To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

Re:To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed) by freehunter on Wednesday December 21, 2016 @10:34PM (#13234554)

They don't, but if we met those goals we may be able to get away with not using nuclear. Nuclear produces a lot of power with relatively low side effects, but solar and wind produce a smaller amount of power with no side effects. If we can globally bring our power consumption down to that smaller amount that can be met by solar and wind, we could get rid of the economic and political arguments that keep nuclear from taking off.

Nuclear has such a bad name in so many countries that it'd be nice if we could consider it a dead technology. To do that, it would really help if we could cut consumption to not need the massive glob of power than nuclear is designed to provide.

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Re:To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed) by DrScump on Wednesday December 21, 2016 @10:39PM (#13234588)

  solar and wind produce a smaller amount of power with no side effects

Actually, manufacture, transportation, and installation consume mostly fossil fuels, and manufacture has environmental impacts (including waste products). I'd consider that a "side effect".

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Re:To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed) by freehunter on Wednesday December 21, 2016 @10:43PM (#13234613)

But that's true of nuclear as well. Building a power plant and disposing of waste (not to mention disposing of waste water, which is often an environmental challenge) have huge costs that are fed by fossil fuels as well.

What's implied by "produce power with no side effects" is it does not take fossil fuels to keep them running, nor do they put out any harmful by-products. Even hot water discharged into a lake and steam discharged into the air is more of a harmful by-product than the literally nothing that solar and wind generators produce.

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Re:To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed) by krzyk on Thursday December 22, 2016 @02:46AM (#13235644)

> solar and wind produce a smaller amount of power with no side effects

Without side effects? wind?

Have you by any chance seen what wind plants do to birds? Or have you had the opportunity to live in a house near a wind plant? The noise is very annoying.

Water plants looks much better than wind plants.

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Re:To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed) by freehunter on Thursday December 22, 2016 @09:21AM (#13237371)

None of those things have any impact on climate change, which is the topic at hand.

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