Grid power discussion (solar, wind, nuclear, etc.)

[Novus America]

Nuclear has been able to compete with coal for the last 70+ years.

Coal is deadly, expensive, and honestly not worth it

If that's so, why are people so worried about killing coal? If coal's just that expensive, why not just let it die? There's a reason why people use coal, and it's because coal is king.

Coal will die, and is already dying but it will not die fast enough to prevent absurd amount of damage (and many places lack natural gas and nuclear technology).

[The New California Republic]

For grid power, coal all the way, baby.

...and it also chucks out obscene volumes of CO2.

while nuclear's cool, it's just not advanced enough yet to compete with coal.

...what? Have you been living under a rock of uranium ore for the past 50 years?

[Satuga]

Coal is still used only because the workers need jobs, and the owners want money. That's it. It's not safer, more efficient, or resourceful than nuclear power especially not thorium nuclear power.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

If they are floating they mirrors would have to be gyroscopically stabilized. Otherwise they would not stay in alignment with the tower.

I could check on this later, but I'm pretty sure the waves would only cause a few to be pointed away from the tower at a time. As long as you had enough of them pointed at the tower it could still boil the water.

And they would still face the problems of sea spray covering the reflectors with droplets of salt water which would quickly destroy them.

That all depends on how high you made the stands.

That is not to say that solar does not have a place. But it we do not have the materials and space to feasibly replace nuclear in a manner that does not cause great environment harm.

There are still rivers not dammed, and there are still parts of the ocean not covered in wind turbines. We do not need to resort to nuclear just yet.

[Thermodolia]

If they are floating they mirrors would have to be gyroscopically stabilized. Otherwise they would not stay in alignment with the tower.

I could check on this later, but I'm pretty sure the waves would only cause a few to be pointed away from the tower at a time. As long as you had enough of them pointed at the tower it could still boil the water.

And they would still face the problems of sea spray covering the reflectors with droplets of salt water which would quickly destroy them.

That all depends on how high you made the stands.

That is not to say that solar does not have a place. But it we do not have the materials and space to feasibly replace nuclear in a manner that does not cause great environment harm.

There are still rivers not dammed, and there are still parts of the ocean not covered in wind turbines. We do not need to resort to nuclear just yet.

No we should have resorted to nuclear 40 years ago

[Satuga]

I could check on this later, but I'm pretty sure the waves would only cause a few to be pointed away from the tower at a time. As long as you had enough of them pointed at the tower it could still boil the water.



That all depends on how high you made the stands.



There are still rivers not dammed, and there are still parts of the ocean not covered in wind turbines. We do not need to resort to nuclear just yet.

No we should have resorted to nuclear 40 years ago

Idk, uranium power plants are much less effective than the thorium plants we have now. It was probably better to wait for thorium, the only problem is we need to promote thorium much more than we currently are.

[Thermodolia]

No we should have resorted to nuclear 40 years ago

Idk, uranium power plants are much less effective than the thorium plants we have now. It was probably better to wait for thorium, the only problem is we need to promote thorium much more than we currently are.

We don’t have thorium

[Satuga]

Idk, uranium power plants are much less effective than the thorium plants we have now. It was probably better to wait for thorium, the only problem is we need to promote thorium much more than we currently are.

We don’t have thorium

We have the plans, sorry if I was being a little confusing, I was talking mostly about the idea/plan of thorium.

[Novus America]

If they are floating they mirrors would have to be gyroscopically stabilized. Otherwise they would not stay in alignment with the tower.

I could check on this later, but I'm pretty sure the waves would only cause a few to be pointed away from the tower at a time. As long as you had enough of them pointed at the tower it could still boil the water.

And they would still face the problems of sea spray covering the reflectors with droplets of salt water which would quickly destroy them.

That all depends on how high you made the stands.

That is not to say that solar does not have a place. But it we do not have the materials and space to feasibly replace nuclear in a manner that does not cause great environment harm.

