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by tefferon 2416 days ago
Why does everyone turn from Nuclear though? It seems like the most viable option in my opinion. I'd rather have a network of nuke power where energy reliability is weather-independent than forests of wind and farms of solar. I feel like its a much greener approach overall. What's the manufacturing breakeven in carbon costs for a windmill or a solar panel?
2 comments
Faark 2416 days ago
In my case geopolitical reasons, mostly. I prefer nuclear plants not be in what the US president lovingly calls shithole countries. Those tend to not yet have nuclear, but a drastically increasing need for energy. Many of them are also a lot closer to the equator than western countries with existing nuclear, making solar much more viable than e.g. in the UK.

> What's the manufacturing breakeven in carbon costs for a windmill or a solar panel?

This questions feels like you mostly try to justify your otherwise preexisting preference. A proper system would have external costs factored into the price, by the way.

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ZeroGravitas 2416 days ago
The genuine answer to your question is that their news sources haven't been demonising renewables and green government initiatives for the last 20 years (in order to prop up their fossil fuel sponsors) so they don't automatically think "communist, hoax, inefficient, boondoggle, political correctness gone mad, end of civilization as we know it, bloody hippies, etc." when renewables gets brought up. Instead they think "cheap, efficient, distributed tech that keeps getting cheaper and that I can use for energy independence on multiple scales" so it's not that they have any great distaste for nuclear, they've just not been trained to hate and fear renewables.

They don't for example, wonder if no one has thought to calculate the carbon impact of renewables, because they assume the scientists and other authority figures they trust who recommend it would have taken that into account. And if they did wonder, it's a short Google away, and their usual info sources would provide facts, not scaremongering propaganda.

That's why you'll rarely see a defence of nuclear that doesn't quickly degenerate into attacking Californian hippies, or government interference, or the collapse of Germany into a solar powered Islamic no-go-zone, or flat out denial that climate change is even a problem anyway" that they've read about in their highly reliable news sources. Generally they're more anti-renewable than pro-nuclear.

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