this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2024
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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Why Britain Is Struggling With Nuclear Power | The government wants more nuclear plants to help tackle climate change, but delays and soaring costs are complicating the effort. (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 9 months ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[–] wildcherry@slrpnk.net 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I sortof agree, but nuclear is used by technopositivists as a mirage to push global warming under the rug. Sure, we can use nuclear for essential stuff if there's no other way, but the priority is to decrease consumption and consume smarter. I am all for nuclear if it powers ambulances. I don't want nuclear to power the tenth plastic-shit plant building the next thing nobody needs or a billion SUVs.

  • We gave nuclear plants to private companies, but no private companies are crazy enough to insure them. We taxpayers are doing that. This is essentially a huge subsidy.
  • The anti-greens are always reminding us about how Germany tried to get rid of nuclear and ended up opening coal plants, as in Germany was a monolithic bloc. No. The german public wanted no nuclear and the German private sector opened coal mine. Their only flaw is not to have impose quotas on their industry.
[–] federalreverse@feddit.de 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Coal use in Germany has actually continued to decrease since the nuclear plants were turned off. Germany just tends to import a bit more energy (mostly hydro from Scandinavia/Austria/Switzerland, wind from Denmark or solar/nuclear from France) from its neighbors because that's cheaper than running gas or coal plants in Germany. (And of course there are also the economic woes which have led to slowing demand for energy.)

[–] OmnipotentEntity@beehaw.org 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I am all for nuclear if it powers ambulances. I don't want nuclear to power the tenth plastic-shit plant building the next thing nobody needs or a billion SUVs.

How is this different from Solar and Wind exactly? Wind and Solar can be used to power shitty consumer garbage factories just as easily as nuclear can?

[–] wildcherry@slrpnk.net 1 points 9 months ago

It's not different :) I'd tend to say nuclear have a way higher footprint. But, you know, the best energy is the energy we save, not the one we burn.