There are still rivers not dammed, and there are still parts of the ocean not covered in wind turbines. We do not need to resort to nuclear just yet.

It would be horribly inefficient to have only some aligned wit the tower some of the time.
The ocean surface moves. A lot. And putting them higher up means they cost more and move around more.

You do know damming every river and building absurd numbers of ocean wind turbines would take up absurd amount of resources and do a lot of environmental damage right? Carbon emissions is NOT at all the only environmental problem we face. Habitat loss and deforestation are big problems too!

And “resort” to nuclear? Why when it is the most environmentally friendly option should it be a last resort? It is superior to anything else you have proposed.

What we should have done is what Nixon proposed and replaced all fossil plants with nuclear by 1980. Then our electric power would already be basically emissions free FORTY YEARS ago!
Anti nuclear killed the environment.

[Novus America]

For grid power, coal all the way, baby.

...and it also chucks out obscene volumes of CO2.

while nuclear's cool, it's just not advanced enough yet to compete with coal.

...what? Have you been living under a rock of uranium ore for the past 50 years?

Not just CO2 either. Tons of other pollutants too. Like SO2 and carcinogens.
Coal by far kills the most of any power source by far.

Nuclear kills the least. And pollutes the least.

[Nolo gap]

the grid doesn't depend on just one source now. why would a cleaner greener grid do so?

yes to all the cleaner options. ALL of them. simply end subsidies to coal and oil.
they are the only thing preventing the grid from evolving more rapidly to cleaner and greener now.

nuclear is better then coal and oil, yes. the holy gail? not even.

wind, solar, geothermal, small scale hydro, tide, all of these, combined, advanced storage technologies to smooth out the supply from wind and solar.
and for wind and solar, distributed rather then centralized collection has the advantage environmental advantage.
the only reason to concentrate wind and solar in localized "farms" is the traditional economic model of centralized supply.

the point is, a; it CAN be done, and b; if it isn't, we're up a collectively suicidal creek.
we've got the technologies now. they're not some kind of pie in a future sky.
we've got nothing to loose but our own extinction if we fail to make the transition and make it now, not 50 years from now when it will almost certainly be too late.

the transition is happening. even based on traditional markets. but it needs to happen faster and more completely. and the only reason it isn't doing that,
is we're still subsidising oil and coal. and why? not for jobs, there's as many and better jobs in clean energy. but to keep oil and coal executives fat and rich.

[Novus America]

the grid doesn't depend on just one source now. why would a cleaner greener grid do so?

yes to all the cleaner options. ALL of them. simply end subsidies to coal and oil.
they are the only thing preventing the grid from evolving more rapidly to cleaner and greener now.

nuclear is better then coal and oil, yes. the holy gail? not even.

wind, solar, geothermal, small scale hydro, tide, all of these, combined, advanced storage technologies to smooth out the supply from wind and solar.
and for wind and solar, distributed rather then centralized collection has the advantage environmental advantage.
the only reason to concentrate wind and solar in localized "farms" is the traditional economic model of centralized supply.

the point is, a; it CAN be done, and b; if it isn't, we're up a collectively suicidal creek.
we've got the technologies now. they're not some kind of pie in a future sky.
we've got nothing to loose but our own extinction if we fail to make the transition and make it now, not 50 years from now when it will almost certainly be too late.

the transition is happening. even based on traditional markets. but it needs to happen faster and more completely. and the only reason it isn't doing that,
is we're still subsidising oil and coal. and why? not for jobs, there's as many and better jobs in clean energy. but to keep oil and coal executives fat and rich.

Anti nuclear is the biggest problem. For example in Germany who is going backwards and polluting more because of its idiotic nuclear phase out.

Again we would already have the problem fixed for electric power in the US 40 years ago!

Although the other sources have their place, nuclear is still the safest with the lowest environmental impact.

[The New California Republic]

Anti nuclear is the biggest problem. For example in Germany who is going backwards and polluting more because of its idiotic nuclear phase out.

