Green Energy

2201 readers

426 users here now

Everything about energy production and storage.

Related communities:

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Solar power is the fastest growing energy technology in history, and wind is not far behind (twitter.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have been pro-nuclear for more than a decade, but it is clear that it has lost politically at this point. I used to say that we needed a 40 years nuclear transition so that the solar tech could catch up. We are almost there. We sadly relied on oil and coal instead to develop these tech but we finally are here and it will soon start to make sense to advocate for a direct transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think we still need nuclear, including new nuclear, as a backup. It's easy to imagine a scenario, e.g., a still winter night, where any amount of renewables would fail to provide enough energy, and in that scenario we'd want something we could switch on. Nuclear is the obvious answer!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It’s easy to imagine a scenario, e.g., regions of france for weeks at a time during four of the last ten years, where any amount of nuclear would fail to provide enough energy, and in that scenario we’d want something we could switch on.

The transmission, backup and storage requirements are no different for nuclear vs. renewables. Even a solution as bad as burning the gas and coal we'd use while waiting for nuclear to be built as backup over the next four centuries is much more sane.