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It’s worth pointing out that the renewables break down as such (% of all electricity):
- Solar: 6%
- Hydro: 6%
- Wind: 10%
- Nuclear: 18%
Nuclear energy is providing more than any other individual source, making up 45% of all renewable electricity.
Next time you hear someone “concerned about global warming” also fearmonger about nuclear energy, it’s worth considering where their allegiances lie. Most people are misguided, but when it comes to politicians, it says a lot about how much they actually care about sustainability.
There have been studies (this one, for example) that suggest the total radioactivity-related health impacts from coal power exceed that of nuclear power by an order of magnitude. That’s not all pollution-related deaths for coal – just those associated with radon exposure inside of mines, and radioactive materials embedded in coal going out into the environment. For all the fear-mongering about nuclear, it’s hard to find a less dangerous source of base load generation using present-day technologies. Maybe once grid-scale batteries are available at scale, they could replace nuke plants, but that’s a solution ten years too late for an environmental problem we have to fix right now.
i wonder where the world we be today if we didnt stop funding nuclear, if gen 4 designs actually had proper money pushing them forward.
We’d be better suited to reduce emissions, that’s for sure.
What is renewable about nuclear? It’s not a fossil fuel, but uranium has to be mined and is a finite resource just like oil.
Uranium isn’t the only fuel source, for one. Fusion reactors, if we can figure out the underlying science, world likely use hydrogen. New generation reactors can use Thorium, and breeder tractors are able to generate usable fuel from nuclear waste.
Not to mention, uranium is finite but we have enough supply of it to develop other technologies while we still reduce emissions via nuclear.
And this is discounting new technologies which could allow us to create a large artificial uranium supply.
It’s not renewable but we have something like 200 years worth. It’s a cleaner stopgap than fossil fuels until we figure out fusion and build up renewable capacity.
Nuclear has been at that supply level since the 1970s. Other parts of the world have much higher renewable mixes in their energy inputs. For example, Germany:
Nuclear is not necessary to meet climate change targets. In fact, it’s so damned expensive to deploy and maintain, it will harm meeting those targets.
https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2023/03/PE23_090_43312.html
And because they shut down their nuclear plants, they had to start burning coal again, which is about as bad an energy source you can get when it comes to emissions and pollution. Their coal use % went up from 2021 to 2022. They may have a higher renewable mix, but they’ve also increased their emissions. Not to mention, they also significantly reduced their energy imports from France – the majority of which is generated by nuclear energy. They are replacing clean energy with coal.
France is actually a significant counterpoint as well. They’ve got 65%+ nuclear energy, and renewables just add to the percent of clean energy sources. Considering they’re doing much better than Germany in terms of not using fossil fuels, I believe they are an example to follow over Germany – which means nuclear is critical to meet our climate goals.
since we’re talking about france, it’s important to mention that frances nuclear infrastructure is a mess right now, pretty much all of it is EOL and a handful have found serious structural issues. Maintenance is important kids, remember to perform it, otherwise your PWR main loop might explode. and everyone will laugh at you.
Also the EPR reactor being built thats like n times over budget and x years behind commission, 90% of it is fabrication skill issues though. The EPR is also just immensely complex compared to better designs.
infrastructure is a universal issue though, you just HAVE to maintain things unless you want them to disintegrate. And you need to have a plan in place to keep things going into the future, when things inevitably reach EOL.
Yeah I don’t see this so much as a nuclear problem but a universal problem. Everything requires maintenance, from oil refineries to solar farms.
And because they shut down their nuclear plants, they had to start burning coal again…
Unrelated and a whataboutism.
It was completely relevant to the discussion. That’s not a whataboutism.
He changed the topic from nuclear to coal.
It’s completely relevant to a discussion about renewable energy and meeting emission targets. What’s the benefit of having a higher renewable mix if your total GHG emissions are consistently going up?
Germany has generated more CO2 than it would have if it had kept nuclear technology, and that’s an indisputable fact.
That’s like arguing why take chemo if it only makes you sicker in the short run. 🤔
To use your analogy, we don’t know if this chemo will actually cure them. It could make them just a little better, but it needs to be worth the suffering.
Our goal at the end of the day is to reach 0 emissions as soon as possible. If the increased coal and gas that Germany is using now because of eliminating nuclear energy results in zero emissions much quicker, I’ll happily agree with you. As it stands however, Germany has not proven out a reduction in carbon higher than their recent increases.
There is no climate justification for cutting out nuclear energy. If there was, we’d see a net detriment in France and a net positive in Germany with regards to the justification. If that exists today, I’d be more than happy to read about it. If you’re going to argue that it’ll exist tomorrow, you’ll need projections that are made on reasonable assumptions and that show the difference. Again, I’d be happy to look at those.
Don’t forget geothermal. California has a little of that
Geothermal is not quite to the point where we can represent it with a whole number percentage value, but it’s getting there! If we’re going to include sub-1% generators, burning wood has geothermal beat out at 0.8%. Geothermal is cool, though!
The only thing that’s keeping carbon-free power from growing faster is natural gas, which is the fastest-growing source of generation at the moment, going from 40 percent of the year-to-date total in 2022 to 43.3 percent this year. (It’s actually slightly below that level in the October data.) The explosive growth of natural gas in the US has been a big environmental win, since it creates the least particulate pollution of all the fossil fuels, as well as the lowest carbon emissions per unit of electricity. But its use is going to need to start dropping soon if the US is to meet its climate goals, so it will be critical to see whether its growth flat lines over the next few years.
