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zahma | 1 year ago

It's not just about peaks, it's about covering the gaps when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow. We know the former happens every night, and wind is less predictable.

That's why I'm advocating for nuclear. It's not meant to turn on and off -- fine, but it will buy us time to invest in storage infrastructure and develop plans to move those electrons around at a moment's notice. We're not there yet -- not by a long shot. Someone pointed to California as a leader in this field. Even if California manages to piece together something, do you think the 49 other states will follow suit? Certainly not with this federal government at the helm.

Speaking in general terms, I'm guessing these nuclear facilities probably have a capital runway of a few decades. Hopefully in that time, we'll have the storage networks and plans to offset peaks and cover intermittent lulls at the energy source.

The priority is to stop GHG emissions, and it's absolutely absurd to me that we're willing to sit on this technology from irrational fear while we poison our planet and our bodies. It should outrage people here how many die from pollution and how many more will die from climate changes. Enough is enough.

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cesarb|1 year ago

> That's why I'm advocating for nuclear. It's not meant to turn on and off -- fine, but it will buy us time to invest in storage infrastructure and develop plans to move those electrons around at a moment's notice.

One of the objections against nuclear is that it takes way too long to build (for instance, the latest nuclear reactor near where I live has been on construction for decades, and is still far from being complete). Which means it can't help "buy us time".