Why has the world started to mine coal again?
With climate change looming, it seems so completely backwards to go back to using it again.
Is it coal miners pushing to keep their jobs? Fear of nuclear power? Is purely politically motivated, or are there genuinely people who believe coal is clean?
Edit, I will admit I was ignorant to the usage of coal nowadays.
Now I'm more depressed than when I posted this
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I was looking at the building cost. Looking more into the Wikipedia article, it seems to account for availability. But the numbers are very speculative still, there is a crazy variation both for the specific data points and for the studies. Another big factor is the interest rate for investment which can double the cost of nuclear energy depending on the assumption.
Another thing that bother me is the speculative nature of these things. No photovoltaic power plant ever went through its whole lifespan. No significant energy production was made with variable renewable. Whereas nuclear was used for 70 years now. Yet the speculation makes it like nuclear will be expensive and unreliable and renewable will be cheap and reliable when the actual history is the exact opposite. Technology advances obviously, but still. I don't consider renewable to be a tried and tested technology that scales while nuclear is.
Idk. Solar cells have been around for a while, too. Wind turbines are kind of simple devices. I bet an engineer can predict their maintenance cost and lifespan fairly accurate. Hydroelectric power plants have been around for more than 100 years. Electric cars have been invented before the combustion engine took off. Nuclear power has been around for some time. But you can't use that as an argument and simultaneously argue about using thorium which large scale deployments are still hypothetical.
And I don't think those numbers are 500% off. You can double some cost and were only at 200%. And they're not complete speculation. They took the actual numbers of the previous year. And the years before that. These numbers are the 'actual history'.
No significant energy production was made with variable renewable
Pardon? Norway? New Zealand? Switzerland? Iceland? Sweden? Countless others I probably forgot because I'm bad at geography? The USA and China, Philippines, Indonesia all have major 'variable renewable'. Thousands and thousands of megawatts of energy are generated this way as of today. Then there is biomass if you're geologically not that favored by nature, but I barely know anything about that. And who says we can't use the sun and wind? Of course we can also use those.
What proportion of those countries' energy is renewable? Because that's the big problem: when renewable are less than 50% of your energy, you can balance the load with the rest ; when it's 80%, it's a whole different story. No country has the most of its energy from renewables, and thus we don't know if it can even work over time, it's not proven. The scale matters. Producing a prototype is not the same as the whole industrial thing. That's exactly what's happening with nuclear btw: after 30 years of abandon, the construction is hard and more expensive and time-consuming than expected because we need to relearn how to do it. But prototype is not industrialisation. And that's a problem renewable will run into: industrialisation. Where do you all the silicium you need for the batteries and solar panels? How do you deal with balancing the load? And there will be unexpected problems. Nuclear already dealt with these problems. Will renewable actually be able to expand everywhere? Because there isn't wind and sun everywhere. I severely doubt Switzerland can power itself this way for example.
And then, isthere any solar or wind farm of more than 30 years? I'm pretty sure there isn't because their lifespan is less than that and the last models that are so efficient are less than 10 years old anyway.
The experience also shows that all countries that went for renewables ended up using more fossile energy btw. Spain and Germany most notably. How do you answer this problem? This is not theory, this is what happened when countries decided to use renewable energy.
I'm sorry. Let's end the argument here. We won't agree. Some of your points are valid, most of them are plainly wrong or don't contribute.
No country has the most of its energy from renewables
Yes, this page shows there are currently 4 countries above your arbitrary 80% demonstrating exactly that.
it’s not proven
Yes. See above.
a prototype
We've already established countries like Germany with close to 50% renewable aren't a prototype. I've given countless other examples.
after 30 years of abandon, the construction is hard and more expensive
then don't do it.
Nuclear already dealt with these problems.
You're sure nuclear is without issues nowadays?
there isn’t wind and sun everywhere
That's why we shouldn't only do 100% of those. I've explained several alternatives and you can store and transport energy across the continent.
silicium you need for the batteries and solar panels
We don't focus on batteries and solar. We need a diverse mix. In fact we don't need batteries at all, we need energy storage. But this doesn't have to be batteries. Same applies to solar. I'm living a bit far north and it gets rainy here sometimes. Maybe just take another kind of energy.
