More people need to be made aware of information like this, so they can understand it’s not all doom and gloom.
Yeah, definitely! Much of Lemmy seems to be rather cynical, so I really like places like !upliftingnews@lemmy.world and slrpnk.net.
Are also worth checking out.
Elsewhere the following sites are great for more positive content:
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/ https://fixthenews.com/planet/ https://www.positive.news/ https://www.goodgoodgood.co/impact/environment
Every time I see news about renewable energy expanding, I don’t feel uplifted because I know how much ewaste photovolatic cells create. We should be investing more heavily in nuclear fission and retrofitting those plants for fusion later.
Retrofitting a nuclear fission plant for fusion? There’s no way that’s even remotely feasible, the two are radically different in construction.
They sound pretty similar. How hard can it be?
Just make the plant go in reverse.
Both make heat. Both need heat exchangers. Heat exchangers and the surrounding facility is the majority of the construction. I wish people would stop blabbering without knowing a thing on power production.
Go look at a video on ITER and see how hard that will be to fit inside a fission plant.
If ITER is a success they were planning to make a bigger one for commercial use.
So you make a seperate building to enclose it while keeping the multiple tons of pipes and concrete used for the fission heat exchanger. Listen, this is both above our heads but the general concepts are applicable. Make the sites now and worst case scenario we keep using fission. Oh no.
It’s certainly above both our heads but I did nuclear physics at university and I’m not sure what you are talking about is possible. I’m happy to see something otherwise but my limited understanding makes me think it is entirely impossible.
The only difference is the core. The entire apparatus around it that converts heat into steam, those big ass funnels of concrete, are what take fucking years to build. It would still safe a ton of time if and when fusion becomes sustainable.
Highly optimistic. For one, the specific parameters of the core dictate the shape, size and configuration of all of the apparatus around it. You can’t just slot in a different heat generator and call it good to go. Secondly, there’s no guarantee that your future fusion reactor core even fits in the footprint of your fission plant. You have no idea what size and shape it will take.
Finally, your assertion is incorrect. Steam turbines, heat exchangers, and cooling towers are comparatively simple, low risk, and well understood parts of a nuclear reactor. The safety features, checks, design reviews, bureaucracy and permitting surrounding the core itself are what take the most time. Any part that could lead to radioactive containment breach.
This isn’t a binary choice. We can do both, whilst we wait for governments to sort out nuclear or fusion. I’d prefer we do what we can to reduce our emissions via renewables now, rather than doing nothing whilst waiting for some potential solution in the future.
Also, ewaste from renewables can be recycled
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10668-023-02925-7
Why create exceptional amounts of trash when you don’t need to? It’s not a binary choice but it should be. It makes absolutely zero sense to waste so many resources when it can be focused into a solution that doesn’t do that.
Yeah we can keep burning gas in cars or we could transition to EVs. Transitioning to solar and wind respectively is creating more electronic waste. That’s the reason not to use it in the meantime. It’s a different kind of pollutant but still a potent one. We’re literally shipping garbage to third world countries.
Focus on the best solution, now, not a better solution and then figure it out later. Nuclear. Now.
OK, so whilst we wait the 7 years for the reactor to be built we should, what? hope that coal and gas stops polluting in the interim? Or should we continue to use the tech that, whilst not perfect, is better than the currently most widely used alternatives?
Nuclear is expensive, slow to deploy and has a inherent risk that renewables do not:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00696-3
https://eu.boell.org/en/2021/04/26/7-reasons-why-nuclear-energy-not-answer-solve-climate-change
Plus the ewaste renewables produce can be recycled easily, cheaply and with far less risk than the waste for nuclear. Is the process perfect? No, so lets concentrate on improving the circular economy around recycling panels, turbines etc. Spend the money and effort on improving the tech that is already proven to be cheaper, more effective and ready now.
And seven years seems quite optimistic considering how effectively local governments and committees of concerned NIMBYS have been blocking any new nuclear construction for like, my entire lifetime, at least in the US. Apparently nobody wants a nuclear power plant going up near them and they find a lot of creative ways to jam up the works. I’m not sure we have the time to try to ram dozens of nuclear power plants through those folks while the world is burning.
Definitely. That 7 years was just the construction phase. All in the average nuclear plant takes about 14 years to build from planning to switch on.
Lmao no the fuck it doesn’t. From start to finish the time to build has been set by Japan at 3 years. Stop fucking commenting on shit you don’t even try to learn about.
Reactors can be built in as little as 3 years, thanks for your outdated input.
Cool, but that’s not how averages work, is it.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/712841/median-construction-time-for-reactors-since-1981/
Also the fastest Nuclear power plant construction in the world is currently held by Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Unit 6 NPP at 5.41 years, construction start to commercial operation:
https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/30/020/30020307.pdf
That often quoted 3 years doesn’t include inspections, testing etc.
All I’m hearing is we should have started a decade ago and people are still giving bullshit reasons to not start right now. You’re part of the problem my man.
You need to put this in perspective. Solar and wind waste streams are bigger than nuclear, but much, much smaller than coal and completely insignificant compared to regular old municipal waste.
If you switch from coal to solar right now you will save much more waste than waiting a decade for a nuclear plant to come online. Even if you start building the nuclear plant now, you will still save waste by building solar and throwing it in the trash once your nuclear is online. Anything to switch away from coal faster.
This report makes clear that the tripling target is ambitious but achievable – though only if governments quickly turn promises into plans of action. (emphesis mine)
You expect me to have hope, in this economy?
Which economy is that?
If you really meant this economic system, then, yeah it’s a big uphill battle.
But if you just meant the current economic factors (jobs (I know), prices (I know, groceries and housing are screwing us), and growth (again current system)), you sound like a right wing shill.
Wow, I intended this as a meme/joke, guess I should of put a /s.
“Oh, nice!” - Companies haphazardly adding AI into everything whether you want it or not and eating up three times this energy produced for short-term shareholder gain.
Doesn’t really matter. The issue is the emissions the energy used currently makes. If the energy these companies are using to make an AI app for your light bulbs or whatever is emission free then who cares?
I see what you mean, but energy isn’t currently free, and as we built more headroom, crypto and AI have simply eaten up that headroom. Don’t take my word for it, simply look at the statistics on how much more energy we are using than 10 years ago, and then look at corporate energy usage now on those two things. Renewables haven’t kept up because large corporations keep eating more and more. In fact, governments have had to **de-**decomission a few coal plants because the energy usage was so high. Here’s an article on one of them that is supporting a massive crypto farm.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely 100% glad that the energy is not all coming from coal plants anymore, but also it isn’t like none of it is.
And no energy is emission free. You still have to pay the environmental cost to create and maintain the equipment gathering the energy in the first place.
In short, renewables are great. Corporate overusage of energy is not, especially for incredibly selfish gain like crypto and “AI”. I’m not going to cheer for the shares at corporations to be higher simply because we have renewables offsetting a tiny bit of the massive power they suck up.
