this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
938 points (97.8% liked)
Technology
59578 readers
3661 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This is the trap. The fossil fuel industry has co-opted wind and PV solar by way of filling in the gaps and transitioning to net zero emissions. Of course, the gaps will always be there and the transition will never complete and "net zero" seems to just leave the door open on fossil fuels forever.
Nuclear power, on the other hand, has the reliability that @FireTower@lemmy.world mentioned and it closes any of the gaps from wind and solar right up. You don't have to quickly cut the power on a reactor if it's sunny or windy, just divert it to hydrogen and ammonia production. Even if the efficient high temperature electrolysis tech isn't ready yet, it doesn't really matter since it's emissions free. Furthermore, nuclear power produces good heat/steam to support cogeneration and various industrial processes.
Nonsense. Conservatives have brought up nuclear for decades as a way to play "gotcha" with anti-nuclear progressives. Maggie Thatcher, for example, embraced the science of climate change early on as a way to push nuclear. It was never serious, though. Always a political game that resulted in no new nuclear being built while coal and oil continued to ramp up.
I think Thatcher just wanted to privatize, deregulate, and liberalize as much as she could, all fundamentally bad moves from the perspectives of both labor and greenhouse emissions concerns.