Not sure the cost benefit analysis is right here either. Nuclear power may be expensive to build, but once built, it only requires maintenance (and fuel). The renewables are not a similar level of one and done by contrast. They all degrade over time, and with their degradation their ability to produce power does too but in Nuclears case, the power generation component is only impacted when the site needs to be closed for maintenance.
I have a few issues with Nuclear. Effectively it fails the would I want one near me test and does have problems I would like to see overcome from a waste perspective. Solar, and turbines are less of an issue in that regard although I really dislike seeing a bunch of windmills everywhere littered across the landscape and I do get concerned about the disposal and replacement timelines. I would prefer to get the worst case scenario out of these and how they are going to perform rather than the best.
All that being said, not really sure why we are hell bent in turning off stuff we have been using to generate power for a long time. There seems to be this big bang to make everyone move off the dirty old power generation (early) because of the climate emergency and whilst I agree we need to do things to rectify it, there has been action taken for quite some time already to improve these things and whilst we shouldnt be complacent, I wonder how we measure our ability to put the breaks on things and question how you quantify what the last 20 to 30 years of technological advancement has achieved to right some historic wrongs and how we can quantify whether or not it has made a big enough difference. The old tech that was way more terrible for the environment producing lots of CFC's etc, than the current appliances and stuff we use. I sometimes wonder why we dont focus more on the cheap one time use throw away items that are filling our land fill quicker than ever before rather than the old mantra of buying something and using it for a longer period of time too. we pollute differently but just as badly in some ways in that regard.
I have a few issues with Nuclear. Effectively it fails the would I want one near me test and does have problems I would like to see overcome from a waste perspective. Solar, and turbines are less of an issue in that regard although I really dislike seeing a bunch of windmills everywhere littered across the landscape and I do get concerned about the disposal and replacement timelines. I would prefer to get the worst case scenario out of these and how they are going to perform rather than the best.
All that being said, not really sure why we are hell bent in turning off stuff we have been using to generate power for a long time. There seems to be this big bang to make everyone move off the dirty old power generation (early) because of the climate emergency and whilst I agree we need to do things to rectify it, there has been action taken for quite some time already to improve these things and whilst we shouldnt be complacent, I wonder how we measure our ability to put the breaks on things and question how you quantify what the last 20 to 30 years of technological advancement has achieved to right some historic wrongs and how we can quantify whether or not it has made a big enough difference. The old tech that was way more terrible for the environment producing lots of CFC's etc, than the current appliances and stuff we use. I sometimes wonder why we dont focus more on the cheap one time use throw away items that are filling our land fill quicker than ever before rather than the old mantra of buying something and using it for a longer period of time too. we pollute differently but just as badly in some ways in that regard.
"everything you know is wrong"
Paul Hewson
Paul Hewson