Pretty nice! What are you going to tune?

Btw, I love your wooden mudguards. Did you make them?

The moment I see "web3" it's a scam in my eyes.

https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/

https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/

1. By that logic, you would also have no problem in killing people with lower brain capabilities - like people with dementia or mentally challenged people.
2. Demonstrably not true and I don't get where you would pick up such a false bit of information.

Hats off to you for doing research and trying to pass on the knowledge in hostile comment sections. 💪 So sad that they don't care for facts and really love to be confidentiality incorrect. I mean, I have a degree in that matter - still doesn't count and everybody wants to keep spinning their (demonstrably false) narrative.

Yeah, unfortunately.

BTW, do you work in the field or something? Cause you sound kinda knowledgeable.

Even large scale nuclear plants are not economically viable without huge subsidies. Small scale reactors are even less cost effective. I haven't really seen any of them "in the wild" except for research reactors or something like that.

It's a shame that you're being voted down here, even though your points are actually more on the factual side. Well, that's probably the fate of those who "dare" to say something against nuclear. Even if everyone else demonstrably doesn't have a clue about the subject: They're still bashing it. It's just good that downvotes on Lemmy don't really matter.

I think I just got jumped.

Sorry, I don't quite understand that phrase. Does that mean you feel kind of attacked?! I hope not - this was not my goal. I think we can just learn by engaging in discussions with one another. And so far, I am very much enjoying our encounter. :)

You had a well prepared answer, however I’ll offer my unprepared thoughts in return.

Well, I mean it took me over an hour to compile that answer, because I didn't want to spread false information. I am (re)learning a lot the stuff as well, and I kind of like to study the matter again. So I will gladly take your thoughts.

You kinda skipped past battery and other storage tech and the negatives associated with them

Well, yes, I did. As I said, it took me already over an hour to compile the existing answer and the needs of storage capacity in the energy system is reeeaaaally complex and counter intuitive at some points - especially if you need to understand the dependencies of the individual units in an energy-system as well at the same time. So it would have taken me at least another hour to give that topic my due diligence.

We can talk about that if you want / are interested. But I think we need to skip the nuclear power topic then, because otherwise it will get too complex and time consuming.

I’m a big believer in working with what we have now, there are far, far too many issues exacerbated by the premise that "Science Will Save Us"

Oh god. I hate people that are blindly trusting in "Science inventing a magic pill - we don't have to change anything!!1!".

People love the ideas behind some solutions, but can never seem to get them sufficiently well built

I know. And I was not talking about some "magical future solution" - I am thinking more about solutions that are already existing and have existed and proven viable for over a couple of decades. And they don't need to include nuclear!

However it is a known tech, and an effective one

I mean, it kind of is NOT effective - at least not cost effective (as I hopefully have pointed out clear enough). We can build "known tech that is effective" which will not be a graveyard for billions of dollars and without the potentially catastrophic consequences nuclear power has. I am not advocating for "sitting on our hands". We need to act quick and change our energy systems for the better - but nuclear energy is just not a viable solution for that. Luckily, there is existing technology that can do the job.

Nuclear may not be the best solution, but it is known, available, and can do the job.

I am afraid, that it is not as simple as you think it might be. The "availability" is kind of a deal breaker when it comes to nuclear.

You still haven't provided a number for "how much nuclear" we need to "do the job", so I am ending with a couple questions instead:

• Are you aware how long it takes to build a new nuclear power plant?
• Do you know how much (usable) radioactive material there is on the planet?

(I can tell you if you don't want to do the research - just tell me.)

i just don’t think this is a valuable question to ask

But well, it kind of is! When looking at energy systems, each type of plant you put into the system has (often counterintuitive) consequences on the rest of the system. And this is especially true for nuclear power. That is why it IS important to get an idea of how much nuclear energy you want to have in your energy mix, because only then you can determine if your energy system is even sustainable.

Therefore, my question stands unchanged. Or maybe we can make it a little broader: How do you think that the energy system would need to look like?

I’m content to stick by my layman position that anything that gets us away from pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is better in the short term.

And I fully agree with you on that. I just want to discuss with you if nuclear is really the solution you think it is. (Because it probably isn't.)

We already have the knowledge and infrastructure to do so way faster by using nuclear as a leg up

Are you aware of how little nuclear power there is currently in the energy-mix, what time it takes to build new ones and how much (usable) uranium exists on the planet? (I can tell you if you don't want to look it up - just ask.) Because you might have wrong expectations of the technical potential of this energy source.

Pretty much

OK, cool.

What you are describing is called "load following". Different power plants have different capabilities of doing this. E.g. coal plants (or other thermal plants) are pretty bad at this while e.g. gas turbines can be turned on/off very quickly to buffer out short peaks of fluctuations. Power plants get categorized into different groups: e.g. Base Load plants or Peak Load plants. Base load is basically the load that is "always need to be supplied" and everything else is modulated on top of that.

