Its been a while.High rise can be energy efficient, but it requires being done at design stage and being responsive to the climate. Windows eaves, green walls and passive air circulation are contributors, but take up space inside the building envelope.https://theconstructor.org/...
The Nuclear industry is like Lemon socialism… who pays for the upkeep of nuclear? The rate payers. Who pays for the storage of the waste? The taxpayers.
They say that incandescent "light" bulbs are actually really good heaters that also happen to put out a little bit of light. Well, the nuclear reactors we have are actually really good at producing plutonium for weapons (which is the only real reason for them) and they also put out a little bit of electricity. They are also really good heaters. But very lousy at electricity production (meaning expensive and inflexible), which is why civilians don't finance them or manage the risks (insure them). I like the phrase "expansive failure modes".
Commercial nuclear does a fantastic job of making electricity, and a lousy job of creating plutonium (our plutonium pits do not come from power reactors). And it does so using much less material, less real estate and much more safely that any alternative dispatchable source. And it does it reliable, with up times approaching 95%.
Also, our existing “aging” nukes are capable of running, safely, for many more decades to come, and every single one will outlast any and all solar and wind built today (all of which will need to be replaced by 2045—so basically we’ll need to start over just to maintain what we have).
Please don’t rely on anti-nuclear organizations for your facts here. Folks like the IPCC have told us that and scenario to keep global temp rise at 1.5 or 2 C will require a significant nuclear component.
Folks, we’re gonna need a shitload of clean energy. Stop dissing the only source that actually has a track record of decarbonizibg state-size grids. We will need all we have, and a lot more.
Sue Rezin had good and valid reasons to vote for the CEJA bill, as it preserved the nuclear plants that are in her district. I have serious issues with many of her views, but she was one of the prime movers of this bill (which is more than big enough to have something for everyone to hate).
In your research, did you find any evidence that anyone has ever been hurt by spent nuclear fuel (which is what I assume you mean by "nuclear waste")? Cuz AFAIK it's all captured, tracked, stored and managed safely and securely.
And there are plenty of things we can do to safely dispose of it. It's not a problem without a solution. And the "incredible amounts" of waste from the entire US nuclear fleet for their entire operating lifetime would all fit inside a Walmart.
The stuff is just not that dangerous, and is heavily regulated. As has been mentioned, you don't need to be comfortable with nuclear energy, but if you don't want it then you need to accept more severe climate change. IPCC and most climate scientists tell us that we'll need a bunch of it to make 1.5 or 2 C limit.
What we've seen is that when nuclear goes wrong, it can be expensive but it doesn't hurt very many people. Chernobyl was an outlier, in so many ways, but even that plant continued to run for another dozen years after that huge catastrophe, and by virtue of the fact that it prevented oodles of fossil fuel from being burned instead, saved a lotta lives.
Other than that one accident, which has an official death toll of 53 IIRC (with possible preventable thyroid cancers that happened due to Soviet mismanagement of the immediate aftermath in not handing out iodine or instituting a milk ban for a couple of months), nuclear hasn't killed anyone. It's the safest thing we have to make energy with, and we are not likely to ever have anything safer.
New reactor designs make it easier to maintain that excellent record, and hopefully cheaper, but the ones running today do a fine job, reliably, and for a reasonable cost.
The most horribly wrong you could imaging has already happened, and it wasn't the human catastrophe that you imply. I mean, the Japanese plant at Fukushima experienced a huge earthquake, automatically shut down, got hit with a tidal wave that killed all on- and off-stie power, and 3 out of 4 cores there melted down, hydrogen explosions resulted and a modest amount of radioactive material was released into the atmosphere. You couldn't make up a better story to match the massive natural disaster impact on it. And yet, nobody was hurt or killed by radiation, in spite of all of that. Tsunami killed close to 20K. That was the disaster, not the meltdowns.
You need to be assessing the risk of nuclear against what you would use instead, which today is nearly always fossil fuels, which kill people every day during normal operation (in addition to heating the planet with CO2 emissions).
