Re:California to open five natural gas plants to avoid black...
by mschuster91 on Thursday September 02, 2021 @08:06AM
(#28391057)
> It’s fission, not fusion.
Fixed the typo, thanks.
> You mention solar panels. What are the externalities of those? Lots of harsh chemicals go into batteries, and we need a buttload of batteries to make solar work at scale.
Battery production in itself isn't as toxic as you make it out to be.
> But we have no plan at all for longterm storage of CO2 or battery/solar panel chemicals.
Long term CO2 storage has an easy concept: trees. Solar panels can easily be recycled these days - they are mostly glass - and battery recycling efforts are already underway, they should be at mass scale once the problem becomes relevant (since even used electric car batteries can have a long second life as decentral storage units).
> Regarding the accidents, I can only assume you mean Three Mile Island and Chernobyl or perhaps the Japanese tsunami. If you look into it a bit more you’ll notice that those were technologically ancient reactors.
Most reactors in operation today are ancient reactors, new constructions (Flamanville!) are plagued by cost and time overruns that put the infamous BER airport to shame, and possibly-new constructions (MSRs) are a pipe dream and/or have plutonium proliferation concerns.
> They all got hit by a massive tsunami, much more than the design spec called for.
Fixed the typo, thanks.
> You mention solar panels. What are the externalities of those? Lots of harsh chemicals go into batteries, and we need a buttload of batteries to make solar work at scale.
Battery production in itself isn't as toxic as you make it out to be.
> But we have no plan at all for longterm storage of CO2 or battery/solar panel chemicals.
Long term CO2 storage has an easy concept: trees. Solar panels can easily be recycled these days - they are mostly glass - and battery recycling efforts are already underway, they should be at mass scale once the problem becomes relevant (since even used electric car batteries can have a long second life as decentral storage units).
> Regarding the accidents, I can only assume you mean Three Mile Island and Chernobyl or perhaps the Japanese tsunami. If you look into it a bit more you’ll notice that those were technologically ancient reactors.
Most reactors in operation today are ancient reactors, new constructions (Flamanville!) are plagued by cost and time overruns that put the infamous BER airport to shame, and possibly-new constructions (MSRs) are a pipe dream and/or have plutonium proliferation concerns.
> They all got hit by a massive tsunami, much more than the design spec called for.
California is deemed way overdue for a big earthquake (per https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-earthquake-drought-o... and others). It is a really, really bad idea to build a nuclear plant anywhere close.