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What do you think about the renewables vs nuclear debate? (self.energy)

submitted 2 years ago by zksmk to c/energy

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Some key points:

nuclear causes fewer deaths, both animal and human alike
nuclear takes up far less space, and therefore destroys far less of the environment compared to solar farms, hydro, or wind farms
nuclear is stable and not an intermittent source, no issues with grid storage, unlike renewables, which currently solve this with fossil peaker plants
nuclear is hard to turn off so to meet fluctuating demand solely on it, you'd need an excess of nuclear, which is a waste
nuclear excess could encourage other use of electricity, such as electric heating or transport, however
nuclear when it does go bad, goes really bad, mostly in that a large area has to be abandoned for a long long time (historically still fewer deaths than renewables per unit of energy produced tho)
nuclear can cause the proliferation of nuclear weapons
nuclear is a lot harder to spin up, requires extensive education and is hard and takes a long time to build a plant, compared to renewables
all that nuclear waste and no plan other than shove it in somewhere, in a mountain, and keep it secret, keep it safe.

Yay or Nay?

What say you?

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[–] sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Seems like a false dichotomy to me.

We cannot survive on either nuclear or renewables alone. We need every form of energy we can get our hands on, anything practical.

Eventually even people who think that fossil fuels aren't going to destroy the earth are going to have to deal with the reality that there are limited resources on this earth that are easily accessible. Thing is, energy isn't a luxury; it's a requirement for life. We need energy for nearly everything we do, and there is no shortcut or cheat code. We need energy to eat, we need energy to rest, we need energy to make it through summers, we need energy to make it through winters. Without enough sustainable energy in whatever form that takes, there will be a genocide.

So if there's a form of energy we can make use of, we must. If it's going to be energy positive, we need it.

[–] zksmk 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Seems like a false dichotomy to me.

Oh, agreed, personally. There's room for all these technologies, and sometimes even a necessity for only some of them, due to a lack of proper alternatives in some places. And it's not always the same technology. There's no one size fits all answer, for every place on Earth.

This is a debate worth having only in a specific localized context, and not to find some generalized rule imo. I never understood why it had to be either/or.