To do effective load following, you would NOT want base load plants.

To categorize power plants we need to look at 2 different things: the technical capability to do "load following" with a plant - and the economical viability of throttling the power output of a plant.

Nuclear power plants have extremely high investment costs and a greater proportion of fixed costs (e.g. for personnel) while having very low variable costs, as nuclear plants are not really "using up more/less fuel" during their operation. That means: The cost of nuclear power plants is pretty much constant over time - no matter if they are producing more or less power, but you only get an return on invest if you output power.

That is why nuclear power plants are normally used as base load power plants, as their economic viability goes pretty bad when you do (extensive) load following with them. However, they have at least some technical capabilities of being operated in a (slower) load following mode.

When we add in the fact, that there was probably not a single nuclear power plant, yet, that was economically viable without huge subsidies and the mere costs of keeping the radioactive waste products safe FOREVER are enormous, investors/plant owners don't really like the idea of "throttling" their plants as they will be loosing money.

That is why - if you have a great amount of base load power plants in your grid - you tend to turn off the generators that are easy to regulate but hard to calculate: Wind & Solar. That's why a high percentage of nuclear power in your energy mix will PREVENT the utilization of true renewable energy sources, making them a less viable investment.

This is one of the reasons why I asked about the percentage of "needed nuclear power" in the beginning. Different percentages of these plants will have different effects on the entire energy production system and it's trajectory.

So I am coming back to my original question. And there is not right or wrong answer, just a gut feeling: How much nuclear do we need to make this work? Our current energy mix (primary energy consumption) consists globally roughly of 75% fossil energy and 4% nuclear. So do you think we will need to replace the 75% fossils with nuclear by 1:1? Or maybe 1:2 and fill the rest with Wind/Solar? Or do we keep the current 4%? Really, it's about your gut feeling about what you think will be necessary. From that point on, we can then further explore the general viability and consequences of nuclear power in the grid.

It’s going to take a lot of batteries to buffer an entire power grid

The beauty of it is: You wouldn't really need to do this - but I'm getting ahead of myself. This a different rabbit hole that I don't think is needed to be explored right now.

But just a short pointers:

• By controlling and deferring energy consumption in a "smart" way, you can match up the demand with the volatile supply (e.g. of Wind/Solar) pretty well.
• In energy systems, we have other types of energy storing systems that are bigger, cheaper and more reliable than the ones we know from "consumer electronics" - e.g. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity

Human brains literally developed from agriculture and cattle farming

If if this was true, this doesn't prove that it is still necessary or even beneficial today. Humans did a lot of things in the past that would be seen as strange today (you already mentioned crusades for example). It does not follow that, just because "we did it in the past" means we still need to do it today.

meat consumption is a need for the majority of the planet

I don't fully agree. Please give me circumstances where there would be a NEED for this.

Your second question is way, way out of my league

Hats off to you for being so honest and admitting this.

enough nuclear power to cover the gaps in demand

OK, please correct me if I haven't understood you correctly, but you mean: "We should basically utilize natural systems energy (sun, wind, water, ...) completely and turn off and on nuclear plants "on demand" to cover the peaks/gaps in demand." Did I get that right?

Yes, and you provided an answer that wouldn't bring anything to the table, except for wasting the readers time. By definition, you are trolling.

If you are not: Make a point that can be taken seriously.

For example one of the least limited cases should be animal testing for medical purposes

Point given. Or at least half a point... The problem I have with animal testing is, that for

1. alternatives exist, that often are safer and better that animal testing - but they are often not considered of plain out forbidden just because of some ancient laws and regulations. Technology has advanced and could prevent a lot of animal suffering, just regulations have not been keeping up with the innovation.
2. Animals in testing facilities are treated like shit their whole life, just because it is "cheaper" that way. I mean yeah, there might still be cases where there is no current alternative to animal testing, but treating the animals with absolutely ZERO respect is not acceptable imho.

I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with keeping livestock for eating it

So, if I would keep some cute, fluffy dogs or cats at my place just so that I can kill them tomorrow and eat them - maybe even sell their meat - would that be still be OK for you?

I’d be fine with them being brainless

So, I'm not 100% getting where you are going with this argument, but I think what you are saying is: If beings have less brain capability they are less worthy of being treated with the same respect as beings with higher brain capabilities. And ultimately, that it would be OK to kill beings that have less brain capabilities.

I don’t think they’re being abused by giving dairy.

Could you spell out for me what is needed for a cow to give milk? Because I think we need to clarify "what actually happens" to cows in that process in order to classify something as abuse or not.

Troll.

Troll.

And at some point in the future, it will be truly popular! 😁

It's too late!

*sound of black hole sucking you up*