Another article on Slashdot to express just how doomed we all are because people are burning fossil fuels. I prefer articles telling us how we could solve this problem. It would also be preferable to see some articles recognizing just how far we've come to solve the problem of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, or CAGW.
There's a part of me that doesn't much care about the problem of CAGW because it doesn't matter if CAGW is a problem or not as what needs to be done is not changed by CAGW being a p
Ah, nuclear power, I remember that! It was the 20th century's hot non-carbon emitting energy source.
Let me be the first to welcome you to the 21st century though! We have cheap and efficient renewables and batteries now and they are rapidly getting even cheaper and more efficient.
We also still haven't implement an actual, viable, real world solution to nuclear waste yet and in real world practical examples nuclear power is still just as expensive as ever so there's that too.
What, like Thorium (much cleaner) or "Traveling Wave" (waste-burning) reactors? And let's face it, the only reason nuclear plants are so expensive is because we build them in the least efficient way. Each is a one-off custom job instead of a standard build. They could be much cheaper and safer, especially now that we don't need them to produce weapons-grade material.
Almost all renewables face the same shortcoming - they don't run 24/7. Batteries need several orders of magnitude more storage capacity
What, like Thorium (much cleaner) or "Traveling Wave" (waste-burning) reactors?
Just a few of the wonderful hypotheticals that nuclear power provides. Meanwhile renewables are actually solving problems in the real world.
Don't get me wrong though, the nuclear hypotheticals do sound great and kept me a fan of nuclear well into the 21st century, the problem is they are never built. There are some truly amazing sounding reactor designs that have been around for decades that certainly sound like they could revolutionize power generation but they are never built. Meanwhile every year that goes by we witness the increase in real world gains renewable generation and energy storage experience. If something can't happen in the real world, regardless of the reasons why, then it is not a solution to anything.
nd let's face it, the only reason nuclear plants are so expensive is because we build them in the least efficient way. hey could be much cheaper and safer, especially now that we don't need them to produce weapons-grade material.
Almost all renewables face the same shortcoming - they don't run 24/7. There aren't enough batteries in the world to keep the lights on in a decent-sized city for even one night.
Tesla's giant battery in Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] , shows impressive first steps in terms of massive energy storage with batteries that was reasonably cheap (as these things go) and it is actually something tangible in the real world. This was also done in record time at costs significantly below estimates which is an incredibly rare occurrence for nuclear plants.
Furthermore energy storage doesn't actually require batteries at all as pumped hydro or molten salt https://insideclimatenews.org/... [insideclimatenews.org] are both viable and reasonably priced means of storage currently in use around the world.
Can we have more nuclear power now? Yes, we can. (Score:5, Informative)
Another article on Slashdot to express just how doomed we all are because people are burning fossil fuels. I prefer articles telling us how we could solve this problem. It would also be preferable to see some articles recognizing just how far we've come to solve the problem of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, or CAGW.
There's a part of me that doesn't much care about the problem of CAGW because it doesn't matter if CAGW is a problem or not as what needs to be done is not changed by CAGW being a p
So 20th century... (Score:3)
Ah, nuclear power, I remember that! It was the 20th century's hot non-carbon emitting energy source.
Let me be the first to welcome you to the 21st century though! We have cheap and efficient renewables and batteries now and they are rapidly getting even cheaper and more efficient.
We also still haven't implement an actual, viable, real world solution to nuclear waste yet and in real world practical examples nuclear power is still just as expensive as ever so there's that too.
Re: (Score:3)
Almost all renewables face the same shortcoming - they don't run 24/7. Batteries need several orders of magnitude more storage capacity
Re:So 20th century... (Score:2)
What, like Thorium (much cleaner) or "Traveling Wave" (waste-burning) reactors?
Just a few of the wonderful hypotheticals that nuclear power provides. Meanwhile renewables are actually solving problems in the real world.
Don't get me wrong though, the nuclear hypotheticals do sound great and kept me a fan of nuclear well into the 21st century, the problem is they are never built. There are some truly amazing sounding reactor designs that have been around for decades that certainly sound like they could revolutionize power generation but they are never built. Meanwhile every year that goes by we witness the increase in real world gains renewable generation and energy storage experience. If something can't happen in the real world, regardless of the reasons why, then it is not a solution to anything.
nd let's face it, the only reason nuclear plants are so expensive is because we build them in the least efficient way. hey could be much cheaper and safer, especially now that we don't need them to produce weapons-grade material.
Well that's just not true https://arstechnica.com/scienc... [arstechnica.com] , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] .
Almost all renewables face the same shortcoming - they don't run 24/7. There aren't enough batteries in the world to keep the lights on in a decent-sized city for even one night.
Tesla's giant battery in Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] , shows impressive first steps in terms of massive energy storage with batteries that was reasonably cheap (as these things go) and it is actually something tangible in the real world. This was also done in record time at costs significantly below estimates which is an incredibly rare occurrence for nuclear plants.
Furthermore energy storage doesn't actually require batteries at all as pumped hydro or molten salt https://insideclimatenews.org/... [insideclimatenews.org] are both viable and reasonably priced means of storage currently in use around the world.