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

[Nakena]

Natural Gas has become quite efficient actually and produces a lot less CO2 than Coal/oil.

The big thing with natural gas is its tendency to leak blow buildings up.

It's still the best thing to cook things.

[Novus America]

Convert fully to nuclear or cheap renewables. Coal and natural gas are polluting, so expensive they're only kept afloat by corrupt government subsidies, and inefficient.

Natural Gas has become quite efficient actually and produces a lot less CO2 than Coal/oil.

It is certainly better than coal and oil. And in some places very cheap.
But it still pollutes a lot. Although it pollutes much less than coal and oil it still pollutes much more than nuclear.

Replacing a coal power plant with gas reduces pollutes significantly.
Replacing a nuclear power plant with gas though significantly increases pollution.

Also for places having to import it from potentially hostile countries it is a major security threat.

[Agarntrop]

Convert fully to nuclear or cheap renewables. Coal and natural gas are polluting, so expensive they're only kept afloat by corrupt government subsidies, and inefficient.

Natural Gas has become quite efficient actually and produces a lot less CO2 than Coal/oil.

Iirc there's only a 40 year supply of it left, which is not at all sustainable in my eyes.

[Earth Orbit]

Solar:

Pros:
- Pollution free

Leaving aside how inefficient solar is, it is far, far, FAR from pollution free. The actual act of generating power does not produce pollution, yes, but photovoltaic cells require heavy metals like lead and cadmium that need to be extracted from the ground. Although modern mining is significantly more precise, tearing up the ground and carting up resources still has a significant environmental impact. And that's actually the lesser issue - solar panels have a limited lifespan of 20 to 30 years before they become essentially useless. At that point the panels are just sort of tossed in a landfill.

This is a problem because those heavy metals used in the panel construction start seeping back out into the environment. Currently there is about 250,000 metric tons of this solar waste in the world, and predictions have estimated that it could reach 78 million metric tons by 2050, as larger and larger generations of solar panel production hit End Of Life.

It's not just landfilling that can cause panels to release this dangerous waste; natural disasters like tornadoes can take a big bite out of a solar farm and scatter carcinogenic cadmium to the winds. Even a simple rainstorm can flush cadmium off of a solar panel.

Some have proposed mandating that manufacturers provide recycling and disposal services for EoL panels, but the cost of this would pretty much suck any profit out of the photovoltaic power industry, making the idea a non-starter.

IMHO, the only practical, existing solution for long-term human power generation needs is nuclear fission. Current reactor technology is already a miracle of human science and engineering, and is more than sufficient to power our entire civilization if we switched over to it. Next-generation thorium reactors, which IIRC are currently in experimental stages, are even better, as the fuel is stupidly abundant compared to uranium and the waste is even less of a concern - chuck it in a desert hole and within just a few centuries it becomes inert. Much better than fossil fuel emissions or waste from solar. Nuclear fusion is the even better step up, but right now it's still a pipe dream.

[Novus America]

The big thing with natural gas is its tendency to leak blow buildings up.

It's still the best thing to cook things.

Certainly electric stove tops are usually not very good.
Although natural gas is difficult to transport and store if you are not on a natural gas pipeline.
Propane is usually better for cooking if you are not.

[Grenartia]

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,

You could say that about literally any and every technology. And its an absolutely bogus argument to make. The fact that a given technology will later become obsolete because of technology that will come later does not mean that the current technology is a bad decision to invest in. Nuclear fission of all forms will be made obsolete by nuclear fusion, but does that mean we should just keep burning coal, oil, and gas until the day someone finally manages to break even with fusion? No. Absolutely not.

with it costing even more to either upkeep the nuclear plants or to replace them with thorium designs.

I mean, there are some designs *cough* Pebble Bed Reactor *cough* that wouldn't really be much trouble at all to switch over to. I believe other Gen 4 designs have similar backwards compatibility, for lack of a better term.

But also Uranium is much more dangerous in both the terms of potential failure

Oh my godless heathens. Thorium is no less dangerous than uranium "in terms of potential failure". You get just as much cancer from thorium and its daughters as you do from uranium or even plutonium. The real danger is from bad designs. Which even Gen 3 reactors are pretty safe. Gen 4 even more so.

as well as the potential to create nuclear bombs.

