97
88-2: Only Markey, Sanders Oppose 'Expensive, Risky' Nuclear Power Expansion
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
97 points (94.5% liked)
politics
19120 readers
2134 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! 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.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Nuclear is the most expensive energy technology used, so expansion is only useful if all renewable sources are already built out to the limit
This is not the case, so investing in renewable is the smarter choice environmentally and fiscally
Of course, the route we took in Germany reducing nuclear to upscale coal is even stupider, but it is far too late to reverse that
don’t y’all buy excess power from France’s nuclear base capacity? Like 1.6TWh a year?
It is not the most expensive for any intrinsic reason. It's not necessarily that complex to operate. It's expensive because bureaucracy that has been strapped to it to make switching to it harder, which was designed to keep dirty energy in demand longer. It is the safest power source we have available (including renewables). There's no reason it's so expensive except to attempt to kill it.
I'm pretty sure that bureaucracy was also about controlling nuclear materials because they're dangerous and potential weapons.
Some of it, yeah. Obviously some is required. Not the amount that it has though.
It's the most expensive if you don't already have the infrastructure & experience needed to support it. Of course in places where nuclear is barely used or not used at all, it's going to be more expensive than others. But the US doesn't have such a problem – in large part due to lifetime extensions (which allow plants to operate for another 20-40 years, up to a maximum of 80 years), which bring nuclear's cost down to comparable to renewables. Without lifetime extensions though, nuclear indeed would be more expensive than renewable energy.
Renewable energy also gets subsidized significantly more than any other form of energy – in the US, solar and wind both get roughly about 16x the $/MWh of nuclear, and 2x the total amount of budget. The EU also puts like half of its total energy subsidies into renewables (and a third into fossil fuels) and almost none in to nuclear. That should probably be taken into account too.