• quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    It’s the other way around. Nuclear is not competing against renewables’ spot, it competes with fossil fuels. Advocating for nuclear doesn’t try to use it instead of renewables, it tries to use it instead of fossil fuels. The opposition to nuclear is what benefits fossil fuels.

    The choice is what you want renewables combined with, nuclear or fossil. Those are the choices.

    • redjard@reddthat.com
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      3 months ago

      There is a set amount of budget for replacing power infrastructure, and a set amount of capacity to be filled.
      Any time a nuclear plant is starting to be built now, they could have instead already finished a renewable plant.
      There is no longer any exclusive niche nuclear plants can fill, renewables and batteries beat it on all metrics now, even where stable baseload is needed.
      If you need a GW of plants, you won’t build both a nuclear and a renewable GW plant, you pick one. If that GW replaces a coal plant, then nuclear will see the coal being burned for 10 more years while under construction.
      The grid produces as needed, prices don’t vary enough anyone will use less power because low-emission sources are not yet available. Any nuclear power capacity under construction that could have been renewables will cause their equivalent capacity in fossile sources to be used an additional 10 years compared to if renewables had been built.

        • redjard@reddthat.com
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          3 months ago

          Gigá Whatts, inventor of the plant. To this day we honour his invention by using GW to refer to a plant the size of his first plant. It’s roughly equivalent to an oak with stem circumference of 20m.

          • quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 months ago

            Thanks, that makes sense. I’m not used to see abbreviation of units without a number next to it.

            What I’m seeing is that renewables farms are being built AND fossil fuel plants. Nothing is being substituted only added more of the same.

      • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        There is no longer any exclusive niche nuclear plants can fill, renewables and batteries beat it on all metrics now, even where stable baseload is needed.

        I would love to see a source on that, and how much overdimensioning it would take to achieve.

        Any time a nuclear plant is starting to be built now, they could have instead already finished a renewable plant.

        And every time they build a train, they could have easily built 10.000 bicycles instead. Not saying bikes aren’t incredibly useful, because they are. Not saying you shouldn’t build bikes, but I am saying they are very different things. If you try to replace cars with bikes, you’ll fail every time someone wants to travel more than 20km. If you try to replace cars with trains, you’ll fail ever times someone wants to travel less than 20km and not spend a billion bucks.

        What you need to do is replace cars with trains AND bikes. But if you oppose trains “in favour of bikes”, you’re actually promoting cars. And vice versa.