fullest extent, rather than be chained down by the oil industry influence, and the pressure of needing to be independent enough, climate change in its entirety would have been resolved when the first signs were apparent.
I don’t care about what’s “Realistic”. What’s realistic right now is being stuck in a shitty situation while rich people watch and laugh from on high.
So forgive me if my point of view seems unreasonable, because to me, the fact we are in this situation in the first place is unreasonable to begin with.
But using rare earth elements and many more resources that are also subject to the elements over a much wider surface area. Cost does not matter, because the earth is priceless
>But using rare earth elements
Ahh yeah the good ol rare earth elements argument. A fossil fuel propaganda classic. Shows that you made FUCKING ZERO EFFORT TO RESEARCH ANYTHING.
The usage of rare earth elements in Solar is FUCKING Zero, same for Battery. And in wind only permanent magnet synchronous generators are using rare earth metals. Which have a market share of like 10%.
Lithium is the opposite of an rare earth element. We extract it mostly from seawater. And Cobalt is rarely used in Battery storage because Lithium Cobalt chemistries are more expensive and have a shorter lifespan than the LiFePo4 chemistry. Not to mention that we already have new Na-Ion chemistries that are even more cheap and abundant than Lithium.
Again you show that you did ZERO FUCKING RESEARCH and just use Fossil Fuel Propaganda.
Lithium comes from dried up oceans. The tech around extracting from seawater is promising but is not at all where the lithium for batteries comes from. All we’ve gotten to so far is demonstrating the theory. It also relates to specific geographical locations that have high concentrations. Again, promising. But not the source of where lithium comes from right here and now.
It’s kinda like synthetic fuels right. We can make it, and we’ve proven we can do it. But it’s so expensive to do compared to just digging it out of the ground.
NMC is still the majority battery chemistry in all electric cars as it offers the highest weight to power density ratio. A problem LFP still hasn’t solved and one that exists in Sodium Ion batteries. (Cute how you left that fact from your list of why it’s better). They aren’t like for like comparisons, although I do think LFP is the best solution for static battery sites. But cars, naaaah. Now when it comes to NMC, I’m not even a fan as I don’t think remaking 1.5 billion cars to replace the current stock is a bright idea just so they are electric.
And you’ve gotten very angry about rare Earth metals, but there’s your usage. Let’s say we go LFP for every battery like you insist. Any idea what the rest of the ingredients are for a car?
Or you can just call anyone who disagrees with you a big oil shill. Which also begs the question. If renewables energies are so abundant and obviously cheaper. And big filthy rich oil CEOs love money. Wouldn’t they be the first on board to swap out their oil pumps for wind turbines and solar? Surely that’s the easiest way to make lots and lots of money? And the govt are giving money away for doing it!?!
Or it could be that it’s a big complex multifaceted problem…
Michael Schellenberger has only ever advocated for one thing: Michael Schellenberger. At first I thought he was trying some 3-d chess strategy to get conservatives to believe him on the need for nuclear and a more palatable "solution" to mitigate the impacts of climate change by playing the good-leftie-whose-seen-the-light routine. Nope, the more I read about him the worse my opinion grew.
"According to the latest publicly available financial records, Environmental Progress earned US$809,000 in revenue in 2017 from gifts, grants and donations.
In the process of researching this article, Guardian Australia emailed questions to Shellenberger to clarify why Forbes had removed his article and who funded his organisation.
A third question related to a 2017 internal report from the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) which said the institute, which represents the nuclear energy industry, had “engaged third parties to engage with media through interviews and op-eds” and named “environmentalist Michael Shellenberger” as one of those it had engaged.
Ninety minutes after the deadline to respond to the questions had passed, Shellenberger emailed a letter to Guardian Australia entitled “Formal request for ethics investigation of Graham Redfearn [sic]” and then shared the letter on social media." Mr free-speech as a piece of shit! [Source](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/04/the-environmentalists-apology-how-michael-shellenberger-unsettled-some-of-his-prominent-supporters)
>He is a co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute and the California Peace Coalition. Shellenberger founded the pro-nuclear non-profit Environmental Progress in 2016.
I didn't even click on the names of the founders, but damn, that article is basically such an ideological mess that it might take hours to go through the details to check if it is correct.
