this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 5 points 41 minutes ago

It's sad that the coal lobby has convinced so many people that the most reliable clean energy source we've ever discovered is somehow bad.

[–] Isthisreddit@lemmy.world 2 points 27 minutes ago

I feel this is all moot. When we run out of fossil fuels and go off the energy cliff, the nuclear facilities will basically build themselves, assuming there will be anyone around that will even know how to build a nuclear reactor

[–] Doom@ttrpg.network 13 points 2 hours ago

I hate this thread.

[–] Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Anon is dumb. Anon forgets the nuclear waste. Anon also forgets that the plants for the magical rocks are extremely expensive. So much that energy won by these rocks is more expensive than wind energy and any other renewable.

[–] InputZero@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Anon isn't dumb, just simple. Nuclear energy can be the best solution for certain situations. While renewables are the better choice in every way, they're effectiveness isn't equally distributed. There are places where there just isn't enough available renewable energy sources year round to supply the people living there. When energy storage and transmission methods are also not up to the task, nuclear becomes the best answer. It shouldn't be the first answer people look to but it is an answer. An expensive answer but sometimes the best one.

Also nuclear waste doesn't have to be a problem. If anyone was willing to cover the cost of burning it in a breeder reactor for power or burry it forever. It just is because it's expensive.

[–] drake@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 hour ago (3 children)

When energy storage and transmission methods are also not up to the task, nuclear becomes the best answer.

Obviously, the best answer is to improve energy storage and transmission infrastructure. Why would we waste hundreds of millions on a stupid toy power plant when we could spend 10% of that money on just running decent underground cables.

[–] areyouevenreal@lemm.ee 1 points 33 minutes ago

You do realize that all that is also expensive, and limited? We haven't invented room temperature superconductors yet, and battery technology is far from perfect. There is only so much lithium and cobalt in the entire world. Yes we can now use things like sodium, but that's a technology that's still young and needs more research before it's full potential is realized. There is also a reason we have overground cables and not underground. Digging up all that earth is hella expensive.

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 1 points 41 minutes ago (1 children)

You really don't understand how expensive underground cables are. You know those big, huge steel transmission towers that you see lined up, hundreds in a row?

Those towers costs hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars each. And the reason they're used is because that's way cheaper than underground.

Shit - just the cable is a couple million per mile per cable.

[–] drake@lemmy.sdf.org -2 points 29 minutes ago (1 children)

Are you fucking serious? Nuclear power plants cost way fucking more than some cables. You people are fundamentally so unserious. Pull your head out of a reactor for ten seconds and take reality as it exists

[–] jaemo@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 minutes ago

mmmm sounds like someone has zero concept of the scale of the problem: ie how much cable we'd need to bury. Simmer down Tony Snark, you're demonstrably less clever than the rest of the species' experts in this.

[–] Ajen@sh.itjust.works 1 points 58 minutes ago (1 children)

Because superconductors are even more expensive than breeder reactors.

[–] drake@lemmy.sdf.org -2 points 32 minutes ago

and breeder reactors are more expensive than faerie magic, I prefer to use technologies that are actually real rather than things I wish were real

[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 49 minutes ago
[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

But if the magic rocks (facility) cost more than creating energy from the water the magic rocks need for cooling...

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