East Germany relied heavily on burning brown coal (Lignite), which emissions-wise is even worse than normal coal. Germany even today still mines 178 million tonnes of brown coal, the biggest miner of it in the world. The burning of brown coal was one of the main reasons why East Germany's environment was so shit, and today Germany is keeping up the habit, and it needs to, since they insist on closing their nuclear plants.

[Novus America]

Anti nuclear is the biggest problem. For example in Germany who is going backwards and polluting more because of its idiotic nuclear phase out.

East Germany relied heavily on burning brown coal (Lignite), which emissions-wise is even worse than normal coal. Germany even today still mines 178 million tonnes of brown coal, the biggest miner of it in the world. The burning of brown coal was one of the main reasons why East Germany's environment was so shit, and today Germany is keeping up the habit, and it needs to, since they insist on closing their nuclear plants.

Yes, Germany plans on shutting down all nuclear power by 2022 and to keep burning coal until 2038 or longer as a result. Truly brilliant Ms. Merkel

How fucking stupid can they be?

If the the kept their nukes running their environment would be objectively better.

There is zero good reason for their nuclear shutdown whatsoever.

[Senkaku]

all nuclear all the time baby

even if we develop fusion we should keep building fission reactors just bc they have more sex appeal

[UniversalCommons]

You don't need to dam rivers for hydroelectric any more. Hydroelectric turbines can be distributed, there is also run of the river hydroelectric. The technology has changed considerably. The same is true with tidal power. It can be distributed over a wide area. This eliminates the problems with dams. Distributed hydroelectric often works better without dams. Small distributed hydro electric stations just like distributed generation through a smart grid where people who want to can put power back into the grid with solar and wind from their own homes or farms.

Building giant nuclear power plants is an equally bad idea as well. Smaller nuclear turbines can be used that don't need highly enriched fuel which helps deal with the problem of waste and proliferation.

[Senkaku]

Building giant nuclear power plants is an equally bad idea as well. Smaller nuclear turbines can be used that don't need highly enriched fuel which helps deal with the problem of waste and proliferation.

Well how the hell else are we ever going to build Orion starships bro

[Novus America]

You don't need to dam rivers for hydroelectric any more. Hydroelectric turbines can be distributed, there is also run of the river hydroelectric. The technology has changed considerably. The same is true with tidal power. It can be distributed over a wide area. This eliminates the problems with dams. Distributed hydroelectric often works better without dams. Small distributed hydro electric stations just like distributed generation through a smart grid where people who want to can put power back into the grid with solar and wind from their own homes or farms.

Building giant nuclear power plants is an equally bad idea as well. Smaller nuclear turbines can be used that don't need highly enriched fuel which helps deal with the problem of waste and proliferation.

Well the thing is hydro only works certain places, and most run of the river plants do involve a dam, just one that does not store water.
It has its place, but is not a solution to everything.

As to the best type of nuclear power it depends on the location but certainly smaller, modular reactors have huge potential (and the technology has been used on ships since the 50s).

[UniversalCommons]

Building giant nuclear power plants is an equally bad idea as well. Smaller nuclear turbines can be used that don't need highly enriched fuel which helps deal with the problem of waste and proliferation.

Well how the hell else are we ever going to build Orion starships bro

We're going to build them near the moon once we start mining it for Helium 3, then use them to go to Saturn. You can even build a space elevator on the moon so you can construct the Helium 3 bomb powered Orion starships.

[Pax Nerdvana]

In my mind, nuclear's probably the best option, assuming we can mine radioactives in the asteroid belt. Nuclear power is cheap and clean, with accidents being very rare and unlikely.