NNPT seems to be working pretty well to prevent that thus far.

Any amount of increase in uranium power to create nuclear rockets is a bad thing.

What. Who is even talking about nuclear propulsion here? Not that its an inherently bad idea, in fact, its one of the best forms of propulsion we can currently design.

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.

Again, uranium by itself is just as dangerous as any other radioactive element. Granted, I don't know of any design that uses thorium directly to create the necessary implosion, but it can be used to produce U-233 for a bomb (though it is technically challenging), and was used in the radiation case of at least one US nuclear ABM warhead.

So by your logic, we shouldn't have any nuclear power in any country where terrorism lies. As every country, even the US, has terrorists (including non-Muslim ones), by your logic, nobody should have nuclear power.

What is counted is deaths by accidents which are visible. Deaths by cancer are not counted.

Actually, they are accounted for.

The table below lists the mortality rate of each energy source as deaths per trillion kWhrs produced. The numbers are a combination of actual direct deaths and epidemiological estimates, and are rounded to two significant figures.

For coal, oil and biomass, it is carbon particulates resulting from burning that cause upper respiratory distress, kind of a second-hand black lung. Our lungs just don’t like burnt carbonaceous particulates, whether from coal or wood or manure or pellets or cigarettes. The actual numbers of deaths in China from coal use exceeded 300,000 last year since they have ramped up coal so fast in the last decade and they usually do not install exhaust scrubbers. The impact on their health care system has been significant in not just deaths, but in non-lethal health effects and lost days of work.

Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)

Coal – global average 100,000 (41% global electricity)

Coal – China 170,000 (75% China’s electricity)

Coal – U.S. 10,000 (32% U.S. electricity)

Oil 36,000 (33% of energy, 8% of electricity)

Natural Gas 4,000 (22% global electricity)

Biofuel/Biomass 24,000 (21% global energy)

Solar (rooftop) 440 (< 1% global electricity)

Wind 150 (2% global electricity)

Hydro – global average 1,400 (16% global electricity)

Hydro – U.S. 5 (6% U.S. electricity)

Nuclear – global average 90 (11% global electricity w/Chern&Fukush)

Nuclear – U.S. 0.1 (19% U.S. electricity)

It is notable that the U.S. death rates for coal are so much lower than for China, strictly a result of regulation, particularly the Clean Air Act (Scott et al., 2005). It is also notable that the Clean Air Act is one of the most life-saving pieces of legislation ever adopted by any country in history, along with the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) which established the 40 hour week, and Medicare in 1965. Still, about 10,000 die from coal use in the U.S. each year, and another thousand from natural gas.

Hydro is dominated by a few rare large dam failures like Banqiao in China in 1976 which killed about 171,000 people. The reason the U.S. hydro deaths are so few is, again regulation - specifically our Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

Workers still regularly fall off wind turbines during maintenance but since relatively little electricity production comes from wind, the totals deaths are small. Nuclear has the lowest deathprint, even with the worst-case Chernobyl numbers and Fukushima projections, uranium mining deaths, and using the Linear No-Treshold Dose hypothesis (see Helman/2012/03/10). Again, the reason the U.S. death toll is so low for nuclear is our strong Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The dozen or so U.S. deaths in nuclear over the last 60 years have mostly been in the weapons complex or are modeled from general LNT effects. The reason the nuclear number is small is that nuclear produces so much electricity per unit. There just are not many nuclear plants. And the two failures have been in GenII plants with old designs that were due to human failures to heed our warnings. All new builds must be GenIII and higher, with passive redundant safety systems, and all must be able to withstand the worst case disaster, no matter how unlikely.

I underlined the important bits for convenience.

I like the idea of a fossil fuel exclusionary, all of the above mix. I would also like the mix to be based largely on hydroelectric and nuclear. One could use nuclear for base line power generation, hydro as a flex source, solar and wind when available, geothermal where applicable.

This. The biggest issue with nuclear is it makes little sense to vary the output, but demand varies.
Nuclear meets the minimum demand, other more variable sources the peak.

