"green energy" feasibility and investment opportunities

We’re #2 with 14% of the world’s total CO2 emissions. China (#1) produces double that, and India (#3) produces half that.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Plants love the stuff. :slightly_smiling_face:

The real pollutants are compounds of nitrogen and other genuine noxious substances produced by the burning of coal.

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In quantities larger than the planet can absorb, it is a pollutant.

Next you’ll tell me that clean drinking water can’t poison you.

Duly noted

OK, the solution I envision is for all left wingers to cease breathing straightaway… They are the ones who believe this stuff and it is in their power to stop the “pollution” forthwith.

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The reluctance of people to buy electric cars make sense with warnings like these

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What do the anti-nuclear power people on this thread think about this? Here in California, the only nuclear plant will be shut down in a couple of years and replaced with fairy dust and pixies

To help replace them (large power plants), many advocates see the future of nuclear power in small modular reactors, or SMRs. These mini reactors would produce up to 300 megawatts of power, compared with more than 1,000 megawatts for some big power plants now in operation. Many of their components can be mass-produced in factories.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-k-joining-trend-sees-nuclear-as-key-to-cut-carbon-emissions-11634663521

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I’m only anti-nuclear in my back yard, and San Onofre was shut down in 2013. Diablo Canyon is far enough and not upwind, so I’m OK with it :slight_smile:. Seems premature to close it, since it generates more electricity (~1.6-1.8 GWh/yr) than CA is likely to add with renewable projects before it’s closed (I’m projecting based on recent trends). We also have a potential crisis with hydro due to drought.

Maybe some doom and gloom articles in the media about the impending crisis will cause more people to install more PV.

Countries like France 70% Sweden 40% nuclear have shown that nuclear power is safe. The quoted article shows that nuclear power plants based on new designs will be much cheaper to build and even more reliable since they can be manufactured in a factory. The UK has seen the light (so to speak :sunglasses:) and they will proceed with developing them

install more PV

That is not an answer because no matter how much you have they will not produce power after dark or if it’s cloudy

Great! Put it somewhere far away and not upwind from me. Next to a coal plant, perhaps, since people already living near one probably don’t care.

It is at least part of an answer in California, because our peak electricity usage (and blackouts) coincide with heat waves while the sun shines. It’s not as hot after dark or on cloudy days.

OK. Are you also afraid that electricity is leaking from the power outlets in your home? :flushed:

It is at least part of an answer

The rest of the answer is a fossil fuel or nuclear system to provide power in the evening when solar energy drops but it’s still hot so air conditioners are required

Huh?

Upwind not because I think something is leaking while everything is fine, but because I don’t want to be downwind if/when something goes wrong.

Or storage. I just read there were proposals for pumping water back up to Lake Mead.

Lake Mead and Hoover dam are already budgeted for the baseload required for power for California. They are not available to step in to provide the power shortfall in the evening when solar drops and it is still hot. They are already going at full power.

Experience with nuclear power plants shows they are about as likely to harm you as electricity leaking from your electric outlets.

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I’ve never even heard of electricity leaking from outlets. That’s not how electricity works.

Either way, lightning is even less likely to harm you, but you don’t see people walking around unprotected in open fields during stormy weather.

No longer live there. But decades ago I lived nearby to the Yards Creek station. It has been generating electric power successfully for over fifty years. There was quite a stir when it first went into operation back in the 1960’s.

Pumped storage requires a “certain” topography. And while successful where tried, it is difficult to scale. And it is lossy.

I envision a giant capacitor covering several states, hundreds of motor generator sets each large as a football field and . . . . . OK . . . . . wait. Maybe I need to give this more thought. :grin:

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what does that have to do with nuclear power? Nuclear power has numerous safeguards and those are proven effective as shown by its operational safety. Nuclear power provides a tremendous societal good making possible our safe and prosperous lives.

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California is racing to secure large amounts of power in the next few years to make up for the impending closure of fossil-fuel power plants and a nuclear facility that provides nearly 10% of the electricity generated in the state.

Edward Randolph, the California utility commission’s executive director for energy and climate policy, said the body has been preparing for Diablo Canyon’s retirement since it approved PG&E’s plan to decommission the nuclear plant in 2018. But the commission has since had to revise its planning as a result of a change in the amount of power available throughout the West, he said.

The drought has constrained the output of some of the region’s most significant generating facilities, including the Hoover Dam. On top of that, other states have moved to close coal-fired power plants in recent years, reducing the amount of electricity California can import when high temperatures boost electricity demand.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-scrambles-to-find-electricity-to-offset-plant-closures/ar-AAPAYPx

You mentioned something ridiculous (electricity leaking from outlets) to, I think, show how unlikely a nuclear disaster is to cause a problem for me. I did the same, except with something less ridiculous – lightning. It’s extremely unlikely to strike you, but people don’t do stupid things that increase their chances of being struck.

I don’t want a nuclear plant in my back yard or upwind in the same way that I don’t want to be in an open field under rain clouds. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Because fear of nuclear power plants is an irrational fear akin to the fear of electricity leaking out of electric outlets. Today you can give in to that irrational fear since the left is closing nuclear power plants in some states and in some countries like Germany. But recent shortages of energy in Europe and China show that is not sustainable.

Also the advent of modular nuclear power systems which are much smaller than current nuclear power plants, so more will be used, will mean that these plants will be dispersed throughout the country. that will make it much harder for you to assuage your fear.