Unit economics for renewables coupled with storage are excellent. I agree we should reform nuclear regulation to allow new nuclear plants to pencil out. I disagree that we should discount the value of renewables.
Solar and wind take up a bunch of space and generate a bunch of waste after the panels are decommissioned, plus the wind generators are ruining every single landscape we have. With 5 nuclear stations per country you could cleanup so much of Europe.
The environmental damage caused by "clean" power sources is done mostly in countries which are far from Europe, so it's not much discussed in Europe.
Like:
Copper. "As the world shifts to wind energy and electric cars, demand for the conductive metal has increased. But mining copper brings its own environmental hazards"
They probably are aware of nuclear waste and of the modalities of dealing with it, and still believe that not investing into nuclear is shooting yourself in the foot.
FYI, a typical 1GW nuclear plant produces 30 tons, or 10m3, of high-level waste. Germany uses ~500TWh of electricity per year. So Germany could replace all their electricity generation with 60 nuclear plants and would need to find space for 1800 tons or 5km3 of waste per year.
For comparison, German landfills can accommodate 70M metric tons per year.
France, a country famous for its investment into nuclear, is not covered in nuclear waste, and does not seem to have any issue disposing of it safely.
Nuclear has its disadvantages, but painting the many people who advocate for it on HN as delusional or ignorant is not very respectful.
Solar doesn’t produce that much waste either and that was the point. Just because you don’t see the nuclear waste doesn’t mean it isn’t sitting there somewhere. The person was acting as if clean energy is dirty via its waste. For the record I’m all for nuclear - it’s insane we’ve regressed so much and not invested into more. But it’s also insane we’re not taking more advantage of green energy where we can.
Most of the solar panels are pretty non-dangerous waste (cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar panels are dangerous waste, but are currently only small part of installed solar panels).
Silicon tetrachloride used for silicon production is toxic and has to handled carefully.
The main point is that, if Europe wants to invest more in solar power, it should also do the manufacturing in Europe and waste disposal in Europe.
You know those big fields of panels in China? Where do you think they all will end up at the end of 25 years? To talk about nuclear waste is to be intentionally lying, nuclear waste amount generated is TINY.
How many tons does it take to make a dirty bomb that irradiates a city center or small downtown? To poison an aquifer when storage fails? How much does it cost to make sure neither of these events, or any other similar hypothetical, doesn't happen, not even once?
As far as I know, it hasn't happened, not even once.
Your objection appeals to emotions, not to reason. The very kind of objection that has enabled fossil fuels to be seen as less dangerous. FYI, nuclear energy has killed single digits of people. Fossil fuels kill around 10M annually through pollution alone.
Granted, your lament aims to make people privilege clean energy over nuclear, but in nature it is still the kind of thought-terminating fearmongering that gets us surveillance to protect children, so I object on principle.
Not to mention completely subjective, I personally love the look of windmills, and I live in the Netherlands in a location where I see windmills (and I don't mean the old-timey ones, the big power generating kind) everywhere around me for miles. It's certainly prettier to watch than smoke stacks.