Although you could just add a reverse osmosis plant to the nuclear one, which could use power production in excess of normal outside demand to make fresh water.
Or pump a hydroelectric dam in reverse.

Or, have the nuclear plant use whatever excess power it generates to power CO2 management facilities. Turn it into something more productive, like raw carbon and O2.

I don't understand why people mean only photovoltaic by "solar" and forget the solar thermal generators.

Lol, Bird Burninators.

I see a lot of people talk about batteries as a solution to the limitations of intermittent sources like solar and wind, but I'm curious. What are the repercussions of extracting metals and creating acids to make these batteries?

For one, no foreseeable battery tech can actually meet the demand that is currently required, much less expected in the future. Not even Elon's Tesla batteries. As for the repercussions, the actual mining locations are often in environmentally-sensitive areas, and/or are primarily located in areas like China.

Three Mile Island killed nobody, hurt nobody and did no damage outside the reactor containment structure. Yes should be a bunker like structure (something Chernobyl and Fukushima lacked) but if you do the risk basically zero. Also negative void coefficient reactors cannot possibly melt down. It all comes down to design. Not all nuclear plants are created equal. Chernobyl was a completely different design than others.

Hell, I've been in Chernobyl NPP and I still support nuclear.

That sounds like an interesting story.

Solar:

Pros:
- Pollution free

Leaving aside how inefficient solar is, it is far, far, FAR from pollution free. The actual act of generating power does not produce pollution, yes, but photovoltaic cells require heavy metals like lead and cadmium that need to be extracted from the ground. Although modern mining is significantly more precise, tearing up the ground and carting up resources still has a significant environmental impact. And that's actually the lesser issue - solar panels have a limited lifespan of 20 to 30 years before they become essentially useless. At that point the panels are just sort of tossed in a landfill.

This is a problem because those heavy metals used in the panel construction start seeping back out into the environment. Currently there is about 250,000 metric tons of this solar waste in the world, and predictions have estimated that it could reach 78 million metric tons by 2050, as larger and larger generations of solar panel production hit End Of Life.

It's not just landfilling that can cause panels to release this dangerous waste; natural disasters like tornadoes can take a big bite out of a solar farm and scatter carcinogenic cadmium to the winds. Even a simple rainstorm can flush cadmium off of a solar panel.

Some have proposed mandating that manufacturers provide recycling and disposal services for EoL panels, but the cost of this would pretty much suck any profit out of the photovoltaic power industry, making the idea a non-starter.

IMHO, the only practical, existing solution for long-term human power generation needs is nuclear fission. Current reactor technology is already a miracle of human science and engineering, and is more than sufficient to power our entire civilization if we switched over to it. Next-generation thorium reactors, which IIRC are currently in experimental stages, are even better, as the fuel is stupidly abundant compared to uranium and the waste is even less of a concern - chuck it in a desert hole and within just a few centuries it becomes inert. Much better than fossil fuel emissions or waste from solar. Nuclear fusion is the even better step up, but right now it's still a pipe dream.

Indeed. Doesn't solar also rely on ClF3 for its manufacture?

[The New California Republic]

Hell, I've been in Chernobyl NPP and I still support nuclear.

That sounds like an interesting story.

It was not great not terrible.

[Neu California]

Solar:

Pros:
- Pollution free

Leaving aside how inefficient solar is, it is far, far, FAR from pollution free. The actual act of generating power does not produce pollution, yes, but photovoltaic cells require heavy metals like lead and cadmium that need to be extracted from the ground. Although modern mining is significantly more precise, tearing up the ground and carting up resources still has a significant environmental impact. And that's actually the lesser issue - solar panels have a limited lifespan of 20 to 30 years before they become essentially useless. At that point the panels are just sort of tossed in a landfill.

This is a problem because those heavy metals used in the panel construction start seeping back out into the environment. Currently there is about 250,000 metric tons of this solar waste in the world, and predictions have estimated that it could reach 78 million metric tons by 2050, as larger and larger generations of solar panel production hit End Of Life.

It's not just landfilling that can cause panels to release this dangerous waste; natural disasters like tornadoes can take a big bite out of a solar farm and scatter carcinogenic cadmium to the winds. Even a simple rainstorm can flush cadmium off of a solar panel.

