Nuclear energy good

  • Fakename_Bill [he/him]
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    4 years ago

    There isn't enough lithium on the planet to run the world on wind and solar with current battery technology, so critical support for nuclear.

    • Fourny [he/him,comrade/them]
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      4 years ago

      I support nuclear, but I don’t think this is a great argument. There are a lot of batter chemistry options other than lithium, and lithium isn’t a great choice for things like fixed power generation anyway.

      • Fakename_Bill [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        Which are the better currently-available options for battery-based large-scale storage of energy generated by wind and solar?

        Obviously non-battery options like pumped storage exist, but this requires very specific geographic features to be practical, and can't be done everywhere.

        • StolenStalin [comrade/them,they/them]
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          4 years ago

          Well for one, pumping water uphill during the day using solar/whatever. And then at night the pumps become hydroelectric turbines as the water flows back down.

            • StolenStalin [comrade/them,they/them]
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              4 years ago

              Yeah didnt read my bad. Another system could be compressing air/some other gas. During the day and using the compressed gas to turn a turbine.

              • Fakename_Bill [he/him]
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                4 years ago

                In theory that sounds like a pretty good option, but in the 30 seconds or so it took to type this reply obviously I couldn't research it lol

                • StolenStalin [comrade/them,they/them]
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                  4 years ago

                  I mean idk if it exists. Energy storage just means potential energy creation/efficient extraction. Could put a huge heavy fucking weight and lift it up a tower. Then letting it spin motors (maybe some gearing so weight moves slow while turbine spins fast as it falls. Problem with everything is just optimizing efficiency.

        • Fourny [he/him,comrade/them]
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          4 years ago

          The non battery options are often the most cost effective when available. For batteries the molten salt ones look really promising; they are huge and run hot but are very cheap per kWh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_battery