Perhaps they seem like modest targets, but we will not hit them almost certainly. And if we do, our grid will be just as fragile as California's is.
There's a lot of good stuff in this bill, but mandating a massive move to unreliable energy sources, and not planning on more nuclear (or, pick your clean, dispatchable choice if you have another) will result in higher prices and lower reliability.
Wind and solar definitely have a role to play but they cannot do this type of heavy lift. Indeed, renewables like this have not been responsible for cleaning up any grid -- only hydro and nuclear can make that claim.
I love the equity aspects of the bill and there are good incentives for EVs and the infrastructure to support them, but reliable electricity is a key underpinning of that and we risk losing that (which we take for granted here) if we just deploy huge amounts of stuff that only works sometimes.
And the single most consequential part of the bill (and far from the most expensive part) is the subsidies to keep the nuclear plants operating. That was a bargain, and makes more diff in our clean energy mix than all the other stuff combined. We're 50+ carbon-free already cuz of our nukes. Chicago is almost completely powered by them. We need to make sure we keep them around, and build on that strong base.
That article does not take into account the emissions from the concrete involved in making the plant and there is a lot of concrete used in making a nuclear plant and decommissioning one and dealing with the waste.As for safety, directly attributable deaths are quite low, but as Chernobyl and Fukushima show us the consequences of failure are significant and long lasting.
I do not have access through the Elsevier paywall to get the details of the IPCC lifecycle analysis, but it still feels underestimated. Still remarkably better than any fossil fuel burning technology by both measures but I seriously doubt it is that low.
Of course, everybody calls the Big Guy Sir! (Tear in one eye NOT optional)
Its been a while.High rise can be energy efficient, but it requires being done at design stage and being responsive to the climate. Windows eaves, green walls and passive air circulation are contributors, but take up space inside the building envelope.https://theconstructor.org/...
Thanks for the link. Will check for sources at San Diego central library which is a really superb library built in 2016.https://www.google.com/url?...
I thought that's what middle management did to justify their jobs, endlessly redesign forms.
The Nuclear industry is like Lemon socialism… who pays for the upkeep of nuclear? The rate payers. Who pays for the storage of the waste? The taxpayers.
"... you can't light a cig off it."I bet you could if you simply roll a bit of steel wool in with the tabac.
You can't build another reactor next to the radioactive rubble
Why? Three Mile Island is still operating, it's only being shut down now because those ancient reactors are no longer profitable
TMI #2 was a partial meltdown, no rubble, but you have a point.
They say that incandescent "light" bulbs are actually really good heaters that also happen to put out a little bit of light. Well, the nuclear reactors we have are actually really good at producing plutonium for weapons (which is the only real reason for them) and they also put out a little bit of electricity. They are also really good heaters. But very lousy at electricity production (meaning expensive and inflexible), which is why civilians don't finance them or manage the risks (insure them). I like the phrase "expansive failure modes".
Why do Wonkette commenters hate nuclear so?
Commercial nuclear does a fantastic job of making electricity, and a lousy job of creating plutonium (our plutonium pits do not come from power reactors). And it does so using much less material, less real estate and much more safely that any alternative dispatchable source. And it does it reliable, with up times approaching 95%.
Also, our existing “aging” nukes are capable of running, safely, for many more decades to come, and every single one will outlast any and all solar and wind built today (all of which will need to be replaced by 2045—so basically we’ll need to start over just to maintain what we have).
Please don’t rely on anti-nuclear organizations for your facts here. Folks like the IPCC have told us that and scenario to keep global temp rise at 1.5 or 2 C will require a significant nuclear component.
Folks, we’re gonna need a shitload of clean energy. Stop dissing the only source that actually has a track record of decarbonizibg state-size grids. We will need all we have, and a lot more.
Sue Rezin had good and valid reasons to vote for the CEJA bill, as it preserved the nuclear plants that are in her district. I have serious issues with many of her views, but she was one of the prime movers of this bill (which is more than big enough to have something for everyone to hate).
