“What’s Going On Right Now That Most People Have No Idea About?” (35 Answers)

We need both nuclear and renewables. Neither will be sufficient alone for the next couple of hundred years.

The debate between nuclear and renewables is stupid. It's like debating what type of cake you should make, when in front of you is a massive and quickly-growing pile of sh!t. Shut up and make a cake, don't worry about what type yet! That's for when the debate is between kinds of cake, not cake vs sh!t! Edit: censorship

The problem with nuclear power is that it's so terribly expensive. Wind power is much cheaper (by far the cheapest electricity in the UK is on-shore wind). Solar is also a lot cheaper than nuclear. We need energy storage to be built if we're going to install a lot of wind/solar generation. The technology to do so already exists and just needs installing: "Use of molten salts tanks for seasonal thermal energy storage for high penetration of renewable energies in the grid" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X24007874

"Windmills" ("wind turbines" is the modern term) and solar are far cheaper than nuclear and you can install them much, much more quickly. It can take decades to get a new nuclear plant on-line. It's not "fear" that is holding back nuclear: it's just the economic and practical problems of the technology. The problem with renewables is the need for energy storage, but the technology for that already exists (as a by-product of solar concentrator power plants) and just needs installing. "Use of molten salts tanks for seasonal thermal energy storage for high penetration of renewable energies in the grid" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X24007874

Is it difficult to convert and/or transfer solar or wind energy to our infrastructure?? and/or expensive?

Wind power is captured by large turbines and converted to electricity using conventional electrical generators. Solar energy is converted to electricity mostly using large semiconductor panels which directly convert light to electrical energy. Both methods are straightforward and much, much cheaper than nuclear power. The only tricky bit is that neither method directly produces alternating current matched to grid frequency. That's generally done using high power semiconductors, but means you don't get the inherent grid frequency stabilisation delivered by the usual steam turbine arrangement as used in coal, gas, and nuclear power stations. Some solar power stations use large mirror arrays to concentrate sunlight and - eventually - generate steam to power turbines. The UK has a useful amount of wind power installed, so the gas price increase caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine didn't make our electricity prices go up anything like as much as they otherwise would have.

And orange man has turned others away with his "windmills cause cancer" BS that his followers believe in and from another MAGA genius who said we can't use solar because it will "use up all of the sun." I wish I was joking!

Wind and solar is all good, and nuclear should NOT be off the table...

Chernobyl: madly dangerous design. Fukushima: sloppy design in a high risk area. Three Mile Island: slightly iffy design, bad operation, but also: no deaths, and no real problems outside the area of the plant itself. Three Mile Island and Fukushima are both adverts for the safety of nuclear power, since they show you can build unsafe nuclear power plants which destroy themselves and yet have the problems almost completely contained within the confines of the power plant itself. Chernobyl was just a *crazily* dangerous design.

There are modern designs of reactors that use waste from 1st generation reactors as fuel. And other designs that don't generate any radioactive waste. It's been 70 years since the first nuclear power plant went online. We've learned a few things since then.

Do you think that if nuclear power is privatized..that Chernobyl won't be repeated...because cheaper construction, cheaper operating costs? I need education, I don't trust corporations to "do the right thing"... don't necessarily trust governments either??

Nuclear power has always been privatised in the US. Chernobyl was a result of central planning in a fully nationalised economy which prioritised low cost over all other considerations, including safety. The RBMK reactor design used at Chernobyl was basically just madly dangerous. No-one's ever going to build anything remotely that bad ever again - it was a known bad idea even at the time. Look at it like this: those big domes you associate with nuclear power plants? They build them so if the reactor inside does go "bang", it'll all be contained inside the dome. The design used at Chernobyl was more likely to go "bang" (not like a nuclear bomb, not at all) than most nuclear plants, and yet did not have such a containment vessel.

There aren't any fully developed nuclear power station designs that can 'burn" fuel waste, or that don't produce fuel waste. They're entirely possible and they are being developed, but what's being built are old-fashioned PWRs which produce horrible fuel waste and are quite simply stupidly expensive.

I fail to understand how villfied nuclear power is... Especially when you look at the human cost per energy graph...The image is below... A SINGLE WATER DAM that collapsed in china cost more lives than anything nuclear. YES INCLUDING the weapons. Think about that. Why are you so misinformed? Are most people that stupid/gullible and willing to accept lies without checking? Lies have a cost...That is what the chernobyl series was all about... Screenshot...31-png.jpg

"that cannot be recycled" This first sentence is blatantly wrong... China, Russia and now India have working FAST breeder reactors than can recycle old fuel and burn the long lasting waste... It is fine if you cant take China and Russia seriously because of the misinformation... BUT you India? If you are on the level of thinking that the following article is fake then you dont need to continue reading... https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Fuel-loading-begins-at-Indian-fast-breeder-reactor Nothing you read will ever change your mind...