Btw. where do you get your uranium 235? Is that a different argument?
How do you deal with balancing the load?
Well, how do you do it? Nuclear also is generating a relatively constant amount of energy. Day and night, 24/7. Nuclear also doesn't balance the load. Same argument applies here.
Nobody says it has to be 100% this or that by tomorrow. It needs to be a diverse strategy. It needs to factor in individual geographical facts. If we're only at 70% renewable tomorrow it's better than 20%. It is a process. We don't have to skip everything and jump to 100% immediately. Let those natural gas plants run a bit and balance out things, as they do today. Just put in the effort. Once there are cheaper alternatives, use them and don't cling to old technology just for the sake of it.
is there any solar or wind farm of more than 30 years
Let's scrap solar for the sake of this discussion. Let's say material science is completely wrong and they vastly over-exaggerated lifespan of solar panels. Solar is a small fraction of the equation. Tell me what in a wind turbine we don't understand. Windmills have been around for centuries. As have been generators. I'm not looking that up but I bet we had wind farms in the 70s. Water power has been used to generate electricity for more than a century. It works at scale for some time now. Geothermal works with steam and turbines. They're also in your nuclear plant. Can you explain all this away?
and the last models that are so efficient are less than 10 years old
As is everything that made some progress. My computer is faster and better in most aspects than the one I had a decade ago.
The experience also shows that all countries that went for renewables ended up using more fossile energy btw. Spain and Germany most notably. How do you answer this problem? This is not theory, this is what happened when countries decided to use renewable energy.
Politics. Germany was supposed to invest into renewables and phase out the old stuff. In a sane way. Then we switched off all the nuclear plants at once (after Fukushima). Obviously this requires buying energy from neighboring countries and ramping up other technology. We subside companies wreacking havoc throughout the Niederrhein for brown coal which isn't even economical in the first place. Instead of investing that money into our future. We also killed off our domestic solar industry years ago. The war in Ukraine happened. That took us by surprise and we were dependant on Russian natural gas. I'm not an expert on Spain.
You're right with your distinction between theory and the real world. What we should do isn't always what we do (or did). When someone does something stupid, it doesn't automatically make it right or wrong. But you're supposed to learn from their mistakes. And factor in everything if you want to talk about what makes sense for the future.
The wikipedia article on renewable energy also has some facts about history and state of the art in green energy, so you can have a look at the world-wide numbers and decide if your perspective is that this is sci-fi or actually out there. I don't say this is easy or possible without changes to the energy grid, society or whatever. And I don't argue we need to do 100% solar. Or get rid of all of the batteries in the world. Or do everything with lithium batteries. Or the problems getting from 0-20% are the same as going from 80-100%. That's not my argument. My argument is, if it's the cheapest option in the long run. And the way to not further temper with climate. Why not use this? Why not invest in this unless there is a proper argument against it? We've already begun, made some mistakes and are getting smarter by the day. Nuclear has so many challenges that are difficult to solve. And looking at the numbers, it's unlikely it will improve so much in its current form that it'll become better than renewable anyways. I'd be happy to reconsider things once sombody gets a nuclear fusion reactor viable for real-world use.
The countries you show that are high on renewable are using hydro/marine, not solar or wind.
Notice that I am not against renewable. I'm all for it. I'm just saying that it is delusional to think that we can forgo nuclear for energy production in a short or medium time scale.
My problem is not renewable, it's people who are against nuclear.
I'm also not against nuclear per se. My problem is, handling the radioactive stuff is what makes it very expensive and there is no way around that at this point. For example I see many issues storing that waste. It is true that these geological structures have been there for millions of years. But once you drill into them, this isn't the case any more. We have massive problems finding a final storage repository, and for several reasons. We've tried for decades. My prediction is that it'll be massively expensive to look after these things in the tousands of years to come. At some point there will be an issue, water will get in and more billions of money will be needed to clean that up. This will not be payed for by the people who used that electricity.
It makes me a bit angry that nuclear is massively subsidised. They get subsidised when building plants, they didn't have to have the money for dismantlement ready. I bet this will be some more 100 billions for the german taxpayer. They probably only pay a fraction of the needed research. If they're basically only paying for operation, I can tell, why this looks feasable for people and nobody believes the actual numbers.
