this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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That's not viable everywhere or at scale. Creating new reservoirs would also cause great environmental damage.
creating nuclear plants is worse. nuclear plants have a conversion rate from thermal to electrical energy of around 35% So for every kWh you receive from your socket almost 2 kWh are used to heat or evaporate water. That is more environmental damage than a pumping reservoir.
Also the premise is wrong. We dont need the same amount of storage so we can continue using electricity like before.
Most electrical use can be sheduled to align with the availability of energy in the grid. The sun is up at noon? good time to do laundry and dishes. There is a steady wind tonight? Preheat the water in the tank and no need to heat in the morning.
The same can be done for many industrial applications. It just requires innovation and investments, which is why they rather lobby for destroying the planet.
Well since your arguments depend on niche and experimental technology I don't see why Nuclear proponents can't either. The waste heat from nuclear energy is only a concern when it is contained within water, which is pretty easy to use for warming houses or providing houses with warm water. There are already cities that do this. This has huge efficiency savings. https://www.powermag.com/district-heating-supply-from-nuclear-power-plants/
This all seems a bit theoretical to me. The important thing is to stop fossil fuels right now. If we use a nuclear plant to buy us 50yrs to find renewable alternatives for the specific conditions of the site in question I say go for it. Every location has unique needs here, we can't look at any one technology as a golden bullet for every problem everywhere. We don't have the decades needed for huge innovation and cultural changes to support smart grids like you describe.
We proooooibably could do that if everyone agrees and we all do it together everywhere of the world. Will that happen? No. So we can not agree on that and therefore no big nuclear Masterplan will be build.
Let's say we also try to get everyone on the full renewable boat, try really hard. Will that work so that everybody agrees? No. So as we can not agree on that no renewables will be built. Wait.. Stop.. That's wrong. I still can built renewables even alone on my house. And here is the difference. For the nuclear plan we would almost all all over the world have to agree to make it work. For renewables, it will happen, because we can do it right here right now, everywhere, large scale, small scale. Doesn't matter. It's like with gravity and religion. For religion to "work" you need to believe. Gravity will work, if you believe it or not. That's what gives me at least a little bit hope, renewables are so fucking good, they are unstoppable by now. Question is just if we are fast enough.
I don't want to be excretingly pedantic but I mean f*** it give me a couple hundred fire alarms and I'll have enough Americanium to start a breeder reactor.