Some have proposed mandating that manufacturers provide recycling and disposal services for EoL panels, but the cost of this would pretty much suck any profit out of the photovoltaic power industry, making the idea a non-starter.

IMHO, the only practical, existing solution for long-term human power generation needs is nuclear fission. Current reactor technology is already a miracle of human science and engineering, and is more than sufficient to power our entire civilization if we switched over to it. Next-generation thorium reactors, which IIRC are currently in experimental stages, are even better, as the fuel is stupidly abundant compared to uranium and the waste is even less of a concern - chuck it in a desert hole and within just a few centuries it becomes inert. Much better than fossil fuel emissions or waste from solar. Nuclear fusion is the even better step up, but right now it's still a pipe dream.

Your claims are highly exaggerated

https://solar.gwu.edu/do-solar-panels-c ... -chemicals

https://www.jnrd.info/2019/05/10-5027-jnrd-v9i0-02/ (the high selenium levels in the chart were traced back to the concrete plant as the study notes)

[Earth Orbit]

Leaving aside how inefficient solar is, it is far, far, FAR from pollution free. The actual act of generating power does not produce pollution, yes, but photovoltaic cells require heavy metals like lead and cadmium that need to be extracted from the ground. Although modern mining is significantly more precise, tearing up the ground and carting up resources still has a significant environmental impact. And that's actually the lesser issue - solar panels have a limited lifespan of 20 to 30 years before they become essentially useless. At that point the panels are just sort of tossed in a landfill.

This is a problem because those heavy metals used in the panel construction start seeping back out into the environment. Currently there is about 250,000 metric tons of this solar waste in the world, and predictions have estimated that it could reach 78 million metric tons by 2050, as larger and larger generations of solar panel production hit End Of Life.

It's not just landfilling that can cause panels to release this dangerous waste; natural disasters like tornadoes can take a big bite out of a solar farm and scatter carcinogenic cadmium to the winds. Even a simple rainstorm can flush cadmium off of a solar panel.

Some have proposed mandating that manufacturers provide recycling and disposal services for EoL panels, but the cost of this would pretty much suck any profit out of the photovoltaic power industry, making the idea a non-starter.

IMHO, the only practical, existing solution for long-term human power generation needs is nuclear fission. Current reactor technology is already a miracle of human science and engineering, and is more than sufficient to power our entire civilization if we switched over to it. Next-generation thorium reactors, which IIRC are currently in experimental stages, are even better, as the fuel is stupidly abundant compared to uranium and the waste is even less of a concern - chuck it in a desert hole and within just a few centuries it becomes inert. Much better than fossil fuel emissions or waste from solar. Nuclear fusion is the even better step up, but right now it's still a pipe dream.

Your claims are highly exaggerated

https://solar.gwu.edu/do-solar-panels-c ... -chemicals

https://www.jnrd.info/2019/05/10-5027-jnrd-v9i0-02/ (the high selenium levels in the chart were traced back to the concrete plant as the study notes)

The first "source" is extremely poorly written and makes use of false, hyperbolic language, as well as outdated sources that go against more modern research. I've discarded it as such.

(Do note that my source is here, although a cursory Google search will turn up the same numbers and conclusions from a variety of other locations. The figures of 250,000 and 75 million actually source from IRENA, which is heavily for the use of renewables. Personally I think they're full of shit with thinking that solar and wind are economically viable replacements, but their waste data is accurate, so...)

The second source, from the JNRD, does appear to provide more recent data on the leaching of heavy metals from in-use panels under normal conditions. Alright, that's fair, my statement about the rain was wrong. However, what it DOES NOT disprove is leakage from landfilling. In fact, a direct quote from that very article lists landfill leakage as the primary concern: "thus most of the concern for contamination of Pb and Cd from solar panels relates to panels disposed in landfills that degrade over time, and become exposed to water..."

Also, from a Forbes article: “Contrary to previous assumptions, pollutants such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium can be almost completely washed out of the fragments of solar modules over a period of several months, for example by rainwater.” This quote comes from research scientists with the German Stuttgart Institute for Photovoltaics.

