I agree it’s safe but idk it’s the best we currently have, I think that probably depends on locale.
Solar and wind (and maybe tidal?), with pumped hydro energy storage is probably cheaper, safer, and cleaner… But it requires access to a fair bit more water than a nuclear plant requires, at least initially.
But nuclear is still far better than using fossil fuels for baseline demand.
Land usage is what makes nuclear the most ecologically sound solution. Solar and wind play their part. But for every acre of land, nuclear tops the chart of power produced per year. And when you’re trying to sate the demand of high density housing and businesses in cities, energy density becomes important. Low carbon footprint is great for solar and wind but if you’re also displacing ecosytems that would otherwise be sucking up carbon, its not as environmentally friendly as we’d like.
Are you displacing whole ecosystems, though?
How much do wind farms affect grasslands and prairies, etc? They’ll have an impact for sure, but it’s not like the whole place gets paved over.
And solar can get placed on roofs of existing structures. Or distributed so it doesn’t affect any one area too much.
I have to admit idk much about sourcing the materials involved in building solar panels and windmills. Idk if they require destructive mining operations.
I imagine that a nuclear reactor would require more concrete, metal, and rate earth magnets that a solar/wind farm, but idk. I likewise don’t know the details about mining and refining the various fissile material and nuclear poisons.
The other advantage of renewables is that it’s distributed so it’s naturally redundant. If it needs to get shut down (repairs, or a problem with the grid) it wont have a big impact.
I like nuclear, and it’s certainly the better choice for some locations, but many locations seems better suited for renewable
I’m not against renewables but utilizing them as our main source of energy just is not practical for long term, there are serious ecological issues that have been sidelined because of global warming/climate change. Things like rooftop solar only become viable in low density housing, but low density housing is also not good use of land.
I agree it’s not the ideal solution, but it’s better than most solutions we have, depending on location.
Rooftop solar doesn’t only need to be on residential buildings, it can also be on industrial and commercial buildings, which take a significant land area.
One last benefit of most renewable energy that is related to its distributed nature: it’s easy to slowly roll out update and replacements. If a new tech emerges you can quickly change your rollout plan to use the new tech, and replace the old tech a little bit at a time, without any energy disruption.
With mega-projects like nuclear reactors, you can’t really change direction mid-construction, and you can’t just replace the reactors as new tech comes online, because each reactor is a huge part of the energy supply and each one costs a fortune.
Also, according to the doc you shared of land-use, in-store wind power is nearly the same as nuclear, since the ecology between the windmills isn’t destroyed.
So while I agree that nuclear absolutely has a place, and that renewables have some undesirable ecological repercussions, they’re still generally an excellent solution.
The elephant in the room, though, is that all the renewable solutions I mentioned will require energy storage, to handle demand variation and production variation. The most reliable and economically feasible energy storage is pumped hydro, which will have a similar land usage to hydro power. On the upside, although it has a significant impact, it does not make the land ecological unviable, it just changes what ecosystem will thrive there - so sites must be chosen with care.
Right, like I’ve said it’s not the best solution everywhere. But where it’s an option (which is many places) it’s a better one. Not solar in the case of grasslands, probably wind. But you get the idea.
Land usage is also a huge concern with hydro power. Pumped hydro storage means permanently flooding an area to create the reservoir, which carries many above and beyond just the destruction of whatever was there before. The flooded land has vegetation on it, which is now decaying under water. This can release all sorts of unpleasantness, most notably mercury.
I agree it absolutely has problems and I hope we come up with a better solution in the near future.
But it’s currently the lesser evil. Even though nuclear plants don’t need a lot of fuel, getting that fuel is still typically more damaging than creating a water reservoir, or using an existing natural reservoir.
Solar is the worst thing ever. It requires a lot of land, land which effectively will be dead if you install solar panels. It’s worse than monoculture crop fields.
The wind is only good if it’s off shore. If you’re UK, you hit a jackpot. Otherwise it’s meh.
Solar can be installed on roofs of existing structures, requiring zero land. Although just because it can be done doesn’t mean it will be. Thats a policy problem more than anything, though.
Lots of places have windy coasts besides the uk. And also I don’t believe that offshore is the only good place for wind: praries, plains, etc also seem like good options. Places with extensive tracts of land with low vegetation.
Roof panels don’t have enough area to provide enough power. Especially in high density apartment blocks common in most of the world. My apartment block has solar panels, they produce energy which is barely enough to power heat pump machinery for the central heating system. And they’re useless during the winter when heating is actually needed.
That’s not a policy problem, solar panels are just useless.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear.
There is a significant amount of real estate for solar panels that won’t require any land cleaning, if policy paved the way for it. Total rooftop area in a city and surrounding area is not a small amount, it’s not all high density housing.
You also don’t need to go all-in on solar, or rooftop solar. You can also have wind farms. You can also have solar farms (which now wouldn’t need to be as large).
And I never pretended that this was the best solution everywhere. There are places where nuclear absolutely makes more sense. Landlocked countries that have dark winters and no plains, for example.
I agree it’s safe but idk it’s the best we currently have, I think that probably depends on locale.
