←back to thread

Nuclear should be considered part of clean energy standard, White House says

(arstechnica.com)
425 points nixass | 3 comments | 02 Apr 21 18:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.619s | source
Show context
philipkglass ◴[02 Apr 21 18:07 UTC] No.26674051[source]▶
I hope that the federal government can provide incentives to keep reactors running that would otherwise close prematurely.

5.1 gigawatts of American reactors are expected to retire this year: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46436

It's a shame that the US is retiring working reactors while still burning fossil fuels for electricity. Reactors are far safer and cleaner than fossil electric generation. It's mostly the low price of natural gas that is driving these early retirements. Low gas prices have also retired a lot of coal usage -- which is good! -- but we'd make more climate progress if those low prices didn't also threaten nuclear generation.

Some states like New York already provided incentives to keep reactors running for climate reasons:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=41534

Federal policy could be more comprehensive.

replies(6): >>26674195 #>>26675068 #>>26675523 #>>26675557 #>>26679016 #>>26681646 #
notJim ◴[02 Apr 21 19:29 UTC] No.26675068[source]▶
I couldn't agree more. Retiring reactors before a green replacement is available has been a total disaster for Germany. To be honest, I'm pretty agnostic as to what the replacement is, but at least keep them going until it's available.
replies(3): >>26675238 #>>26675494 #>>26675596 #
jhayward ◴[02 Apr 21 20:27 UTC] No.26675596[source]▶
> has been a total disaster for Germany.

What do you define as 'a total disaster'? Coal fuel consumption is down enormously, supplanted by renewables and a tiny bit of gas generation growth.

replies(1): >>26675768 #
1. sir_bearington ◴[02 Apr 21 20:43 UTC] No.26675768[source]▶
While non-hydroelectric renewables have gone up, fossil fuel usage remains largely flat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:...

Germany's CO2 intensity of electricity isn't actually very good. It's worse than the UK, and 7 times more than France.

replies(1): >>26675784 #
2. jhayward ◴[02 Apr 21 20:45 UTC] No.26675784[source]▶
Your use of that graph is misleading. It's not a graph of CO2 emissions.
replies(1): >>26675836 #
3. sir_bearington ◴[02 Apr 21 20:50 UTC] No.26675836[source]▶
The above comment didn't say CO2 emissions, it said that coal use is "down enormously" with a "tiny bit of gas generation growth". The reality is that overall fossil fuel use remains largely the same, coal reductions were matched by natural gas increases.

Likewise, CO2 reductions aren't very large, and is still above average for EU member states: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/co2-emission-i...