[doublerabbit]

Solar is hit & miss. The only capacity we really have is wind and those are only efficient to those near the sea or in the highlands. England, Scotland, Wales are governed by rain 80% of the year and with the sun we get, household solar rarely breaks even.

Just because we've got, if the government isn't supporting it's pretty much wasted. The renewable farms we do have are mostly funded by private investments firms. Scotland and Wales wants more renewable but the UK government says no.

> End 2024 installed electricity generating capacity was 105 GWe: 35.0 GWe natural gas; 32.8 GWe wind; 18.3 GWe solar; 7.4 GWe biofuels & waste; 5.9 GWe nuclear; 4.8 GWe hydro (including 2.9 GWe pumped storage) and 1.3 GWe oil.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...

[KaiserPro]

> household solar rarely breaks even.

mate, I dunno what your smoking, but it deffo does. I'm about 50% "paid off" and I had an expensive setup. Installed now the equivalent costs about 50% of what it did.

> Scotland and Wales wants more renewable but the UK government says no.

National grid say "holy shit I need to build more cables" then local people say "ewwww pylons" and shit gets more expensive. There is a bottleneck between england and scotland, which is partially being solved by https://www.nationalgrid.com/the-great-grid-upgrade

The whole boo england, poor scotland/wales thing gets tired super quick. its being solved, is it being solved fast enough? no, but thats because we have a raised a shit generation of empty politicians from across UK and NI. (and the co-dependent pundit class)

> The renewable farms we do have are mostly funded by private investments firms.

Mostly pension funds. but yes, private. However given the high turnover of (useless) polticians, and a civil service that has had all is expertise hollowed out and replaced by consultancy firms, I don't think public funding, without structural reform is a good idea (look at railways for example)

[mekdoonggi]

A quick search says the UK produced 18,314 GWh of solar last year. And this was mostly funded by private investment? It seems like for some infrastructure investment, the government is getting long-term renewable power. If the solar isn't making money, why is it growing 30% annually?

What is stupid about nuclear? It's a huge amount of clean, secure energy.

Would your preference be dependence on Russian/US oil natural gas? Would you feel the same if Russia invaded Finland/Baltics and US took over Greenland?

[doublerabbit]

> What is stupid about nuclear? It's a huge amount of clean, secure energy.

It's not the stupidly of the reactor producing. I don't agree with it personally, but hey whatever, it's a thing. The stupidly of it is that we are small island.

Claim what you wish about how safe they are but like anything: errors and malfunctions. Cyber sabotage and all that.

If an reactor were to implode we're eff'd. We don't have landmass to facilitate the output waste in the UK and the waste we do currently produce has to be shipped elsewhere; sold for dark money.

> Would your preference be dependence on Russian/US oil natural gas? Would you feel the same if Russia invaded Finland/Baltics and US took over Greenland?

My preference would be my hand with a gun pointed at my temple and myself pulling the trigger. To dark?

[mekdoonggi]

Forgive me, but I don't think you're looking at UK energy policy with a pragmatic and realistic lens. The UK could always make a reactor safer and more secure. If you're dependent on gas, Russia or the US could just shut off the tap.

[M2Ys4U]

>We don't have landmass to facilitate the output waste in the UK

Yes, we do. It really doesn't make that much space to store the waste. The biggest problem is people being irrationally scared of it.

[Moldoteck]

even accounting for fukushima/chernoble nuclear is between solar and wind in terms of human deaths. And new units are safer than both. EPR went 'just add one more thing' to be more expensive, AP1000 went passive safety way but westinghose imploded and they needed to ask Korea for help

[natmaka]

An accident spreading hazardous substances over a large geographical area that are difficult to contain (or waste of this type) is unique to nuclear power; no renewable energy source poses such a threat.

Another problem is the urgency (due to the impacts) combined with the difficulty of modifying power plants as required by "lessons learned," in other words, bug fixes. Modifying or repairing solar panels or wind turbines is easier than working on a reactor and results in a smaller reduction in the plant's output. The effects of this are significant.

The number of victims (and more generally, the health impacts) of nuclear power depends on the method of analysis, which is controversial. This is true for Chernobyl and Fukushima, where the evacuation triggered by the nuclear accident officially caused 2,202 deaths (2019 count), and 2,313 according to the International Nuclear Association.

Even the maximum potential impact of an accident is debated.

The full impact of nuclear power will at best only be known after all dismantling is complete and the last cold waste is disposed of (before this deadline any mishap or stray waste can be costly), in a few thousand years.

[Moldoteck]

renewables are still made from different substances, one of which is copper. One byproduct of copper is extremely toxic- arsenic, and it's spills are not that different in terms of dangers. That's the point. For nuclear at least, over time decay happens, esp for most dangerous isotopes, but for chemical waste - it's forever.

Nuclear still has higher capacity factor than any VRE.

Evacuation numbers for Fukushima are accounted in the stat. But it's also worth mentioning Japanese govt acknowledged most of the deaths are caused by extreme evacuation measures that werent needed, but govt ignored the data it had to enforce them. The panic against nuclear caused them, not radiation.

[natmaka]

Arsenic: this only plays during mining (recycling is OK), and efficient measures are already in place (where and when was it a problem, and at which extent?)

> capacity factor

So what? Capacity factor (or another similar quantity such as physical efficiency, operating life, etc.) is a salient criterion in the case of equipment consuming materials or fuel without recycling them, or producing waste in quantity or in the long term that is dangerous... therefore does not concern nuclear power but hardly concerns renewables.

A low yield makes deployment more expensive but, considered alone, is not prohibitive: a mix of renewables producing adequately (quantity, permanence, impacts, total cost including recycling, etc.) is a good solution whatever its yield.

> most of the deaths are caused by extreme evacuation measures that werent needed

This is disputed and the real amplitude of the threat was not known during the nuclear accident. The tiny evacuation ordered was minimally cautious as experts predicted, during the accident, that the worst cast would imply evacuating up to 50 millions persons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoto_Kan#In_media