And it's a bridge technology anyways. There's no way around that. Once the real deal is around, you need to accept that and slowly phase it out.
I believe in the studies, the state of the art in research and actual numbers. Without factoring the subsidies I just talked about in, we talked about the study in the USA where nuclear power was 5 times as expensive to generate. And those are real electricity prices. The subsidies and unaccounted cost of waste storage that become just extra profit for those companies, get on top.
So why do you want to pay extra for electricity? Why do you want to create more and more difficult to solve problems? Why invest even more money in such a dying technology? I mean, I'm okay if we don't switch off those existing plants before they're due. They're here and we may as well use them to cut down CO2. But please. If science tells you it is expensive and difficult by some huge factor. Don't throw more billions and billions at yesterdays technology and research in blind hope that you'll be able to bridge that gap somehow. It's not competetive as of today. And you'll need more and more money to stay in business in the future.
I don't want to pay that with my taxes. And we need that money for the energy transition. To address some of the issues you mentioned. Especially like you said for the last few percent getting close to 100% renewable. That will also be expensive. And now we need money to make changes to the energy grid and afford more offshore wind for example. And politics to really think hard and have the right incentives for people and companies. The off-shore wind park will generate energy day and night for decades to come once you build it. The energy grid and energy storage facilities will be an investment. Please don't waste all the money because I want someone to build a carbon-neutral helicopter to fly to these off-shore windmills and service them.
There had been a time where your nuclear was the right choice. Now it's a money-losing business for the people. And renewable would be an investment into their future. The actual numbers tell the same story. So I'm more against stupid and expensive choices, than against nuclear specifically.
I want to pay for something that works. That's how you wisely invest money. And what works is a mix or nuclear and renewables.
But ecologist are pushing hard their propaganda against nuclear so we would have to use gas or coal for decades before the smart grid can work.
As for the cost, it doesn't account for storage. Unlike nuclear that does account for dealing with wastes. Wastes that are far, far less of a problem than what ecologists are afraid of.
Again, that's simply false. Around the world, the taxpayer ends up paying the major portion of the cost needed to dealing with that. Look it up.
And a mix of nuclear and renewables isn't that smart. These two don't complement each other. Nuclear doesn't 'balance out' the fluctuations of renewable by pushing the rods more in or pulling them out. Look at the diagrams. Nuclear produces a constant amount of energy, day and night. It is theoretically possible, but practically not feasible to cycle this too much. They do not complement each other. You'd need almost the same energy storage facilities you'd need without nuclear being in the mix. It's a waste. And I don't know who listened to too much propaganda. If the studies and numbers tell a different story, maybe reflect a bit on your previous knowledge. I've also grown up learning nuclear is a cheap way of generating energy and it produces less CO2. But technology has made advancements and the first thing just isn't true (anymore).
And you're generating more cost for future generations. Dealing with the waste. Dismantling those reactors is a huge ordeal. You end up with vast amounts of concrete that is expensive to treat. That isn't an investment, that's a liability. On the other hand, a wind farm is an investment.
(Sorry. I don't want to argue with you specifically. I'm more annoyed by politics for making the wrong decisions. And getting us to in the situation where we now burn all that coal that we wanted to get away from. This was the original subject of this discussion anyways. We're now in that situation and we can't change the past. But we can make the right decisions for the future, now. And I expect politicians to know how much for example 100 billions of money is. And they should do scientific studies with the current state of knowledge and then do the calculation and do what's best.)
You know that there are fou tries already having most of their power from nuclear right? There is no theory crafting to make about it. We're already doing it.
Meanwhile there is no country running with wind or solar. Balancing those is theoretical because we never did it on a country scale.
That's hard facts. The only renewable energy that's proven to work on a country scale is hydro/marine.
And no, nuclear is not so expensive. Germany for example spent much more on renewables than France did to build its whole nuclear parc.
Finally, talking about wastes and stuff is a distraction. Co2 is a life threatening problem on a global scale. Nuclear will never be dangerous like that, so the point is moot. Anything that can help remove co2 emission should be used. This includes nuclear.
Where do you get these numbers?