Finally, neither article disproves my concern with large-scale natural disasters like tornadoes - in fact, the JNRD article states that even relatively small water infiltration and physical damage to panels would allow for heavy metals to escape. A tornado or hurricane is gonna do a lot more to a panel than just crack it.

Please actually read your own damn sources before pasting them in without any context besides "these refute your claims."

Edit: I'm also just gonna sneak in this terrific article by someone who formerly believed in renewables. It explains the total infeasability of renewables to power human civilization, and how the use of nuclear power would be the best option for the environment.

[Neu California]

Your claims are highly exaggerated

https://solar.gwu.edu/do-solar-panels-c ... -chemicals

https://www.jnrd.info/2019/05/10-5027-jnrd-v9i0-02/ (the high selenium levels in the chart were traced back to the concrete plant as the study notes)

The first "source" is extremely poorly written and makes use of false, hyperbolic language, as well as outdated sources that go against more modern research. I've discarded it as such.

(Do note that my source is here, although a cursory Google search will turn up the same numbers and conclusions from a variety of other locations. The figures of 250,000 and 75 million actually source from IRENA, which is heavily for the use of renewables. Personally I think they're full of shit with thinking that solar and wind are economically viable replacements, but their waste data is accurate, so...)

The second source, from the JNRD, does appear to provide more recent data on the leaching of heavy metals from in-use panels under normal conditions. Alright, that's fair, my statement about the rain was wrong. However, what it DOES NOT disprove is leakage from landfilling. In fact, a direct quote from that very article lists landfill leakage as the primary concern: "thus most of the concern for contamination of Pb and Cd from solar panels relates to panels disposed in landfills that degrade over time, and become exposed to water..."

Also, from a Forbes article: “Contrary to previous assumptions, pollutants such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium can be almost completely washed out of the fragments of solar modules over a period of several months, for example by rainwater.” This quote comes from research scientists with the German Stuttgart Institute for Photovoltaics.

Finally, neither article disproves my concern with large-scale natural disasters like tornadoes - in fact, the JNRD article states that even relatively small water infiltration and physical damage to panels would allow for heavy metals to escape. A tornado or hurricane is gonna do a lot more to a panel than just crack it.

Please actually read your own damn sources before pasting them in without any context besides "these refute your claims."

Edit: I'm also just gonna sneak in this terrific article by someone who formerly believed in renewables. It explains the total infeasability of renewables to power human civilization, and how the use of nuclear power would be the best option for the environment.

Going through your sources (which I did read mine and did some side research on them, which maybe you should do with yours):

The IER is was founded by Koch and Enron alumni and is hardly a trustworthy source (https://www.energyandpolicy.org/institu ... -alliance/) (https://thinkprogress.org/obscure-think ... 4feb0b813/) so not a reliable source by any stretch

The second source, IRENA, talks about recycling indeed, and I really don't see why we shouldn't recycle solar panels. I see no issue with that. Just store them until The tech for full recycling is there. There is plenty of incentive for that

The third article, forbes, got a nice send-up from the guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... lar-panels), which notes that solar panel breakage is relatively rare outside of disaster areas, which have higher concerns than some leaking solar panels.

And the last one comes from the same source as the third one, one Michael Shellenberger, whose bias has been well documented. Wild I can't find any specific critiques of the quillette article, I did find this send up (https://energynews.us/2016/10/26/midwes ... anization/) of a protest he did in favor of two nuclear power plants where he claimed that their closure would result in further greenhouse gases, in spite of the fact that Illinois was an energy exporter, and didn't really need the power the were providing anyway, so there was no need for new plants to replace the old, expensive ones that would be closed (remember, the only grid power source more expensive than nuclear right now is coal) I would find a better source than him.

Edit: rereading my first source, its a dry analysis without any use of false hyperbolic language that I can see, simply taking about whether they Leah into re environment under normal conditions (and that its short, cites studies, and from a .edu makes me more inclined to trust it). If its claims are wrong or outdated, link the relevant sources here.

[Risottia]

I don't understand why people mean only photovoltaic by "solar" and forget the solar thermal generators.

Lol, Bird Burninators.

It's green energy AND it comes with free roast chicken.