The Breeder reactors reduce the waste 100 x but not to zero. I would like you to stop calling anyone who disagrees with you misguided; a hundredth of current long-term waste is still a lot, it will stay dangerous for so long that humanity will have evolved, and a moving earth layer in one place will not destroy all life everywhere. Your straw man arguments aside: there is no solution for transuranic waste, and there may never be.

There is a solution for transuranic waste products: this proposal from physics Nobel prize winner Carlo Rubbia. "An accelerator-driven system for the destruction of nuclear waste" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149197000001001. Still doesn't stop nuclear power being Just Too Expensive.

India's fast breeder reactor is a development project. No-one has yet managed to get a fast breeder reactor working well enough for "production" purposes. It's not that I think India won't succeed, but they've not cracked it yet. And it's still all very, very expensive compared to wind and solar power.

Here is what you do step by step.... First of all you stop buying into the fear mongering propaganda. paid for by Oil and Coal companies... Second you realize that all other waste is equally if not more harmful than nuclear waste BECAUSE OF THE MASSIVE amount of it... gGogle "Radioactive Wastes From Coal-fired Power Plants" Yeh... Every ton coal HAS radioactive particles in it...The massive Fton amount of it we use makes radioactive waste too... Lastly, even the worst case scenario with no new types of reactors (FBR or Thorium etc..) and a lot of waste...The current waste are sealed in barrels and put under bunkers that are so god damn thought... That whatever disaster unearths them... ALREADY killed everyone... Yhe the earthquake or volcano etc... Must damaging that we are ALL Already dead...==>

The links I promised... 1)Recycling you claim is impossible due to misinformation :https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/fuel-recycling/processing-of-used-nuclear-fuel 2) India's new reactor : https://www.powermag.com/indias-prototype-fast-breeder-nuclear-reactor-moves-closer-to-criticality/ 3) France leading europe in energy because germany has people like you in the goverment...https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20240118-france-reclaims-title-as-europe-s-biggest-exporter-of-electricity 4)In the works Thorum transmutation reactors where the transmuted atoms are used up and leaves negligible waste: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/thorium One more thing I want to mention is that we shoud use both renewables and nuclear power in a complementary way. We simply can't build nuclear reactors everywhere. We also dont have infinite space for renawbles.

We don't need all that much space to generate most of our power from renewables and they're very much cheaper than nuclear. The problem is that we need to install energy storage to deal with the fact that wind and solar power are highly variable and that's not being done yet on an adequate scale. (molten salt tanks is one practical method: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X24007874) We also need some sort of plan for the next "year without a summer" which will happen the next time there's a sufficiently big volcanic eruption. Nuclear strikes me as a sensible part of the power generation mix, but it's so expensive it makes sense to keep the amount of nuclear power generation to a minimum.

How about this proposal from Nobel prize winner Carlo Rubbia? "An accelerator-driven system for the destruction of nuclear waste" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149197000001001. Still doesn't stop nuclear power being Just Too Expensive.

Where is the space for solar? Tell me which is more expensive? How big a solar farm do you need to rival the AVERAGE french good old classic RWB? HOW MANY PANELS? Also We don't ALL have deserts and fields like the middle east australia and the usa. We don't have room temperature super conductor electric cable... What do we do then? Please give me arguments and research similar in calibre to what i am showing, or don't bother replying...AND IT IS OK! You don't have to! Just don't shoot ppl down unless you have something!

The price guarantee for electricty generated by the UK's in-build Sizewell C and Hinkley Point C power stations makes their electricity far, far more expensive than the market price, which includes all other forms of electricity generation including solar; I've read so much about it in Private Eye, which isn't available on-line I'm afraid. Meanwhile, you ask where's the space for solar (I suggest also wind)? Everywhere, that's where. Wind turbines don't take up much ground space, and you can install them off-shore. Solar panels can go on every rooftop. Tests have shown that installing solar panels to partly shade agricultural land in very hot and sunny places can improve agricultural yield. We don't need superconducting power transmission: HV DC does the job nicely. Europe had a plan to install massive solar farms in North Africa with HV DC lines delivering the power to Europe under the Mediterranean - scrapped due to political instability and warfare in the region, but it's practical and cheaper than nuclear.