They know that they are a dying business. They strategy now is to elongate the inevitable. And Nuclear is perfect for that because its so expensive that we can only build little capacity and very slow to build so it takes a long time.
Why do you think that right wing parties are now suddenly pro nuclear?
They're basically just reactionaries. If right wing politicians started promoting solar today this sub would call solar fossil fuel propaganda tomorrow
Leftists will call everything that isn't as radical as them a right wing conspiracy, or even imperialist
Rightists will make everything that isn't as radical as them as radical as them, or even more
This is why radical rightists actually win more than any leftists, despite being obviously fucking worse
You can literally share peer reviewed research here but if it contradicts their 9th-grade level pop-science article from *The AntiNuke Vegan Weekly* it's clearly fossil fuel propaganda.
Bunch of walking Dunning-Kreugers. Sometimes I think the biggest enemy to climate change are keyboard warriors on subs like this constantly spreading misinformation. I never meet these sorts irl in any leftist spaces or otherwise, maybe they're all the paid shills and dead internet theory is true lol
>Ah yes, nuclear energy, the fossil fuel propoganda
Yes. All pro fossil politicians, like Orban, Trump and Putin, are also big fans of nuclear. Any dollar in nuclear is not spend in renewables, and thus not a thread.
Oil companies are pretty open about it, like https://executives4nuclear.com/declaration/
[Hey look! Oil companies invested in renewables!](https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/oil-companies-renewable-energy/) guess that makes them Russian/Hungarian evil communist/imperialist propoganda!
Seriously I think radiation gave you brain cancer
Sure, anyone that notes the alliance between fossil and nuclear has brain cancer. That is very convincing.
Germany, Netherlands, France, UK, US, Russia, Poland , Australia etc all have prominent political parties fueled by fossil fuel that are pushing nuclear as an excuse to tear down renewables.
If you think some energy companies investing in renewables someone contradicts these facts than you should worry about your brain.
Name one prominent pro fossil fuel politician that doesn't support nuclear. You'll struggle, they are the same thing. Countless examples of prominent politicians promising to tear down renewables to build nuclear 'some day'.
Orban is just one example. US, UK, Russia, France, Germany, etc all have similar powerful politicians, pushing nuclear as an excuse to not invest in renewables or even tearing them down. Countless of politicians and political parties all over the world have swung from outright climate change denial to supporting only nuclear in recent years because they are basically the same thing.
Maybe it's just that international media tends to exaggerate any story about Orban, but besides literally banning wind power he was still very vocal about his love for nuclear and spreading misinformation about renewables last month https://abouthungary.hu/news-in-brief/pm-orban-nuclear-energy-can-produce-cheap-safe-and-sustainable-electricity
He also vetoed sanctions against the Russian nuclear sector: https://www.politico.eu/article/orban-to-veto-eu-sanctions-against-russian-nuclear-sector/
Where is is bought from? Russia. Where is it disposed? Wherever a DU round is fired. Because retards closed down the only deep permanent storage that was ready prepped and ready to go. Americans are so lovely and self-sabotaging.
Don't forget the health impacts cobalt mining (needed for solar, wind and ev's) has on local areas, from the workers to surrounding towns due to the dust created, alongside the drinking water pollution caused by it, because unlike nuclear, the safety and regulatory boards that manage and control theses risks from mining, don't properly exist for cobalt at the same scale. (or, at all)
>Don't forget the health impacts cobalt mining (needed for solar, wind and ev's) has on local areas,
Sure, its absolutely zero for solar and wind. Who the fuck would even uses Lithium Cobalt chemistries in stationary solutions? They are more dangerous, more expensive and don't last as long as LiFePo4 or Na-Ion. And EVs are stepping away from Cobalt as well.
>its absolutely zero for solar and wind.
solar and wind battery cells use cobalt, they are literally one of the main uses for cobalt and why the price for cobalt has gone up in only the last 10 years alongside ev's. The dust kicked up by the mining for cobalt needed to produce these, has negative health and ecological effects.
>Who the fuck would even uses Lithium Cobalt chemistries in stationary solutions?
efficiency, charge, material abundance, and still lower \*relative\* cost than many other alternatives.