[Neu California]

Anyway, the eia's annual energy outlook came out today and they predict renewables overtaking natural gas by 2050.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles ... power-mixa

However, I'm skeptical about the accuracy of their pessimistic forecast simply due to their tendency to overestimate fossil fuels and badly underestimate renewables. Two charts about that





So, though they say 2050, I'm going with 2030 or sooner.

[Pilipinas and Malaya]

Anyway, the eia's annual energy outlook came out today and they predict renewables overtaking natural gas by 2050.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles ... power-mixa

However, I'm skeptical about the accuracy of their pessimistic forecast simply due to their tendency to overestimate fossil fuels and badly underestimate renewables. Two charts about that

(Image)

(Image)

So, though they say 2050, I'm going with 2030 or sooner.

I agree with this sentiment. Especially with the general move governments are making towards greener energy because of the millions gathered at rallies across the world.

[UniversalCommons]

There is something called Swanson's law, every 10 years, solar drops 75% in price. This seems to be a pattern that is ongoing like the doubling in power of computer chips.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law

There is a long way to go for increasing output of solar power. It is not a mature technology like gas or oil. This is also true of wave power. It is just starting. Many renewables represent new technologies with vast room for improvement.

[Novus America]

There is something called Swanson's law, every 10 years, solar drops 75% in price. This seems to be a pattern that is ongoing like the doubling in power of computer chips.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law

There is a long way to go for increasing output of solar power. It is not a mature technology like gas or oil. This is also true of wave power. It is just starting. Many renewables represent new technologies with vast room for improvement.

Computer chips are not doubling anymore though.

Solar has been around since the 50s. Although it still has room to improve, there are material limitations. Especially as if you are building a lot of solar, the prices of the materials go up.

The simple problem is solar will always require a huge amount of space and materials consumed per energy outputted, even before you ad in the energy storage material, space and financial cost (it will never work at night or as well in cloudy weather).
It still has too low a land density to reliably power cities without destroying vast amounts of land elsewhere.

It should play a part, but it alone is not nearly enough.

Wave power is almost certainly a non starter, because besides being a hazard to navigation, it is still going to have a massive materials costs and material limitations.

The ocean is one of the most hostile environments there is.
Ships still have are very high maintenance because the environment the work in.

The best source in terms of reliability, materials consumption and land use is nuclear. And that is not going to change.

[The Flying Hand]

What's the status on fusion power? I've heard it was being researched by a couple universities in US and France, but it's been fairly quiet.

[Salandriagado]

Umm reflective foil is made from metal. You are going to use massive amounts of land.
Also 61% of Ontario’s power is nuclear. Works great.

Simply repeating ”but Fukushima” (which in the grand scheme of things was not that devastating anyways) does not change anything.

Yes a reactor with a positive void coefficient, insufficient containment structure when struck by an absurdly huge tsunami will have problems. Okay.

So we do not repeat that.

Simple fact is nuclear produces the most power with the least resources used, and in fact, eve including Fukushima and Chernobyl has a extremely low death print. It has the lowest environmental footprint and lowest death print of the recorded sources.

Where are the deaths from solar power?

You also neglect to mention thermal-solar at sea.

Literally just people falling off rooftops installing solar panels is more deaths than nuclear power.

[Salandriagado]

You forgot to add coal to your OP

No they didn't. Besides even if they did there is basically no way to defend coal power anymore aside from being ludicrously cheap at the expense of being shit in just about ever other way.

It's not even that cheap.

[Salandriagado]

We never tried it because it is not practical.
You would have to build absurdly huge barges, deal with the fact the ocean moves, that seawater and salt ruins smooth surfaces, etc.

Or you could tie a bunch of floatation devices to the shore and put the mirrors on stands that are on the floatation devices. As long as they're well above the wave height they should be fine.

For it to work, you need to hold all of the components stationary relative to each other, and at a predictable orientation relative to the sun. Your suggestion achieves neither. Wind is a far better way to generate electricty at sea.

[Salandriagado]

If only there was some means of storing electricity generated during the daytime for later use.