What is the alternative to nuclear as a main source, supported with renewable energy. Give me something here! A solution. You can shoot what I am saying down but what you say wont matter as action needs to be taken. We can't just burn coal... Show an alternative solution. India's prototype already worked they are making a full on plant now... as i said china and Russia have working FRBs I would not be buying INTO their claims if AGAIN India is didn't for it if the EU did not propose it... and if the scientific community said it was NOT possible... Please look at the scientific consensus... Academic ppl who devoted their lives to this are scratching their heads at the actions of politicians...ESPECIALLY in Germany.

@Ben Aziza, I'm of the opinion that the sensible approach is wind and solar power (and wave power, if they can work out the economics) backed by existing energy storage technology and a minimum amount of nuclear. Energy storage: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X24007874. Nuclear power is just too expensive and while Carlo Rubbia has shown it could easily be done, no-one has yet actually developed the technology to deal with the nastiest waste.

Screenshot...63-png.jpg

6 years old

6 years old... that is your response? You are saying that without being ashamed... as if it means anything? Ok Show what changed in the past 5,4,3,2,1 years... I will be waiting... If that is the level of argument you used. To deny ALL the research i have sent your way... Then you are basically a flat earth anti vaxx kind of person. Nothing i say will ever change your mind. You can prove me wrong and redeem yourself. If you give me something equal to the effort i put it. Until then...I have lost all respect for you...

I'm sorry, you left out the part that explained what the graph is about - death rates per unit of energy - so I misunderstood. You must have missed the part where I was worried about the long-term dangers of nuclear waste. Future death rates, if you will. I don't care for all this name calling or the mix of facts and opinions and straw man arguments you're sending my way, so I suggest you read my other comment and call it a day.

==> so next time when someone idiotic ad corrupt makes a chernobyl and fukushima happen... Dont blame the technology. BLAME THE IDIOT. Please look thinks up and think rationally instead of emotionally. The Soviet union caused Chernobyl. Whatever evil idiots put A fragile REACTOR IN a TSUNAMI AREA to save cost caused the Fukushima... If a drunk driver kills someone. We put them in jail... We dont take away everyone's CAR do we... So ask yourself why is it that when it comes to this energy source that is clearly better than everything else we have... We do the opposite? Ask yourself how much money and bribes were involved to create this false reality. meanwhile france,russia,china and india are CACKELING rightly so!!! Cus they did not fall for it! Please dont fall for it too... I will post links to everything i am saying.

The Fukushima melt-down was caused by a known-inadequate tsunami protection wall coupled with a backup generator system (generators, fuel store, and power lines) which could have been but wasn't designed to cope with a tsunami inundation. But I don't get why you think that nuclear is better than everything else when it's so expensive compared to wind and solar.

(Wow - that many downvotes for something purely factual? Check it out: PWRs really aren't at all safe. Molten salt nuclear reactors really are about the only viable inherently safe fission reactor technology in existence, but no-one's built a power plant using one.)

A dam broke in china and killed more ppl than all the NON safe nuclear reactor. You car and plane is not as safe as the average nuclear reactor. YOU KNOW ALL of this. You refuse to admit you have been fooled! Wake the f up and leave the cult like mindset... If you want me to take you seriously then you need to apply your arguments to everything else. GO ahead. TELL ME. HOW ARE THE DAMS not worse! LOOK at that graph! Answer that. Or nobody here will take you seriously other than the useful idiot of oil companies... Screenshot...97-png.jpg

@Ben Aziza, I've been fooled by no-one. The recent Fukushima reactor melt-down was relatively harmless, but the reactor was totally destroyed and it's going to cost a huge amount of money over a very long time to clear up the mess. I've been suggesting wind and solar power as a lower cost alternative, backed up by existing energy storage technology such as: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X24007874. Yes, some nuclear makes sense, but not much because it's so pricey. I'm not a fan of large dam projects.

OT1H, Yes I am. OTOH, I'm highly confident that by 2040 nearly all new cars will be electric AND your data is world consumption.

Well, yes: weren't you talking about world consumption when you said about solar "in 11 years, it will be the only form of energy we're using". What "we" could you have meant, if not the whole world? Meanwhile: all new cars will have to be zero carbon emission from 2035 - at least in the EU. Other parts of the world might lag behind. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20221019STO44572/eu-ban-on-sale-of-new-petrol-and-diesel-cars-from-2035-explained

Chewie Baron

Chewie Baron

Community Member • points

posts

comments

upvotes

FollowUnfollow

Premium

Premium user. Get details.

The explanations also explain how Google is a massive contributor to the climate crisis.