This is basically an artificial concern. Waste from fossil fuel is massively more huge in scale - in my country we dump 12 million tonnes of toxic coal fly ash per year [1]. Wind turbine blades will never be anywhere near that order or magnitude… And that’s just the solid stuff you can see, not counting anything (like fine particulate matter, nitrous oxides, sulfur dioxide, etc.) put straight into the air burning coal, gas and oil…
We need to be considering the impact of any big changes we make in regards to our energy. But the thing is, we already know the answers to most of these "but what about" questions and they've been answered time and time again, yet they keep being brought up and used in an effort to slow progress.
Which is worse, the __________ caused by technology Z or the airborne carbon dioxide they prevent?
THE CARBON DIOXIDE IS WORSE, most of the time.
Can we at least start at a place of the carbon dioxide is worse and go from there? I'm not against listening to reason, I'm just against people looking for every reason not to change how we gain and consume our energy.
Exactly, it's not that we shouldn't be striving to mitigate the issue of handling components over their lifetime, but if we're to have any hope at all of this being a conversation that grows in sophistication over time, these shouldn't be dangled with an open-ended implication that they may or may not pose a fundamental challenge to the whole project of renewable energt. Such suggestions should be dismissed as punch drunk nonsense.
I straight up do not care a about plastic use at all anymore.
Specifically: provided the plastic is going to well-managed landfill, and not being washed into the oceans or waterways, then really, what is the problem? Once in landfill it's CO2 which won't end up in the atmosphere, or water, or really doing much of anything while it just sits there.
And every bit of it is oil production which won't be burned.
Yes, it's an environmental red herring. I do outdoor events and I do not allow plastic straws there because they end up in nature. Plastic in nature is obviously bad. Landfills are cheap, plentiful, and safe (even tested regularly for leachate) in the industrialized world.
And more importantly, the people who actually DO pollute by the ton want you to be more worried about your straws than the laws that allow them to do it. Don't fall for it.
Is it preferable to burn coal and natural gas then? I'm not saying you're wrong (you could be right) but let's not forget why we are pushing for renewable energy.
We do need to disassemble them and move them somewhere, so those costs should be included. Perhaps they should be made to where they can be broken down into sections and reused as durable seawall filler or as construction filler in levees or dams.
This not a battle between nuclear and wind. Why not use both? Nuclear has dangers (which people are learning to mitigate) but wind, solar, and geothermal cannot be used in every situation. When no better choice exists we should embrace nuclear.
I wasn't arguing against nuclear. I was responding to the comment regarding "What's the harm in piling it up on empty land until someone finds use for it" as applying to nuclear waste.
Regarding your point, though, I'm certainly no expert but I believe at this point people aren't investing in new nuclear capacity because they don't believe that long term it will be cost competitive with renewables + storage.