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1041 points mpweiher | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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Luker88 ◴[] No.45230034[source]
I am not sure people understand the implications of this.

First, it's not just nuclear, it's also Natural gas.

Second, lots of nations have incentives for "clean" energy. And now magically, all those incentives apply to nuclear and gas.

It's a money grab from nuclear and gas manufacturers. It's not that the courts were involved for nothing.

Still, we should use more nuclear. If only it was less expensive to build...

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m101 ◴[] No.45230176[source]
Nuclear + gas is the climate friendly solution.
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grafmax ◴[] No.45230789[source]
Gas isn’t climate friendly just because of its debatable attractiveness vs coal. And nuclear comes with catastrophic risks that require large costs to mitigate. Let’s not pretend it’s some panacea. Renewables are better than both.
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mpweiher ◴[] No.45230801[source]
Fun fact: The US achieved more for the climate with fracking gas than Germany did with its "Energiewende".
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kla-s ◴[] No.45230940[source]
Do you care to explain more, id be interested :)
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mpweiher ◴[] No.45231025[source]
In 2005, both the US and Germany had specific emissions of around 600g CO₂/kWh.

In 2015, due mostly to fracking gas, the US was down to around 450g CO₂/kWh.

Germany, with its Energiewende, was at around 560g CO₂/kWh.

Because, of course, the Energiewende was not about climate change. It was about shutting down climate-friendly (CO₂ free) nuclear plants.

Both could have done better. France is currently at something like 32g CO₂/kWh and has been at roughly that level for decades.

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RandomLensman ◴[] No.45231070[source]
Shutting down nuclear was a pretty popular policy. But that aside, what the Energiewende was not about was removing obstacles to building out energy infrastructure rapidly (e.g., the delay on the north-south connections).
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gf000 ◴[] No.45231078[source]
Well, populism is no good reason to do something dumb. Maybe laymen should not directly have a say over experts in deeply technical discussions.
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RandomLensman ◴[] No.45231187[source]
Yes, not supporting energy infrastructure construction better was a mistake.

Removing what would be nasty targets in a war perhaps in the current light not so much.

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mpweiher ◴[] No.45231859[source]
No shutting down cheap, reliable, CO₂ free and already paid for energy infrastructure was.

That's about as idiotic as you can get.

And simply by not destroying this already existing infrastructure you wouldn't even have needed north-south links.

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RandomLensman ◴[] No.45231887{7}[source]
End of live would have come sooner or later anyway.

But why take the risk of fission reactors becoming targets in a war?

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1. mpweiher ◴[] No.45233437{8}[source]
Later.

Reactors in the US, on which the German designs are based, have already received their extensions to 80 years.

Experts see no particular problems in extending that to 100 years or even further.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-pla...

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-long-can-a-nuclear-plan...

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-re...

Fission reactors are not very useful targets in war. In Ukraine, their fleet of nuclear reactors are what's keeping the electricity grid running. And they are building new ones. In war time.