[wutbrodo]

> First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything.

Am I crazy, or did the Green New Deal have as an explicit goal the decommissioning of all nuclear plants?

EDIT: Ah, apparently that was in the initial released plan, but they changed the language to technically leave the door open for nuclear, without supporting it (and with occasional statements expressing disfavor towards nuclear as a piece of the plan)

[tertiary]

I don't think so, at least not according to Ocasio-Cortez [1]. It is a pretty new idea though and is probably in flux, so it may have been different in the past?

[1] https://morningconsult.com/2019/05/06/ocasio-cortez-green-ne...

[tl]

AOC can claim any position she wants, but the Green New Deal says (page 7, lines 6-9 as linked in another post) says "meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources". That's a clear anti-nuclear stance.

[LinuxBender]

Following that logic, then Solar Panels are off the table. They don't last forever and their waste is not environmentally friendly. Mining the material to produce them also creates a large amount of greenhouse gasses.

[HappyDreamer]

> [solar panels] creates a large amount of greenhouse gasses.

Sounds misleading to me. A quick websearch and I found that currently they seem to be 10 x better than oil and coal etc:

> Making solar or photovoltaic cells requires potentially toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury and cadmium. It even produces greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, that contribute to global warming. Still, the researchers found that if people switched from conventional fossil fuel-burning power plants to solar cells, air pollution would be cut by roughly 90 percent. Although manufacturing solar cells requires heavy metals, the researchers noted that coal and oil also contain heavy metals, which get released during combustion

https://www.livescience.com/2324-solar-power-greenhouse-emis...

> Mining the material to produce them ...

I think everything is off the table then, also your laptop or tablet -- websearch for "minerals laptop environment" for example.

It seems you don't like solar panels?

[LinuxBender]

It seems you don't like solar panels?

I never said that. I'm saying that based on AOC's 100% plan, pretty much everything is off the table, meaning that the plan needs to be revised. I plan to have 30kw of solar panels in my next home and a large collection of LifePo4 batteries that also have a dependency on strip mining. I also plan to do some of my own mining (drilling, blasting) for zinc and silver.

[HappyDreamer]

Sorry I misinterpreted. How interesting with mining zinc and silver -- is that possibly related to the solar panels you'll add? I never met anyone who mines zinc and silver

LiFePO4 -- that's lithium iron phosphate batteries, then, zinc and silver makes me confused. One can use zinc and silver instead?

30 kw sounds nice -- I think my oven uses about 3 kw, and I guess then that 30 kw is more than enough for your whole house :-) which I suppose is the idea, obviously.

What do your neighbors think about your plans to mine zink and silver?

Or maybe your nearest neighbors are far away? (Or maybe you'll drill & blast far away from where you and any neighbors live?)

[iron0013]

You don’t think that’s a desirable goal?

[xupybd]

It is desirable however impractical given currently available technology. We need significant developments in energy storage to make it work. We could have zero carbon now using nuclear with no new technologies.

[skitout]

Why impractical??? Whith a diversified mix, energy efficiency, a big market for demand response, thermal storage, and a bit of electrical storage, there is no problem with current technologies. Coming tech could decrease the cost and make it easier to implement.

And nuclear is much much more expensive than most renewable now (https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/)

[andrewjl]

> thermal storage, and a bit of electrical storage

I'll acknowledge that renewable generation costs have been falling at an impressive rate. However you're understating the problem for storage. Besides cost, there are far more complex regulatory and political hurdles. Just read about the public response to "smart meters" when they were proposed a while back.

We'll likely have price-competitive storage technology by the middle of the next decade, maybe even sooner, but it will take another two or three decades to deploy it thanks to the patchwork of regulatory complexity we're left over with from the 20th century.

[xupybd]

Yes we are getting there but some countries are at the point of diminishing returns with current renewables. For example, Germany has to pay it's neighbours to receive peak generation.

Coming tech will improve that but we could get to carbon zero far quicker and cheaper with a mix of nuclear and renewables. One problem with nuclear is that safety concerns. However nuclear has caused less death than coal generation. It does require a huge capital investment but it pays for itself over the long run. Waste is an issue but it produces a tiny volume of waste compared to any other form of generation.

We could get rid of all current coal and gas plants and have power when it's required with nuclear. Until we have a better storage option the true can't be said of any renewables (unless you are lucky enough to have abundant geothermal options). With wind and solar you have too much during peak supply and too little during peak demand.

Even the article you linked states whole sale solar and batteries are not yet economically viable.

If there is a viable thermal storage option, I'm wrong but I've not heard about it. I would love to be wrong if that is the case.

[est31]

Well the currently deployed, old nuclear plants certainly aren't as safe as the new, unbuilt ones the nuclear proponents always like to showcase. Even if you decide towards using nuclear in the future, you should build new reactors from scratch using those new safer designs.

[wolfram74]

There's that branch of minimalist environmentalism where their favorite nuclear reactor is whatever doesn't already exist. The instant it starts getting built, /somebody'll/ start protesting it.

[pvaldes]

> The instant it starts getting built, /somebody'll/ start protesting it.

Is normal when the hype does not correspond with the reality and the promises of behaving well and to be responsible are replaced by "hide under a rug and find a scapegoat" five seconds after having the green light.

Citizens have the right to ask about how their taxes had been spent, specially when the construction costs increased exponentially, the whole structure is ruinous after 50 years and there are lots of new surprises in tiny characters in an appendix of the social contract that they signed, but never received.

Nuclear plants can only make a limited amount of money in this lifetime but the cost seems almost unlimited.

[est31]

Of course there will always be a better and safer design. But what about replacing the 50 year old designs currently deployed now with recent ones?

[xupybd]

Can we afford to do that?

We have finite resources. If prevention of a disastrous change in climate is your goal does it make sense to replace the older plants?

Yes it would be safer to do so but would the cost be worth it?

[Aeronwen]

They angry mob will refuse to let you build the replacement, and demand the old one be torn down since you admitted it's so unsafe.

[sanderjd]

A big problem I have with things like "the green new deal" is that they are buzzwords onto which many different policies can be mapped. I think to lots of people it implies no nuclear, and to some others it doesn't. Both are "right" because the buzzword has no implicit meaning.

[pwinnski]

I'm not sure how that can be true, given that it's a written proposal[0]. Not many have read it, and certainly both opponents and proponents have made up things that are or are not in it, but it's not just a buzzword.

https://docsend.com/view/8gxh826

[JumpCrisscross]

A lot of the text describes the goals of, and route to, a plan. It is not, itself, actual policy.

[sanderjd]

Its existence as a buzzword predates that proposal, and thus inevitably the proposal is not the final word on how the term is defined.

[adamsea]

It's a proposal; it can be negotiated and changed until it becomes law. The main purpose is:

a) Help give future generations a reasonably livable and enjoyable planet. b) Help Americans by creating jobs.

[wutbrodo]

OK sure, but if you want words to mean something, you can't just define "green new deal" as "all the good things" instead of the current proposal.

[adamsea]

Fair point.

[nickpp]

You forgot its actual main purpose: Help politicians get elected.

[adamsea]

Yeah but you can say that about anything any politician ever does.

I mean you can also say all code written by developers for for-profit companies exists to create revenue.

Both are true yet incomplete statements.