Uh… So, listen. I work in the Nat Gas sector. And while I’m happy to confirm that its far cleaner, easier/safer to transport, and more efficient than coal and liquid oil, I’m going to have to pump the breaks on the enthusiasm. We are definitely not “emissions-free”. One of the larger investments we’ve made, in the last few years, has been in detecting gas leaks along our existing lines and plugging them. And we definitely still flare off excess and lose reserves during transit as circumstances dictate.
Way back in the 1970s a small upstart energy company known as Exxon had one of its engineering departments estimate the ecological impact of drilling into the East Natuna gas field off the coast of Indonesia. This was primarily a natural gas reserve, accessible without the modern fracking and cracking techniques used throughout the Permian and Delphi Basins.
Senior scientist of Exxon, James Black, authored a report estimating the impact of drilling and burning off the fuel in the East Natuna reserve, and concluded it would result in a significant increase in global temperatures. This lead Exxon to commission further studies, in the late 70s and early 80s, to estimate the full impact of their drilling and refining practices. The end result was a model of climate change that has mapped neatly to current climate trends
I say this because while natural gas is relatively cleaner, it is by no means clean. And with the increasing rate of energy consumption occurring globally, our reliance on natural gas is decidedly not contributing to an emissions free future.
I don’t think anyone is under the illusion that natural gas is emissions-free.
6% Solar + 6% Hydro + 10% Wind + 18% Nuclear = 40% “emissions-free”
The article doesn’t do a good job of explaining the 40%, you have to infer it. But when you do, it isn’t natural gas, but solar + wind + hydro + nuclear.
This is actually fantastic news. 40% renewable, 40% natural gas, and 20% coal is a huge step in the right direction.
The article doesn’t do a good job of explaining the 40%
I thought the chart was pretty clear. Although I guess they could’ve color coded it.
I think color coding it would’ve helped a bit yeah. Especially if they used the same color for wind and hydro and solar and nuclear. Otherwise you read 40% in the headline and the first thing which draws your attention is 44% natural gas
Here’s some overtime graphs up to 2020:
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Thanks for continuing to prove why weevils are the best beetles.
That’s a very cool article, I didn’t know the US was actually making the change so quickly.
Weirdest part of the article is the included pie chart from the US Energy Information Agency showing the usage of different types of energy, but the entire pie is orange, like every slice of different energy is orange.
They need one art guy, just one.
I didn’t mind the pie chart, the slices are labeled clearly, no need to use coloring like you have to read a legend.
Kind of you
It’s better than nothing. Hopefully we can speed this up in next couple of years.
That’s very surprising, in a good way.
Great except the military pollutes more than 140 countries and there are several wars ongoing. If you really want the climate to stop changing we need to reel in the international shipping industry, the fashion industry, and also the global war machine.
You also have to admit that the US covers for most of the worlds military. Most of nato and many Asian allies have very low defense spending, because the US will cover them. Most of the time when there is a global crisis or localized crisis the US is involved in one way or another.
They should pay us for this service.
“Hey France, are you subscribed to the American security apparatus?”
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the pilothouse of my privately owned aircraft carrier when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was France. “Hey France, are you subscribed to the American security apparatus?”
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we need to reel in the international shipping industry, the fashion industry, and also the global war machine
Believe you mean “modernize” and not “reel in,” because ending international shipping would be catastrophic worldwide.
Finally some good news.
There’s a lot if you look for it, recent developments in tidal are incredibly positive and we’re absolutely going to see a rapid uptake in marine electrification as existing technology progresses through the market. Most people never really think about the resources used and pollution caused by small boats but one of the big destructive forces at play is the infrastructure requirements - small boats need big boats to supply their fuel stations.
Transitioning away from this system and instead using costal tidal generators to charge electric ferries and barges could be a total game changer in many areas, especially many of the highly trafficked and polluted tidal basins like in north Brazil, Nigeria, or island clusters like in the Philippines. Also the intercoastal waterways around the US and other leisure spots.
We’re making great progress in many areas and I really think it’s important to acknowledge this and cheer it on least we get so caught in a false sense of doom that we just give up.
Its not good news at all, electricity prices have gone up a lot since this net-zero insanity took over. Morons are clapping their hands like trained seals at their bank accounts being drained by corporations and politicians.
No they haven’t. Mine has been the same for a few decades and it’s fine.
Yes they have, rates used to be 0.12/kwh all day long, recently they rolled out a peak pricing scam and it’s 0.22/kwh from 2-7pm, that is nearly double.
Wanting to breath clean air on a habitable planet isn’t insanity.
The air is plenty clean as it is, has been for decades too… as long as you don’t live in California, where the smug is so thick it’s asphyxiating.
The air is plenty clean as it is
Tell that to the people in East Palestine Ohio. Tell that to the people that live near coal plants.
as long as you don’t live in California
Doesn’t matter where you live if the planet is uninhabitable.
This is due to corporate greed. Solar and wind are the cheapest sources of energy in the history of the world.
I’d be really curious to see the dollar per kilowatt hour on each one of these.
That’s actually better than I thought.
In my city they had everyone switch to renewable energy, they sent Mail out stating that your energy source will automatically change unless you opt out.
LOL how are they going to change the energy source that powers an individual house if they “opt out” ??
Did they run separate power lines to every house that is on a switch between the power sources? It’s not like a network packet that you can route to a destination, it’s going to go down the lines the same way unless the circuit is broken.
Suppose Provider A is 100% renewable and Provider B is 100% fossil. Both providers generate power and feed the same grid (which is managed separately from the various energy providers). The same grid powers all homes. Householders get to choose whether to buy from Provider A or Provider B. If you support renewables then you buy from Provider A; their share goes up and B’s share goes down. And vice versa for B. In addition the government juggles A,B as well as C,D,E,etc to provide the overall service to the country.