This coming week, my weather app says that it's going to be snowing almost every day and overcast on the days that it's not snowing. So, let's say I had solar panels. Do you honestly expect me to go out and buy enough batteries to store a week's worth of power? And to climb up onto my roof and shovel the snow off of the panels every day? I can't afford to buy that many batteries and I'm not about to risk falling off my roof to clean off solar panels.

Let's say my city was powered by solar panels. There are approximately 200,000 people here. So, the city would have to store a weeks worth of power for all 200,000 people, and their businesses, and government facilities, and other structures as necessary. My city can't afford to buy those batteries or to pay people to clean off the solar panels-- they can't even afford to build a shelter for the homeless.

Buying batteries to store power works for those who can afford it. But it's a solution that only works for middle and upper class folk. There needs to be a more reliable method of producing power, and in my opinion nuclear power is the way to go.

You know who can afford it? The government. Use giant lake-shaped batteries, and you're sorted. You even get free blackstart capability into the bargain.

[The Flying Hand]

No they didn't. Besides even if they did there is basically no way to defend coal power anymore aside from being ludicrously cheap at the expense of being shit in just about ever other way.

It's not even that cheap.

Supposedly the costs of mining coal, transporting it, burning it for electricity, and disposing it, is actually fairly expensive. It cost the US a third of a trillion annually.

[Salandriagado]

It is actually now more expensive than natural gas, but the main downside is it kills tons of people and does the most environment harm.

Nuclear is superior to coal already.

Not really. Coal is practically banned by uber-overregulation, which is why it's so expensive. Without that overregulation, it would be less than a third of its current cost. Otherwise, why would China use so much of it?

You're comparing coal to nuclear and claiming that coal is the overregulated one? Don't be fucking absurd. Also, coal power in the US is subsidised to the tune of $4bn/year.

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 only people worried about killing coal are:

1. People employed by the industry who don't want to retrain/heave to deal with lower salaries,
2. The people who own coal mines,
3. The politicians relying on (1) for votes, and
4. The politicians being paid off by (2).

Everybody else is quite happy to kill that fucking disaster of a fuel.

[Salandriagado]

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.

Some extremely rough and very generous back-of-the-envelope estimates put it at somewhere between 90 and 99% of them pointing away at any given time.

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.

Both of those are more dangerous than just using nuclear power.

[Salandriagado]

What is counted is deaths by accidents which are visible. Deaths by cancer are not counted. This is where people get afraid. Nuclear radiation is not particular visible, there is no way that you are going to get health coverage for it. It is most likely going to be covered up and when it is reported by some green group, it is going to be exaggerated with a dose of fear.

This is an article on Chernobyl from Newsweek. It is not the most reputable source. It has quotes for between 4,000 people getting and 200,000 people getting cancer from Chernobyl. You get slow nonvisible politicized deaths which are about fear.

https://www.newsweek.com/chernobyl-disa ... er-1444029

There is a mix of secrecy and politicization which terrifies people. The word coverup goes with exaggeration so that it confuses things with massive inaccuracy.

Part of this fear is that very few people actually know how nuclear energy works. It is complicated and fearsome. The promise that nothing can go wrong repeatedly is nonsense. The exaggeration is just as bad.

To make this more interesting you go to the NIH website in the United States and they tell most of what is known about radiation cancer deaths comes from Chernobyl. None of it is accurate. It is all politicized.
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/cau ... fact-sheet

Nuclear energy is great for space exploration. There are very few people up there who are not willing to take the risk and there is very little life to kill.

Those deaths are being counted. They're just a ludicrously tiny number. Partly because coal-fired power stations throw out orders of magnitude more radiation than nuclear plants.

[Salandriagado]

Convert fully to nuclear or cheap renewables. Coal and natural gas are polluting, so expensive they're only kept afloat by corrupt government subsidies, and inefficient.

Natural Gas has become quite efficient actually and produces a lot less CO2 than Coal/oil.

"Less" is still too much. There are solutions, though: there exist carbon capture systems that can produce gas that you can put into your natural gas infrastructure, making the whole process carbon neutral. It's for energy storage/transport, though (and allowing you to shift to renewables without having to redo your entire heating infrastructure from scratch), because you need a separate carbon neutral power source to run the whole thing.