this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
668 points (92.3% liked)

News

23310 readers
3584 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
 

Shuttering of New York facility raises awkward climate crisis questions as gas – not renewables – fills gap in power generation

When New York’s deteriorating and unloved Indian Point nuclear plant finally shuttered in 2021, its demise was met with delight from environmentalists who had long demanded it be scrapped.

But there has been a sting in the tail – since the closure, New York’s greenhouse gas emissions have gone up.

Castigated for its impact upon the surrounding environment and feared for its potential to unleash disaster close to the heart of New York City, Indian Point nevertheless supplied a large chunk of the state’s carbon-free electricity.

Since the plant’s closure, it has been gas, rather then clean energy such as solar and wind, that has filled the void, leaving New York City in the embarrassing situation of seeing its planet-heating emissions jump in recent years to the point its power grid is now dirtier than Texas’s, as well as the US average.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] psychothumbs@lemmy.world 46 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Hard to imagine how anyone who's concerned about climate change could see shutting down a carbon-free energy source as a "green win".

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

There's a legitimate argument that we can't grow our way out of climate change, and the real solution to our emissions problem is degrowth and descaling of our obscene rates of consumption. In that sense, had they been closing the plant with the expectation of drastically reducing energy demand, it might have made sense.

Its not as though nuclear energy produces no waste, just extremely low levels of CO2 waste. But if you're just going to replace energy demand (and continue to grow energy supply) with new coal/gas consumption, who are you fooling except yourselves?

[–] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

In that sense, had they been closing the plant with the expectation of drastically reducing energy demand, it might have made sense.

I really hate this kind of reasoning. Even if we do manage to reduce our energy consumption, closing the nuclear plant would still be more harmful to the environment because we could have closed fossil fuel plants instead. Unless, of course, we'd manage to reduce energy consumption so much that we wouldn't need any non-renewable energy sources - which I don't think is very realistic assumption. Certainly not realistic enough to make such a gamble on.

The only way closing the nuclear plant would have been beneficial to the environment would be if the act of closing it would have caused a reduction in our energy consumption that is greater than the energy the plant itself was producing (minus some extra energy from fossil fuel plants that take up its "emission budget" to increase their own energy production). Which is also quite unrealistic. I actually think it makes more sense that it achieved the opposite effect, since closing the plant took up activists' effort and environmental publicity, which could have been used to push for reducing consumption instead.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Even if we do manage to reduce our energy consumption, closing the nuclear plant would still be more harmful to the environment because we could have closed fossil fuel plants instead

At some point you have to acknowledge nuclear power (particularly from planes dating back to the 60s/70s) as their own waste problem.

And you can try to address this waste with more modern clean up techniques. Or you can decommission these old plants. But just waiting for derelict facilities to crumble, on the ground that "Nuclear Good / FF Bad" means another generation of Fukushima like events that drive people further from nuclear as a long term solution.

[–] iopq@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

That's not a legitimate argument because the West combined emits less CO2 than just China. The economy of the West is growing, but emitting less carbon because of more green power sources, one of which being nuclear

[–] spiderplant@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

A lot of that is still the Wests carbon, just because our products and materials are now coming from China doesn't mean we are absolved from the responsibility of those emissions. This is why reduce was meant to be the biggest part of reduce, reuse, recycle, and this means degrowth.

Also the economy of the West is shrinking because of the depletion of easy to access fossil fuesl, despite renewables.

Another interesting article about one of the most polluting sectors, the steel industry. It explains that green power sources might mean more fossil fuels not less and it also talks about why China can't adopt clean steel production to the same level we can.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

the West combined emits less CO2 than just China.

Not even remotely true, per capita.

[–] iopq@lemmy.world -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Because a lot of Chinese people still do sustenance farming. They don't add to carbon, they actually might be carbon negative since they grow crops

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Because a lot of Chinese people still do sustenance farming.

That hasn't been true in decades.

[–] iopq@lemmy.world -1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I've met them in Yunnan last year, lmao, you have no idea, you've never been to China so shut the fuck the up

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

you’ve never been to China

It's funny to hear folks call you a Wumao "never even been to China" in such short order.

It takes a lot of time and money to travel the world. But I'm sure you have an abundance of both, right? I certainly don't, which is why I post Chinese Propaganda for a living.

[–] iopq@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You should not comment on things you don't have basic knowledge of

[–] somethingchameleon@lemmy.ca -3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Blame solarbros and their useful idiots.

There's a SHIT TON of propaganda surrounding solar because average people can get duped into buying it.

It's a lot harder to rip people off with other forms of energy because communities need to make a collective decision to use them.

Any moron can get suckered into buying solar, which is why you see so many scumbags and useful idiots shilling it on forums

[–] psychothumbs@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I don't think I can agree with you there. Solar power is an incredibly valuable technology, in many ways more so than nuclear. If we were replacing this nuclear energy with increased solar I'd have no complaint. The problem is solar is already growing as fast as it can with or without shutting down any nuclear plants, so what it's actually replaced with as discussed in this article is fossil fuels. Hopefully the solar curve can catch up eventually and shut down those fossil fuels as well, but it's ridiculous to ditch nuclear before then.

[–] somethingchameleon@lemmy.ca -3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

If we were replacing this nuclear energy with increased solar I’d have no complaint.

We got one, boys.

Learn how the power grid works before commenting further.

Here's a video to get you started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1BMWczn7JM

[–] psychothumbs@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Wow you are unpleasant