Solar and wind (and maybe tidal?), with pumped hydro energy storage is probably cheaper, safer, and cleaner… But it requires access to a fair bit more water than a nuclear plant requires, at least initially.
But nuclear is still far better than using fossil fuels for baseline demand.
Land usage is what makes nuclear the most ecologically sound solution. Solar and wind play their part. But for every acre of land, nuclear tops the chart of power produced per year. And when you’re trying to sate the demand of high density housing and businesses in cities, energy density becomes important. Low carbon footprint is great for solar and wind but if you’re also displacing ecosytems that would otherwise be sucking up carbon, its not as environmentally friendly as we’d like.
Are you displacing whole ecosystems, though?
How much do wind farms affect grasslands and prairies, etc? They’ll have an impact for sure, but it’s not like the whole place gets paved over.
And solar can get placed on roofs of existing structures. Or distributed so it doesn’t affect any one area too much.
I have to admit idk much about sourcing the materials involved in building solar panels and windmills. Idk if they require destructive mining operations.
I imagine that a nuclear reactor would require more concrete, metal, and rate earth magnets that a solar/wind farm, but idk. I likewise don’t know the details about mining and refining the various fissile material and nuclear poisons.
The other advantage of renewables is that it’s distributed so it’s naturally redundant. If it needs to get shut down (repairs, or a problem with the grid) it wont have a big impact.
I like nuclear, and it’s certainly the better choice for some locations, but many locations seems better suited for renewable
https://ourworldindata.org/images/published/Land-use-of-energy-technologies_1350.png
I’m not against renewables but utilizing them as our main source of energy just is not practical for long term, there are serious ecological issues that have been sidelined because of global warming/climate change. Things like rooftop solar only become viable in low density housing, but low density housing is also not good use of land.
I agree it’s not the ideal solution, but it’s better than most solutions we have, depending on location.
Rooftop solar doesn’t only need to be on residential buildings, it can also be on industrial and commercial buildings, which take a significant land area.
One last benefit of most renewable energy that is related to its distributed nature: it’s easy to slowly roll out update and replacements. If a new tech emerges you can quickly change your rollout plan to use the new tech, and replace the old tech a little bit at a time, without any energy disruption.
With mega-projects like nuclear reactors, you can’t really change direction mid-construction, and you can’t just replace the reactors as new tech comes online, because each reactor is a huge part of the energy supply and each one costs a fortune.
Also, according to the doc you shared of land-use, in-store wind power is nearly the same as nuclear, since the ecology between the windmills isn’t destroyed.
So while I agree that nuclear absolutely has a place, and that renewables have some undesirable ecological repercussions, they’re still generally an excellent solution.
The elephant in the room, though, is that all the renewable solutions I mentioned will require energy storage, to handle demand variation and production variation. The most reliable and economically feasible energy storage is pumped hydro, which will have a similar land usage to hydro power. On the upside, although it has a significant impact, it does not make the land ecological unviable, it just changes what ecosystem will thrive there - so sites must be chosen with care.
If only question was about grassland vs grassland with solar. I live in country, where 46% of land is forests.
Right, like I’ve said it’s not the best solution everywhere. But where it’s an option (which is many places) it’s a better one. Not solar in the case of grasslands, probably wind. But you get the idea.
Land usage is also a huge concern with hydro power. Pumped hydro storage means permanently flooding an area to create the reservoir, which carries many above and beyond just the destruction of whatever was there before. The flooded land has vegetation on it, which is now decaying under water. This can release all sorts of unpleasantness, most notably mercury.
I agree it absolutely has problems and I hope we come up with a better solution in the near future.
But it’s currently the lesser evil. Even though nuclear plants don’t need a lot of fuel, getting that fuel is still typically more damaging than creating a water reservoir, or using an existing natural reservoir.
Solar is the worst thing ever. It requires a lot of land, land which effectively will be dead if you install solar panels. It’s worse than monoculture crop fields.
The wind is only good if it’s off shore. If you’re UK, you hit a jackpot. Otherwise it’s meh.
Solar can be installed on roofs of existing structures, requiring zero land. Although just because it can be done doesn’t mean it will be. Thats a policy problem more than anything, though.
Lots of places have windy coasts besides the uk. And also I don’t believe that offshore is the only good place for wind: praries, plains, etc also seem like good options. Places with extensive tracts of land with low vegetation.
Roof panels don’t have enough area to provide enough power. Especially in high density apartment blocks common in most of the world. My apartment block has solar panels, they produce energy which is barely enough to power heat pump machinery for the central heating system. And they’re useless during the winter when heating is actually needed.
That’s not a policy problem, solar panels are just useless.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear.
There is a significant amount of real estate for solar panels that won’t require any land cleaning, if policy paved the way for it. Total rooftop area in a city and surrounding area is not a small amount, it’s not all high density housing.
You also don’t need to go all-in on solar, or rooftop solar. You can also have wind farms. You can also have solar farms (which now wouldn’t need to be as large).
And I never pretended that this was the best solution everywhere. There are places where nuclear absolutely makes more sense. Landlocked countries that have dark winters and no plains, for example.