668
A nuclear plant’s closure was hailed as a green win. Then emissions went up
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
668 points (92.3% liked)
News
23376 readers
2256 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Except it already has. It's cheaper (hence a lower electricity price) to build new wind or solar than it is to continue operating a coal power plant. And because they're renewable the only real costs are the initial construction and some fairly easy maintenance. Without the fuel costs the real price of electricity will go down over time. A rooftop solar system will pay for itself after 7-10 years and from then on the electricity is essentially free.
Meanwhile, when Vogtle 3 came online last year electricity prices in Georgia went up 3% because they passed along the cost of construction to customers.
Plus, building a nuclear power plant takes decades. Vogtle 3 started planning in 2006, and took a decade to build and didn't come online until last year. In the meantime the price of solar dropped by 75%, and we've added 38 GW of solar capacity. Wind went down in price about 25% and added 130 GW of capacity.
So I'd rather wait a decade to tear down the gas turbine generators - or power them with biofuel somehow - than wait for a nuclear plant to come online.
I've checked and rechecked my power bill. Definitely not cheaper.
I live in the Great Lakes, where essentially it is cloudy 90% of the time from October-April. My home has a relative roof that faces east and west, not south. Rooftop solar does not pay for itself here so easily. And that is besides the regulations the power companies have placed on it, essentially eliminating even net metering and only giving you pennies for excess power production.
The planet can't wait a decade while we build out renewables. We have to keep what nuclear we have going at least.
I guess the regulatory environment in PA is nicer, because I can buy 100% renewable electricity for around 3¢/kWh cheaper here than the standard price for dirty energy from the utility. I don't have rooftop solar either and can't because of a big tree, but I still benefit from more renewables.
But I agree that if we're going to have nuclear be a significant component of greenhouse gas reductions we're going to have to keep the ones we have. Mostly because new ones won't produce anything but carbon emissions for 10 years while they're being built, while solar and wind will start producing power even before the projects are finished.
P.S. The fact that we don't have offshore wind on the Great Lakes is a waste of good cold air.
The Great Lakes presents a difficult problem for offshore wind. Since it is fresh water and not salt water, you have to deal with far more ice. Ice beats the shit out of anything left on the lake. Though, with climate change going the way it is, maybe it won’t be a problem at all.
Yeah, here in Ohio things are run by Republicans. The party of small government wants to block most renewable development in the state. And renewable energy is certainly no cheaper here. They have also helped utilities more to more fixed cost billing that makes solar (and also electrifying in place of natural gas) not economically feasible for many.
And I’m not sure picking a supplier that promises renewables, anyway. It’s not like you get to pick and choose the electrons that come to your home. You get whatever is on the grid.
There was a pretty big scandal about companies promising 100% renewable and not giving it a few years back, so they cracked down on that and I'm confident that I'm at least paying for renewable electrons to get put onto the grid.
PA does a lot of things bad (cough PennDOT cough) but it does a good job of electricity supply and is pushing renewables hard.