Well, nuclear power, at least for now, is quite expensive. As long as no new technological breakthrough comes along, it’s simply cheaper to use wind and solar as main power producers. Of course, this has its own problem in the form of power storage, but at least we already have the technology for this.
Power storage is only half of it. Most grids transmit AC power, and in order for that you need SOMETHING in the grid that provides a stable frequency aka a stable prime moves whose speed is unaffected by changes in load. That can be provided by fossil fuel plants, nuclear plants, or hydropower (as long as shifting climate patterns continue to keep reservoirs full).
Wind turbines don’t have a consistent enough prime mover (the wind, so unreliable that it’s a metaphor for constant, rapid change). Solar panels supply DC power, so another option is figuring out long range DC power transmission, which is what China is doing I believe. It’s an incredibly costly and resources intensive solution though.
Power generation is more complicated than just making something spin. You have to consider loading, reactive load, what to do with excess power during off peak hours, balancing load between multiple power sources. Unfortunately, solving the climate crisis is going to take more than “just build renewable sources”.
It also doesn’t help that our infrastructure is out of date due to refusing upgrades because they included green sources (Trump preventing off hore wind farms, for example, also prevents infrastructure upgrades) and/or NIMBYism.
I didn’t want to trivialize the problems with switching to greener alternatives; I just wanted to say that we don’t need some ‘future tech’ to get it done. All we need is what is already known and implemented somewhere in the world.
Also building more nuclear facilities - without any groundbreaking new improvements - is more expensive than the alternative.
Well, nuclear power, at least for now, is quite expensive. As long as no new technological breakthrough comes along, it’s simply cheaper to use wind and solar as main power producers. Of course, this has its own problem in the form of power storage, but at least we already have the technology for this.
Power storage is only half of it. Most grids transmit AC power, and in order for that you need SOMETHING in the grid that provides a stable frequency aka a stable prime moves whose speed is unaffected by changes in load. That can be provided by fossil fuel plants, nuclear plants, or hydropower (as long as shifting climate patterns continue to keep reservoirs full).
Wind turbines don’t have a consistent enough prime mover (the wind, so unreliable that it’s a metaphor for constant, rapid change). Solar panels supply DC power, so another option is figuring out long range DC power transmission, which is what China is doing I believe. It’s an incredibly costly and resources intensive solution though.
Power generation is more complicated than just making something spin. You have to consider loading, reactive load, what to do with excess power during off peak hours, balancing load between multiple power sources. Unfortunately, solving the climate crisis is going to take more than “just build renewable sources”.
It also doesn’t help that our infrastructure is out of date due to refusing upgrades because they included green sources (Trump preventing off hore wind farms, for example, also prevents infrastructure upgrades) and/or NIMBYism.
Source: I work in nuclear power.
I didn’t want to trivialize the problems with switching to greener alternatives; I just wanted to say that we don’t need some ‘future tech’ to get it done. All we need is what is already known and implemented somewhere in the world.
Also building more nuclear facilities - without any groundbreaking new improvements - is more expensive than the alternative.
Hey I agree with you, but,
The last nuke plant we built in the US was designed in the 1980’s thought, so those ground breaking improvements are here.