this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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Economically failing nuclear plant to receive 1.1B bailout (apnews.com)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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"President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday finalized approval of $1.1 billion to help keep California’s last operating nuclear power plant running. "

Because renewable energy sources are too expensive?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Providing power to the US is the government's responsibility in the same way that governments funding maintenance of public roads, paying for teachers, and paying for firefighters doesn't always generate money yet is subsidized or wholly paid for by a government entity. The fact that the government doesn't have to fully pay for the nuclear plant (because its offset by the money the plant makes) makes it less that the government has to spend. If anything, I'd like the government to completely take over nuclear plants so that there's less profits for private entities. Yes nuclear is more expensive than renewables, but an already existing nuclear plant is cheaper than a new one, which is way better than fossil fuels, the real enemy. Not to mention, in how long will renewable take to make up the almost 10% of energy that the plant supplies to California? Instantly? no. It takes time, and until that time, we need all the energy generation we can get, ESPECIALLY if its not a fossil fuel based one. Radioactive waste? Definitely a problem, in a couple hundred years. Right now, all the radioactive waste the US has ever made would fill up a football field, 10 yards deep. Not really a high priority problem especially compared to the risk that global warming risks.

All in all, it feels like we shouldn't let the search for a perfect solution, impede temporary good enough solutions.