[kawogi]

Then, I'm one of them.

I own a PV covering 120 % of my yearly power consumption. I obtain the remaining (night-time) energy from a 100 % renewable provider (no nuclear). I rarely use my car, which only consumes 5 l / 100 km. Most is done via bike. I work from home, use a Fairphone and teach my kids to produce less waste and try to repair everything that breaks.

I'd rather invest my money into developing seasonal power storage than building another nuclear plant.

France is already overheating their rivers and Germany has to fill the gap, whenever they have to shut down too many their plants. In Germany we still have to figure out how to get rid of the existing nuclear waste (and fix the previously failed attempts). Uranium has to be imported from other countries. Fukushima and Chernobyl are still not cleaned up. Even regular plants take decades to be decommissioned. We still cannot eat Mushrooms and Boar from Bavarian forests due to Chernobyl.

I know that being anti-nuclear is an unpopular opinion on HN, but that's how I think about that.

[saiya-jin]

Try scaling your solution to 8 billions of people... oh you can't. You can't even scale it to Europe level, nor Germany level. Welcome to reality where imperfect solutions are required. Nuclear is much better than coal, which is what Germany runs on now, 'thank you' for polluting half of the world with mildly radioactive waste from burning coal and killing way more people than all nuclear disasters combined.

Its unpopular opinion since its stupid, very narrow, ignore-bigger-picture approach. We can do better than that. Not surprised its coming from Germany, since greens there brainwashed once a great nation into some seriously stupid long term moves (from economical and environmental view) that hurt and will hurt whole Europe for next few decades. I'd say Germany economy is still strong despite government it had/has, not thanks to it.

[ben_w]

> Try scaling your solution to 8 billions of people... oh you can't

Yes we can, why do you think we can't?

I like nuclear power, and yes it's much safer than the reputation, but its geopolitical (and local political) issues are killing it.

For scale (while I like the idea it has its own geopolitical issues), a global power grid would involve about as much Aluminium as we produce globally every 3.75 years, costing about as much as just what China alone spends on coal every 12 months.

[kawogi]

I never suggested that "my personal solution" is to be applied everywhere. I suggested to work on making renewables more approachable and to reduce the energy consumption where it's feasible.

Not sure why I'm being personally attacked like this.

[saiya-jin]

Well you didn't suggest anything useful to the discussion then, just bragged a bit about your un-scaleable and un-useable personal situation which had a slight condescending aspect.

Absolutely nobody here argues renewables shouldn't be invested in, same for minimizing footprint, that's not even up to discussion. Its like saying in a topic about russian war on Ukraine that people should stop being nasty and be nice to each other, because I am nice to people around me. Feels nice but useless.

This alone doesn't solve anything we discuss today nor tomorrow, nor next year nor next decade. That's when imperfect practical solutions I mentioned need to be used, despite people like you on high horse telling everybody how bad it is and how they use something better.

I hope this explains my reaction enough.

[pyrale]

> I obtain the remaining (night-time) energy from a 100 % renewable provider

I'd be curious to know how that particular sausage is made. Batteries? reversible dam? Or certificates?

> France is already overheating their rivers and Germany has to fill the gap, whenever they have to shut down too many their plants.

I would advise you to look into the details of energy exports in Europe, because that is not matching with public datasets.

[raverbashing]

Well, at least you're trying to compensate with PV. That's fine by me

> overheating their rivers and Germany has to fill the gap

Germany is filling the gap by importing electricity from France

> we still have to figure out how to get rid of the existing nuclear waste

Maybe ask France or the US, they seem to be more practical on how to do this

> Uranium has to be imported from other countries.

And PV panels don't? You need many less trucks of uranium than of coal

> We still cannot eat Mushrooms and Boar from Bavarian forests due to Chernobyl.

I know. But this doesn't sound too healthy neither https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11900206/

[kawogi]

> Germany is filling the gap by importing electricity from France

Not to disagree, but the picture is more complex.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/even-crisis-germany-...

> Maybe ask France or the US, they seem to be more practical on how to do this

Was curious about that as well, but I only keep finding "solutions" that are in the make or disputed.

This is from 2014, so maybe they found a solution in the meantime? https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26425674

I'm also trying to find the final costs of any disposal.

Renewables aren't without problems of course. We still need a solution where the blades of the wind turbines don't end up in landfills. That's effectively not renewable.

> And PV panels don't? You need many less trucks of uranium than of coal

I don't understand. Coal isn't required to build PV? We once had PV industry here but everything moved to $China :(

> I know. But this doesn't sound too healthy neither https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11900206/

Not sure why everyone assumes I'm pro coal when I explicitly stated that I'm trying to push renewables.

[raverbashing]

> Not sure why everyone assumes I'm pro coal when I explicitly stated that I'm trying to push renewables.

Because the discussion is not about you, but what happened when people pushed against Nuclear