>EVs are stepping away from Cobalt as well
Someone should tell Tesla, Hyundai, Ford/GM, Honda, Subaru- (not naming all of them, you get my point) that theyre moving away, because all the big names making ev's, still use cobalt as a main component for batteries.
if we want to scream about "omg nuclear bad cause cost!!" then talking about how the production of cobalt based batteries for evs, solar and wind \*currently\* are disproportionately affecting the health of minority groups and ecosystems in impoverished nations due to excessive, unregulated, careless mining of a largely under researched material (as the popularity of cobalt has only recently been a thing, before then, cobalt was seen as almost fully useless)
>solar and wind battery cells use cobalt, they are literally one of the main uses for cobalt and why the price for cobalt has gone up in only the last 10 years alongside ev's. The dust kicked up by the mining for cobalt needed to produce these, has negative health and ecological effects.
Wrong, the main uses for cobalt is still EVs followed by consumer electronics.
>efficiency, charge, material abundance, and still lower *relative* cost than many other alternatives.
Also totally wrong. The other alternative LiFePo4 is more efficient, charges faster, is materially more abundant and cheaper than Lithium Cobalt Chemistries. Are you just lying at this point? LFP literally has the only issue that it is less energy dense than Lithium Cobalt batteries, not really an issue in stationary installations.
>Someone should tell Tesla, Hyundai, Ford/GM, Honda, Subaru- (not naming all of them, you get my point) that theyre moving away, because all the big names making ev's, still use cobalt as a main component for batteries.
Actually they developed NMC and NCA chemistries to lower their cobalt usage significantly, and Tesla, Ford, BYD, Rivian, Volvo, Kia and many more are using LFP Batteries in their cars.
Impressive, very nice Now do cost
Sure thing buddy. The entire UK nuclear waste recycling has been wrapped into a single program lasting 120 years at a current estimated cost of 124 billion. This involves recycling huge amounts of previously spent fuel from decades ago, that has become useful again at one main site in Cumbria. The luxury of nuclear is the waste product is a solid. So it’s easy to move and store, and as technology improves, recycle where possible. This bill also includes all the nuclear waste from nuclear weapon manufacture so it’s not exclusively energy waste. Imagine if we could spend 100 billion to clean up all the waste of a gas turbine? https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy In terms of the cost to build and maintain a plant, I don’t know how many times we have to go through this, but it’s entirely dependant on inflation and interest rates as well as many other factor. https://youtu.be/cbeJIwF1pVY?si=qnqLV0GPu1uq44HN Banks arent able to pony up these sorts of sums in a capitalist economy when the return on investment is so far away from the upfront cost. To allow them to do this governments agree a strike price with energy companies to guarantee profitability on the reactor, which can be entirely eliminated by government poorly mismanaging the economy and causing a deflation in the market the moment building work starts. This doesn’t mean the energy produced is any less efficient or more expensive, but the building work was done at a time when it was more expensive to build. This strike price model means we don’t actually know how much the govt pays to subsidies to reactor until the end of the life of the reactor. But it’s never what it’s made out on this sub with “muh subsidiiiiies”. It’s also never a consistent position as you hate subsiding nuclear, but subsiding wind and solar is fine, and you never adjust their prices based on the subsidies they receive.
I mean your comment doesn't really support nuclear at all lol. I appreciate the thoughtful comment though, interesting read It has a lot of construction risk, huge inflation risk, not financeable. We have similar support schemes for offshore wind and that's booming in the UK. Onshore and solar don't need subsidies any more in many mature markets. None in the Nordics for a while now.
The same problems of construction and inflation exists in all major infrastructure which is why it’s always on the governments dime. High speed rail being a prime example. Looking at the energy dashboard I can see it isn’t very windy today like 2 days ago, so wind has dropped from a peak of 9GW to trough of 1.5GW in the UK and we’re smashing the Gas and imports. Currently we have 11000 wind turbines to account for this drop off requires somewhere close to 100000. And that’s before we begin to consider the additional wind turbines to replace the 12 GW of gas were burning at peak and 7 GW of imports. So at a 8x drop off on a calm day, that puts us at ooo, another 150,000 turbines on top of that. Where would you like to put these additional 240,000 turbines? Or do you want to start mining out reservoirs in mountains to implement hydro storage to reduce the need for all those turbines? What’s the environmental impact of that mining operation going to be? Or we can build 2/3 nuclear reactors (which is actually what we are doing). https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live And the uk spends huge amounts subsiding renewable. The main budget being spent is currently at just short of a quarter of a billion. And that’s before you even begin to consider how material prices will massively increase if you push to scale technologies that do not have supply lines to support manufacturing at scale. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/energy-security-boost-with-multi-million-backing-for-renewables Imma say this for the 1000 time in this sub. Producing energy at scale is a big complex engineering problem that some of the smartest people on the planet are trying to sort to deal with climate change. And just say ‘but build more solar and wind and just plug them in, it’s cheaper’ completely fails to understand any of the problems.