TBH, you could do worse--a LOT worse.
In your research, did you find any evidence that anyone has ever been hurt by spent nuclear fuel (which is what I assume you mean by "nuclear waste")? Cuz AFAIK it's all captured, tracked, stored and managed safely and securely.
And there are plenty of things we can do to safely dispose of it. It's not a problem without a solution. And the "incredible amounts" of waste from the entire US nuclear fleet for their entire operating lifetime would all fit inside a Walmart.
The stuff is just not that dangerous, and is heavily regulated. As has been mentioned, you don't need to be comfortable with nuclear energy, but if you don't want it then you need to accept more severe climate change. IPCC and most climate scientists tell us that we'll need a bunch of it to make 1.5 or 2 C limit.
What we've seen is that when nuclear goes wrong, it can be expensive but it doesn't hurt very many people. Chernobyl was an outlier, in so many ways, but even that plant continued to run for another dozen years after that huge catastrophe, and by virtue of the fact that it prevented oodles of fossil fuel from being burned instead, saved a lotta lives.
Other than that one accident, which has an official death toll of 53 IIRC (with possible preventable thyroid cancers that happened due to Soviet mismanagement of the immediate aftermath in not handing out iodine or instituting a milk ban for a couple of months), nuclear hasn't killed anyone. It's the safest thing we have to make energy with, and we are not likely to ever have anything safer.
New reactor designs make it easier to maintain that excellent record, and hopefully cheaper, but the ones running today do a fine job, reliably, and for a reasonable cost.
The most horribly wrong you could imaging has already happened, and it wasn't the human catastrophe that you imply. I mean, the Japanese plant at Fukushima experienced a huge earthquake, automatically shut down, got hit with a tidal wave that killed all on- and off-stie power, and 3 out of 4 cores there melted down, hydrogen explosions resulted and a modest amount of radioactive material was released into the atmosphere. You couldn't make up a better story to match the massive natural disaster impact on it. And yet, nobody was hurt or killed by radiation, in spite of all of that. Tsunami killed close to 20K. That was the disaster, not the meltdowns.
You need to be assessing the risk of nuclear against what you would use instead, which today is nearly always fossil fuels, which kill people every day during normal operation (in addition to heating the planet with CO2 emissions).
Nuclear is low carbon, and very safe.
https://ourworldindata.org/...
Perhaps they seem like modest targets, but we will not hit them almost certainly. And if we do, our grid will be just as fragile as California's is.
There's a lot of good stuff in this bill, but mandating a massive move to unreliable energy sources, and not planning on more nuclear (or, pick your clean, dispatchable choice if you have another) will result in higher prices and lower reliability.
Wind and solar definitely have a role to play but they cannot do this type of heavy lift. Indeed, renewables like this have not been responsible for cleaning up any grid -- only hydro and nuclear can make that claim.
I love the equity aspects of the bill and there are good incentives for EVs and the infrastructure to support them, but reliable electricity is a key underpinning of that and we risk losing that (which we take for granted here) if we just deploy huge amounts of stuff that only works sometimes.
And the single most consequential part of the bill (and far from the most expensive part) is the subsidies to keep the nuclear plants operating. That was a bargain, and makes more diff in our clean energy mix than all the other stuff combined. We're 50+ carbon-free already cuz of our nukes. Chicago is almost completely powered by them. We need to make sure we keep them around, and build on that strong base.
That article does not take into account the emissions from the concrete involved in making the plant and there is a lot of concrete used in making a nuclear plant and decommissioning one and dealing with the waste.As for safety, directly attributable deaths are quite low, but as Chernobyl and Fukushima show us the consequences of failure are significant and long lasting.
I do not have access through the Elsevier paywall to get the details of the IPCC lifecycle analysis, but it still feels underestimated. Still remarkably better than any fossil fuel burning technology by both measures but I seriously doubt it is that low.