[Senkaku]

Well how the hell else are we ever going to build Orion starships bro

We're going to build them near the moon once we start mining it for Helium 3, then use them to go to Saturn. You can even build a space elevator on the moon so you can construct the Helium 3 bomb powered Orion starships.

why would we go all the way to fucking space to build H-bombs... to power the ships we need to even get into space (in any serious way)... when we can just churn them out here on earth

and why would we be wasting helium-3 in bombs when the only reason we'd go to space to mine it would be bc we need it to make whatever fusion tech we come up w viable lol

the lunar space elevator is a good idea tho, as is going to Saturn (can't wait for emissions from Titanian natural gas to make the PETM look like snowball earth heh)

[Grenartia]

Not all garbage can be recycled. For the waste that can’t be recycled we burn for fuel.

Most of it can be recycled, and what can't be usually can't be burned, either, IIRC. Besides, this ignores the elephant in the room: burning garbage is a very bad thing both in terms of CO2, and in terms of other atmospheric pollutants.

For grid power, coal all the way, baby. It's cheap, it's plentiful, and it's easy to store.

Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong.

Petroleum's a close second, but its best use is in plane and car engines. Running a grid on wind and solar is quite simply a joke,

Almost as much of a joke as continuing to use fossil fuels.

and while nuclear's cool, it's just not advanced enough yet to compete with coal.

Absolute bullshit. You obviously don't know anything about nuclear if you honestly believe that.

Nuclear has been able to compete with coal for the last 70+ years.

Coal is deadly, expensive, and honestly not worth it

If that's so, why are people so worried about killing coal? If coal's just that expensive, why not just let it die? There's a reason why people use coal, and it's because coal is king.

The reason people still use coal in the US is because entire states and congressional districts were built and run off of the industry for decades. And as long as the money kept rolling in, they overlooked the negative health effects on the workers and didn't care about the environmental impacts. Ever seen a heroin addict that was desperate for another hit? That's what those areas of the country are like with coal.

For grid power, coal all the way, baby.

...and it also chucks out obscene volumes of CO2.

And, more importantly for the nuclearphobes, emits far more radioactive waste products than a nuclear plant.

That is not to say that solar does not have a place. But it we do not have the materials and space to feasibly replace nuclear in a manner that does not cause great environment harm.

There are still rivers not dammed, and there are still parts of the ocean not covered in wind turbines. We do not need to resort to nuclear just yet.

That take is hotter than the core of Reactor 4 at Chernobyl on April 26, 1986.

No we should have resorted to nuclear 40 years ago

Idk, uranium power plants are much less effective than the thorium plants we have now. It was probably better to wait for thorium, the only problem is we need to promote thorium much more than we currently are.

No. We'd still be better off if we'd fully nuclearized with uranium. We'd still be better off if we only fully nuclearize with uranium.

[Satuga]

No. We'd still be better off if we'd fully nuclearized with uranium. We'd still be better off if we only fully nuclearize with uranium.

I'm not too sure about that, not only because uranium fission would end up being obsolete in comparison with thorium, with it costing even more to either upkeep the nuclear plants or to replace them with thorium designs. But also Uranium is much more dangerous in both the terms of potential failure as well as the potential to create nuclear bombs. Any amount of increase in uranium power to create nuclear rockets is a bad thing. It's even worse if we tried to normalize it in places where terrorism lies, we most certainly don't want uranium power plants within the influence of terrorists.

[Luziyca]

If we're using existing technologies, I am in favour of nuclear energy, as well as solar power, wind power, and hydroelectric power. Coal, oil, and other fossil fuels, they should be phased out as soon as reasonably possible.

[Crockerland]

For grid power, coal all the way, baby. It's cheap, it's plentiful, and it's easy to store. Petroleum's a close second, but its best use is in plane and car engines. Running a grid on wind and solar is quite simply a joke,

Coal is widely agreed to be among the worst ways to get power. There are much better forms of electricity generation available, whether you prefer fossil fuels (Natural Gas), alternative energy (Nuclear), or "Green" power (Hydroelectric), coal is not going to come out on top.

Also, Petroleum as a close second for the best grid electricity source? Really? What's in third place? Whale oil?

and while nuclear's cool, it's just not advanced enough yet to compete with coal.

This is nowhere close to accurate.