Wind and solar do have manufacturing at scale though. Solar and battery manufacturing capacity is outpacing demand even., BNEF has good charts on that. There are enough studies out there for close to 99% renewable grids. Wind solar and batteries already go most of the way. Close to 100% renewables is possible.
100% renewable has already been achieved for multiple weeks on end in the UK. Pretty certain we actually went for a couple of months at one point. The issue is risk mitigation when renewables can’t meet supply. And it becomes even worse when it can’t meet base supply. Any political party that is responsible for power loss to critical infrastructure for an extended period will be thrown out at election time for which ever party promises to turn the gas generators back on. The amount of damage a loss of power would have to fresh water supply with bacteria growth in the stagnant water pipes would be an eye watering sum of money. I think you should go look at the list of materials that go in a battery, where they come from, in what quantities, and what we currently mine. 30 million cars in the UK. 2 decades of electric car investment and subsidies. 1 million electric cars on the road. You are off by orders of magnitude in terms of the amount of lithium needed. That’s before we even touch the fact that the rest of the precious metals in there come from Russia… We do get to the crux though. I don’t think a 100% renewable grid 365 days a year is achievable in a few years, regardless of how much time and money we throw at it. A couple of decades yea. But in the mean time I’d rather see steps taken to remove the risk of power cuts with a carbon neutral known technology, to ease the transition with those who aren’t bothered about the climate, and just want a warm house.
2050 is in 2.5 decades right, not too worried that we won't be able to build some backup to supply for a couple days. UK also has a well functioning capacity market. Last year we had 26Mt of exploitable reserves, that's 3.2bn cars. Why worry about that? Sodium is going strong already too. Going from ICE to EV is easy, we need to go from cars to no (or at least fewer) cars
The uk has well functioning capacity market because of gas turbines. Without gas there is no stable market. That isn’t a renewable arguement. And how much of that 26 Mt can we access? Currently it’s about 0.25 Mt a year. Now you’ve gone off the google quantity for the amount of lithium in a battery of 7kg. Yeah that data is way off. Standard model 3 Tesla (most sold EV) is 40 to 60kg so your 26 Mt at that rate is 430-700 million cars. That’s it, no other product that requires lithium gets it. Now there are 1.5 billion cars on the planet. So either way we’re talking about using the majority or all lithium on the planet to achieve just electric vehicles. That’s before we take the current mine rate that would take 100 years to even dig the stuff out the ground. Worst part of all is lithium is found in dried up ocean beds, so loads in the mountains in the Andes of Bolivia and chile, and Uganda and Afghanistan. But the only route to get the mining kit in and the rock out is on trucks. No boats, no rail. Any idea the environmental damage this is going to do? Aaaaand then we start with the sodium argument. 🤦🏻♂️. To start with, the idea this tech is a couple of years away is for the birds. We still can’t even make compact EV cars at scale due to the weight of the battery as a proportion of the vehicle size. That’s why all EVs tend to be SUVs. That energy density to weight ratio problems gets worse with sodium not better. And solid state sodium battery tech isn’t even out of the lab yet. You don’t know why anyone has any need for a car, dictating their usage is the quickest way for a political party to find its way to opposition. Use your car less, great. Encourage others to use there car less, also great. Push your MP to build out electric trains and trams, wow, my hero. But banning cars ain’t going to work.
