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40% of US electricity is now emissions-free
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
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Easier to recycle solar pannels and wind turbines than burnt coal or gas.....
Solar and wind are now the cheapest power. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/electricity_generation/ Both can be mixed with other land use. Both are still undergoing material use evolution.
Fission is always going to be an issue because humans aren't grown up enough to handle the waste. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-waste-is-piling-up-does-the-u-s-have-a-plan/
Let alone running them safely. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country So I'm pretty uncomfortable with standardized nuclear modules (sub reactors) being distributed far and wide.
Maybe fusion will be different, but it always seams decades away.
Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
Worldwide, many nuclear accidents and serious incidents have occurred before and since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Two thirds of these mishaps occurred in the US. The French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) has concluded that technical innovation cannot eliminate the risk of human errors in nuclear plant operation.^article^ ^|^ ^about^
How exactly do solar and wind waste more money than they generate? There is hardly anything that requires less maintenance. I put panels on my roof and just forget about them for 20 years. No space wasted, no maintenance.
Compare that to a nuclear power plant. How long does it take to build one? France is building new ones for I don't know, 5 or ten years? And once it's built, how much land does a NPP require? How much staffing and maintenance? They have massive cooling requirements so they always need to be built close to water. Did you know that France had to power down about half their NPPs in the summer because the rivers didn't carry enough water? You say that solar is toxic as hell, then what is nuclear? What exactly is the plan with waste? Bury it somewhere really really deep and keep fingers crossed for thousands of years that it doesn't contaminate ground water? And what's with all the irradiated parts of the plant itself? How can you recycle them?
Any way you cut it, nuclear is a grandiose, but extremely risky and costly technology.
What is toxic in solar panels? While I'd love it if they would actually recycle the silver, copper, and 99.99% pure silicon, most of the time it ends up the same place the fiberglass turbines do: ground into industrial sand for concrete. Also the aluminum is already recycled anyway. There are several recyclers for solar panels popping up as the scale of solar increases to better take advantage of the materials, but they are already fully recycled Also coal plants are shutting down and being edged out by natural gas anyway. I don't know what sources you are using, but they are either out of date or wrong.
Quick everyone, downvote to oblivion because this guy actually is educated in the subject
That guy sounds more like that pilot I know bitching how noise and pollution regulations make their job now difficult or even take their wings. It's not because they're in the biz they're not biased.
Meanwhile where I live, solar panels and wind turbines are happily recycled.
That sounds pretty different actually. On one hand you have someone talking about being inconvenienced.
On the other hand you have someone in the industry talking about practicality. Biased or not, people that work in their respective areas generally know the most about that same area, as opposed to random people online.
From where I'm sitting is still a random person online. I mean, I worked in a power plant for some time. It doesn't make me an expert for the whole sector.
I actually work in the industry and am definitely educated in the subject and I can say with 100% certainty that guy is not in the industry and is full of shit.