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hellofromreddit

(1,182 posts)
12. Nuclear is not where we should go first
Thu Mar 24, 2016, 08:02 AM
Mar 2016
On wind turbines only working 20% of the time.

Here's a discussion of capacity factor that also compares solar and nuclear.

Once renewable energy collectors (wind, solar, whatever) the electricity from them is essentially free since there are zero fuel and waste disposal costs. OTOH, sources that require fuel (nuclear certainly requires fuel) have those costs, and they're costs that only increase over time. Decommissioned plants that are no longer generating power still have to be maintained for quite some time--they cannot be demolished.

All fuel-using power generation follows that pattern to some degree, and the crisis we face today from the byproducts of fossil fuels could not have been predicted when the technology was first widely adopted. While we're reasonably confident that we can contain spent nuclear fuel and used, irradiated equipment, we can also be reasonably confident that we're wrong about that in the long term.

On quadrillion-dollar batteries--they're not actually needed.

Nuclear can be avoided.

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