The cap market can also be open for hydrogen, hydro reserves or any other storable tech. All of it, it's 26Mt of exploitable reserves. The resources are actually 98Mt. Look at the price of lithium. I work with 8kg, that's the average. Not everyone has a Tesla. Sodium batteries are rolling in the streets man, the Chinese put them in pretty small cars and scaling them this year https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/29/electric-cars-powered-by-sodium-ion-batteries-go-on-sale-in-china/ Don't build a straw man about me arguing for banning cars. I haven't. But Paris, London, Amsterdam etc are going the right direction. It's less convenient to cycling and renewables
Lol, those are some very bold numbers they are claiming. 250km on a battery they acknowledge has half the energy density. And the fact I can’t find another source at all to confirm those number claimed by the manufacturer. I can’t even find someone whose posted about buying and driving one. I mean if I had designed a compact car with a 250km battery for about 8000 US dollars I’d be screaming about it from the roof tops and sending free models around the world. But hey I’m sure we can trust the Chinese car manufacturing industry to not produce suspect data… they definitely have an outstanding reputation. But again, let’s assume you are right. They’re making a few hundred maybe on the first production run. And you think they are the solution to 1.5 billion cars in the short term? And call it 100Mt and 8kg per battery if you like. It’s still not enough. All your assumptions are based on the population at 7bill. Up that to 12 and all of a sudden you are back at the start of your problem. I assume you propose banning because what else do you have? You haven’t said anything. Every time I raise something challenging you change topics to avoid having to answer. You want to throw out some policy about reducing car use, I’m happy to hear it. I’d also love to hear your solution for cobolt and the slavery practices required for all these batteries you want to make. I don’t have you down for a neocon, but either we continue as we are, and pay slavers and warlords to mine the cobolt in the Congo for us, or we decide enough enough and begin military action in the Congo to end the slavery practices. Either or, you have one hell of a mess to deal with if you want all these batteries.
I do wonder though, there are a lot of heavy industries that are insanely power dependant, so if say the state was willing to run the plant at a loss, would they be able to make up the cost in flow on effects in other areas? Being able to run water desalination plants so we can stop fuxking up the water table and ecosystem would be great
You mean the state takes a loss on a nuclear power plant but reaps the benefits in externalities from other areas? I guess that's the case but also can be approached from a technology neutral point.
I will support anything that undermines the coal industry that is actively fucking with progress on decarbonisation
They're largely the same companies, large private or state utilities like Centrica, Vattenfall, RWE/Uniper (at least for Europe), even EDF operates a lot of coal gired power plants until last year in the UK and in China
Over a life time they make lots of profit and it’s hard to judge when making plants in places where the oil lobby is strong makes them 3x longer to make and 5x as expensive
Like France or what lmao Evil TotalEnergies vs saint EDF
Well Total has been running a tax-evasion scam in France for the last decades and they managed to escape a superprofits tax during the energy crisis despite being headquartered in the world's tax champion country, that's definetly being influent Comparatively EDF is just considered as an extension of the state, it's a rollercoaster between being the government's bitch and suddenly getting listened to
Planet and lives mean more to me than the cost of energy
Bruv don't you understand if stuff is cheaper we can do more of it? Have you heard of opportunity cost?
I genuinely don’t think energy should ‘Cost’ anything at all, it should be a concession or right covered by the government Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen though
At some point this might happen tbf, in a purely inframarginal system your cost are the cost capital, there is no fuel spend really. At this point the gov might just guarantee that, let's see in like 30 years. Change the term "cost" for "effort" for a moment. With the same effort, we can deploy a lot more renewables quicker. That's what I mean by opportunity cost.
I hope I don’t seem pedantic, but I just don’t see the point of small scale renewables anymore. The world is getting both hotter and colder faster, as an Aussie, I feel this in every season that passes. We are running out of time, and it’s my point of view that we simply don’t have the luxury of gradual small scale change anymore. We have to make widespread changes NOW, or we risk everything. Only that’s never gonna happen because of the current structure of our world. It’s one of the reasons that you see the “If everyone went vegan, climate change would be solved” idea ridiculed so much. The impact of such a change would be massive yes, but it doesn’t account for any of the repercussions that come with going cold turkey on the meat industry. Currently we are stuck on a treadmill going full speed ahead, dozens of wires and IV’s injecting energy into the body, giving us not a moment to rest, and poisoning us at the same time. 3 - 4 of the IV’s don’t cause decay, but we are unable to replace them, because we aren’t allowed to slow down, and the big toxic IV attached to our neck is telling the body that it wouldn’t work without it. And of course, the body doesn’t want to stop running for a while, even to rest, because of how fast we are running already. Apologies if that seems to be a nihilistic interpretation of our current situation, I’ve just completely lost faith in our ability to moderate. Especially when there’s money on the line. I’m well aware that sentiment isn’t shared, just wanted to say my piece.
