I thought this crazy energy consumption shit would cool off a bit after assholes stopped bitcoin mining.
Glad AI stepped up so we can generate bad art and prose while buttfucking the planet
The planet will be alright. It will be lush green in a few million years when humans no longer exist.
The current ecosystem, though… yeah. Buttfucked.
The reason is ultimately irrelevant, but I welcome more nuclear energy.
They could just invest in a solar farm or something, they are just a lot more economical.
Nuclear is okay, but the costs compared to renewables are very high, and you have to put a lot of effort and security into building a reactor, compared to a solar panel that you can basically just put up and replace if it snaps.
You probably know this discussion already through.
Edit: Glad to see a nice instance of the discussion going here.
There is nothing wrong with nuclear power
And France is doing perfectly fine with it except for skimping on maintenance and also them coming up on their end-of-life without replacement
Just fill the Country with Solar, Wind and Water… won’t take 10 years and will be cheaper too.
… And cause a lot of pollution and ecological stress, unless you funnel a LARGE amount of money and time into it.
Do you want to argue, that the construction of a nuclear power plant causes significantly less ecological stress and pollution than solar panels and windturbines?
Think about if you really want to claim that as a thing you actually believe in.
I’m just gonna throw some words in a pool.
concrete, steel, space, deforestation, river, 10+ Years construction time, heavy machinery, dust, natural habitats, fuel, mining, waste, noise, cost, france…
Thank you. i rest my case.
Those wind turbines and solar panels also get constructed, and affect a much larger area. It’s not an obvious comparison
Half of those aren’t even relevant.
The actual construction takes about 4 years, but legal issues such as rules changing and politics, legal issues, and additional planning tend to push this up to 6-15 years in extreme cases. To draw a parallel: building a 1GW windmill farm, such as the Thorsminde off shore windmill farm is estimated to take 5 years of pure construction time, and politics and legal issues have so far added 4 years to this from the day it was announced, giving a total construction time of about 9 years without delays.
Cost wise, Thorsminde is projected to cost 2.1 billion USD, and that’s without running costs, possible delays, or deconstruction costs at its 30 year end of life. The construction of a nuclear plant usually ( as in the projects that have been finished and we know the total construction costs of) costs anywhere from 6 to 9 billion USD. So yes, nuclear is more expensive, as you said.
Of course windmills don’t just pop out of the ground, so heavy machinery will also be required, and the sound of the hammers building the foundation will likely drive away any sound sensitive life in a 100-200 km radius, such as whales. This can be partly mitigated by running the hammers at lower power, adding about 30-50% (might be more, foundations take a long time to build) additional construction time and driving up the price.
The windmills will also change the life of the area dramatically throughout its life, VS nuclear, which requires mines that cause decent damage, but do not pollute in any significant way at the reactor site (unless you pump the waste water from the usually closed first loop directly out to the rivers and sea, or swear on running the power plant without cooling towers during droughts).
Also the resources needed to make a 1GW wind farm are immense, and contrary to nuclear, we can’t currently reuse the waste from deconstruction, which there also is quite a lot more of. Furthermore, maintenance will be hell, as you have much more moving parts (not per windmill, but per farm, which has multiple windmills) as a nuclear plant.
Building dams literally kills whole ecosystems. Reduce biodiversity and razes woodland. They also do tend to take 10+ year of construction, just like nuclear power, while taking several times more materials. Your point is really stupid, nuclear power plants do not cause any more ecological stress than a moderate building in any city. They do consume vasts amounts of water, which can be an ecological issue, but not to the level that a dam creates. Wind turbines, for example, are not recyclable (materials used are too complex and use a lot of plastic) and they disrupt birds population. Just like solar panels, they have a very very short lifespan. Windturbines must be replaced every 5 years or so. So does solar panels but for different reasons. A nuclear power plant can create power for several decades if well maintained.
The thing is, no human intervention in any place is sustainable. Our mere mode of existence is so energy intensive that we are going to destroy the planet’s habitability no matter what we do. The time to change to 100% nuclear was 5 decades ago. The time to stop using fossil fuels was 4 decades ago. The time to change to sustainable energy was 3 decades ago. We lost the train. The planet won’t support us in any form in the long run. Hell, mammals might also be fucked within the next million years. The planet will never ever be the same it was during the past 2 million years. And it’s because of us.
Hydropower is about as bad for most ecosystems as burning fossil fuels. And its definitely not something that can be done quick or cheaply.
Whats the source on it being about as bad?
It releases methane, yes.
We don’t have to do hydro. Wind and the Sun are already plenty enough.
UNs IPCC Reports https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/Chapter-5-Hydropower-1.pdf See fig 5.15. The outliers are the concern (and yes, it’s pretty much methane)
Edit: I reread the parent comment, the above won’t address what you asked for, but is interesting nonetheless so I’ll leave it
Nuclear power is actually way cheaper.
You just need to find a geologically safe place to put it and you need to make sure everyone involved follows safety protocols to the letter. And you can’t have anyone cutting corners to save money. You need to spare no expense when it comes to safety.
The only issue is that people don’t stay strict with keeping everything safe sometimes. People are terrified of it because when something goes wrong, everyone can see the very gruesome results very quickly
But I don’t think microsoft or any company should be making an AI at the rate they are if it’s going to take as much resources as it seems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#Capital_costs
No, it isnt.
Safety isnt what makes nuclear expensive. You actually got rawdogged by Nuclear fanatics.
Wikipedia is owned by someone who’s married to an intelligence agency member.