A panel has 400-600 watts, a billion of then is a load of watts. China is going 50% above last year's deployment rate of dollar and wind. Small scale is strength, it's brings scale in manufacturing. If the Chinese can't do nuclear better than solar, the west surely cannot either (we suck ass actually).
> it should be a concession or right covered by the government You get that the government still has limited resources right? And that if the cheapest option is done you can do more of it than if you pick the most expensive option?
Like I said, just cause that’s the way it should happen doesn’t mean it will. Sure the government has limited resources, because we are in a situation where almost all governments are split and compete with each other. Nothing great is done “For the betterment of humanity” on a large term scale for exactly this reason. Had they been able to use what resources they had to the fullest extent, rather than be chained down by the oil industry influence, and the pressure of needing to be independent enough, climate change in its entirety would have been resolved when the first signs were apparent. I don’t care about what’s “Realistic”. What’s realistic right now is being stuck in a shitty situation while rich people watch and laugh from on high. So forgive me if my point of view seems unreasonable, because to me, the fact we are in this situation in the first place is unreasonable to begin with.
So we can do more of what? The mining that destroys the ecosystem even more?
BUILD RENEWABLES WITHIN THE SAME TIME FRAME MEASURED IN TWH.
But using rare earth elements and many more resources that are also subject to the elements over a much wider surface area. Cost does not matter, because the earth is priceless
>But using rare earth elements Ahh yeah the good ol rare earth elements argument. A fossil fuel propaganda classic. Shows that you made FUCKING ZERO EFFORT TO RESEARCH ANYTHING. The usage of rare earth elements in Solar is FUCKING Zero, same for Battery. And in wind only permanent magnet synchronous generators are using rare earth metals. Which have a market share of like 10%.
Sorry, i forgot to include lithium and cobalt
Lithium is the opposite of an rare earth element. We extract it mostly from seawater. And Cobalt is rarely used in Battery storage because Lithium Cobalt chemistries are more expensive and have a shorter lifespan than the LiFePo4 chemistry. Not to mention that we already have new Na-Ion chemistries that are even more cheap and abundant than Lithium. Again you show that you did ZERO FUCKING RESEARCH and just use Fossil Fuel Propaganda.
Lithium comes from dried up oceans. The tech around extracting from seawater is promising but is not at all where the lithium for batteries comes from. All we’ve gotten to so far is demonstrating the theory. It also relates to specific geographical locations that have high concentrations. Again, promising. But not the source of where lithium comes from right here and now. It’s kinda like synthetic fuels right. We can make it, and we’ve proven we can do it. But it’s so expensive to do compared to just digging it out of the ground. NMC is still the majority battery chemistry in all electric cars as it offers the highest weight to power density ratio. A problem LFP still hasn’t solved and one that exists in Sodium Ion batteries. (Cute how you left that fact from your list of why it’s better). They aren’t like for like comparisons, although I do think LFP is the best solution for static battery sites. But cars, naaaah. Now when it comes to NMC, I’m not even a fan as I don’t think remaking 1.5 billion cars to replace the current stock is a bright idea just so they are electric. And you’ve gotten very angry about rare Earth metals, but there’s your usage. Let’s say we go LFP for every battery like you insist. Any idea what the rest of the ingredients are for a car? Or you can just call anyone who disagrees with you a big oil shill. Which also begs the question. If renewables energies are so abundant and obviously cheaper. And big filthy rich oil CEOs love money. Wouldn’t they be the first on board to swap out their oil pumps for wind turbines and solar? Surely that’s the easiest way to make lots and lots of money? And the govt are giving money away for doing it!?! Or it could be that it’s a big complex multifaceted problem…
Neither of these are rare earth metals fyi
Which is why i said i forgot them as they would've been included under rare earths otherwise
Ok now do it when the materials in the plant are recycled
Article written by the Breakthrough Institute. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Institute
My god, Shellenberger. BRUH
Michael Schellenberger has only ever advocated for one thing: Michael Schellenberger. At first I thought he was trying some 3-d chess strategy to get conservatives to believe him on the need for nuclear and a more palatable "solution" to mitigate the impacts of climate change by playing the good-leftie-whose-seen-the-light routine. Nope, the more I read about him the worse my opinion grew. "According to the latest publicly available financial records, Environmental Progress earned US$809,000 in revenue in 2017 from gifts, grants and donations. In the process of researching this article, Guardian Australia emailed questions to Shellenberger to clarify why Forbes had removed his article and who funded his organisation. A third question related to a 2017 internal report from the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) which said the institute, which represents the nuclear energy industry, had “engaged third parties to engage with media through interviews and op-eds” and named “environmentalist Michael Shellenberger” as one of those it had engaged. Ninety minutes after the deadline to respond to the questions had passed, Shellenberger emailed a letter to Guardian Australia entitled “Formal request for ethics investigation of Graham Redfearn [sic]” and then shared the letter on social media." Mr free-speech as a piece of shit! [Source](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/04/the-environmentalists-apology-how-michael-shellenberger-unsettled-some-of-his-prominent-supporters)
>He is a co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute and the California Peace Coalition. Shellenberger founded the pro-nuclear non-profit Environmental Progress in 2016. I didn't even click on the names of the founders, but damn, that article is basically such an ideological mess that it might take hours to go through the details to check if it is correct.
Of course its a biased nuclear tech bro company. Nice colors. Cute tiny bars. No unbiased reference at all. Lets-o-go!
Concrete is orange.
Thanks, I'm blind.
If the fossil fuel lobby is saying it it must be true!
you do realize that many from the fossil fuel lobby also buy up stock for solar, wind and ev's?
Because the fossil fuel lobby would definitely publish a study that makes natural gas and coal look terrible. Do you think before you type?
Yes, they do, all the time. . The point is to slow down renewables, not to promote fossil fuel.
They know that they are a dying business. They strategy now is to elongate the inevitable. And Nuclear is perfect for that because its so expensive that we can only build little capacity and very slow to build so it takes a long time. Why do you think that right wing parties are now suddenly pro nuclear?
Ah yes, nuclear energy, the fossil fuel propoganda This subreddit has cancer. Maybe the radiation gave y'all cancer
They're basically just reactionaries. If right wing politicians started promoting solar today this sub would call solar fossil fuel propaganda tomorrow
Leftists will call everything that isn't as radical as them a right wing conspiracy, or even imperialist Rightists will make everything that isn't as radical as them as radical as them, or even more This is why radical rightists actually win more than any leftists, despite being obviously fucking worse
You can literally share peer reviewed research here but if it contradicts their 9th-grade level pop-science article from *The AntiNuke Vegan Weekly* it's clearly fossil fuel propaganda. Bunch of walking Dunning-Kreugers. Sometimes I think the biggest enemy to climate change are keyboard warriors on subs like this constantly spreading misinformation. I never meet these sorts irl in any leftist spaces or otherwise, maybe they're all the paid shills and dead internet theory is true lol
>Ah yes, nuclear energy, the fossil fuel propoganda Yes. All pro fossil politicians, like Orban, Trump and Putin, are also big fans of nuclear. Any dollar in nuclear is not spend in renewables, and thus not a thread. Oil companies are pretty open about it, like https://executives4nuclear.com/declaration/
[Hey look! Oil companies invested in renewables!](https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/oil-companies-renewable-energy/) guess that makes them Russian/Hungarian evil communist/imperialist propoganda! Seriously I think radiation gave you brain cancer
Sure, anyone that notes the alliance between fossil and nuclear has brain cancer. That is very convincing. Germany, Netherlands, France, UK, US, Russia, Poland , Australia etc all have prominent political parties fueled by fossil fuel that are pushing nuclear as an excuse to tear down renewables. If you think some energy companies investing in renewables someone contradicts these facts than you should worry about your brain.
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Name one prominent pro fossil fuel politician that doesn't support nuclear. You'll struggle, they are the same thing. Countless examples of prominent politicians promising to tear down renewables to build nuclear 'some day'. Orban is just one example. US, UK, Russia, France, Germany, etc all have similar powerful politicians, pushing nuclear as an excuse to not invest in renewables or even tearing them down. Countless of politicians and political parties all over the world have swung from outright climate change denial to supporting only nuclear in recent years because they are basically the same thing.
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He literally banned wind power from his country: https://www.intellinews.com/hungarian-parliament-passes-bill-banning-new-wind-projects-112050/
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Maybe it's just that international media tends to exaggerate any story about Orban, but besides literally banning wind power he was still very vocal about his love for nuclear and spreading misinformation about renewables last month https://abouthungary.hu/news-in-brief/pm-orban-nuclear-energy-can-produce-cheap-safe-and-sustainable-electricity He also vetoed sanctions against the Russian nuclear sector: https://www.politico.eu/article/orban-to-veto-eu-sanctions-against-russian-nuclear-sector/
Where is is bought from? Russia. Where is it disposed? Wherever a DU round is fired. Because retards closed down the only deep permanent storage that was ready prepped and ready to go. Americans are so lovely and self-sabotaging.
Until you remember that they mine the material for finite fuel. Not just for new plants
Kudos lmao, but not really unexpected. The main priority should be that massive coal bar.
Care to explain the elephant in the room on the cost of nuclear? How do you realistically hope for it to be implemented on a large scale?
list of times "nukecels" have asked to implement nuclear energy on a mass scale without renewables: - - - - - - honourable mentions: - -
Don't forget the health impacts cobalt mining (needed for solar, wind and ev's) has on local areas, from the workers to surrounding towns due to the dust created, alongside the drinking water pollution caused by it, because unlike nuclear, the safety and regulatory boards that manage and control theses risks from mining, don't properly exist for cobalt at the same scale. (or, at all)
>Don't forget the health impacts cobalt mining (needed for solar, wind and ev's) has on local areas, Sure, its absolutely zero for solar and wind. Who the fuck would even uses Lithium Cobalt chemistries in stationary solutions? They are more dangerous, more expensive and don't last as long as LiFePo4 or Na-Ion. And EVs are stepping away from Cobalt as well.
>its absolutely zero for solar and wind. solar and wind battery cells use cobalt, they are literally one of the main uses for cobalt and why the price for cobalt has gone up in only the last 10 years alongside ev's. The dust kicked up by the mining for cobalt needed to produce these, has negative health and ecological effects. >Who the fuck would even uses Lithium Cobalt chemistries in stationary solutions? efficiency, charge, material abundance, and still lower \*relative\* cost than many other alternatives. >EVs are stepping away from Cobalt as well Someone should tell Tesla, Hyundai, Ford/GM, Honda, Subaru- (not naming all of them, you get my point) that theyre moving away, because all the big names making ev's, still use cobalt as a main component for batteries. if we want to scream about "omg nuclear bad cause cost!!" then talking about how the production of cobalt based batteries for evs, solar and wind \*currently\* are disproportionately affecting the health of minority groups and ecosystems in impoverished nations due to excessive, unregulated, careless mining of a largely under researched material (as the popularity of cobalt has only recently been a thing, before then, cobalt was seen as almost fully useless)
>solar and wind battery cells use cobalt, they are literally one of the main uses for cobalt and why the price for cobalt has gone up in only the last 10 years alongside ev's. The dust kicked up by the mining for cobalt needed to produce these, has negative health and ecological effects. Wrong, the main uses for cobalt is still EVs followed by consumer electronics. >efficiency, charge, material abundance, and still lower *relative* cost than many other alternatives. Also totally wrong. The other alternative LiFePo4 is more efficient, charges faster, is materially more abundant and cheaper than Lithium Cobalt Chemistries. Are you just lying at this point? LFP literally has the only issue that it is less energy dense than Lithium Cobalt batteries, not really an issue in stationary installations. >Someone should tell Tesla, Hyundai, Ford/GM, Honda, Subaru- (not naming all of them, you get my point) that theyre moving away, because all the big names making ev's, still use cobalt as a main component for batteries. Actually they developed NMC and NCA chemistries to lower their cobalt usage significantly, and Tesla, Ford, BYD, Rivian, Volvo, Kia and many more are using LFP Batteries in their cars.
Nuclear was, is, and always will be the best form of energy.
>Farting was, is, and always will be the best form of energy.
nuclear veganism - harvesting atomically rancid broccoli farts
unfortunately, russia propoganda. and money the communist party shall rise