this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024

396 points (86.9% liked)

Science Memes

11047 readers

2885 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
Keep it rooted (on topic).
No spam.
Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

[email protected]

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

396

Anon questions our energy sector (slrpnk.net)

submitted 9 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

111 comments fedilink hide all child comments

(page 3) 11 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago (11 children)

Slow, expensive, riddeled with corruption, long ago surpassed by renewables. Why should we use it?

[–] [email protected] 53 points 9 hours ago (8 children)

only antimatter could provide more energy density, it's insanely powerful.

produces amounts of waste orders of magnitude lower than any other means of energy production

reliable when done well

it shouldn't be replaced with renewables, but work with them

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Right now we probably use more energy to produce antimatter than getting it back

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

Yes, but energy density doesn't matter for most applications and the waste it produces is highly problematic.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

If something is Nuclear enough it can generate heat, its just the reactors make use of an actual reaction that nuclear waste can't do anymore. Yever watch the Martian, he has a generator that's fuel is lead covered beads of radioactive material, it doesn't generate as much as reactors but it's still a usable amount.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 hours ago (6 children)

85% of used fuel rods can be recycled to new fuel rods. And there's military uses for depleted uranium too. So, essentially every bit of the waste can be recycled. Can't say the same for fossil fuels.

load more comments (6 replies)

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (6 replies)

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 hours ago (6 children)

Sometimes the sun doesn't shine, sometimes the wind doesn't blow. Renewables are great and cheap, but they aren't a complete solution without grid level storage that doesn't really exist yet.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (3 children)

Thats a chicken/egg peoblem. If enough renewables are build the storage follows. In a perfect world goverments would incentivice storage but in an imperfect one problems have to occure before somebody does something to solve them. Anyway, according to lazard renewables + storage are still cheaper than NPPs.

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 hours ago (8 children)

Solar with Battery grid storage is now cheaper than nuclear.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 hours ago (15 children)

If the demand goes up I have some doubt, also, mining for Lithium is far from being clean, and then batteries are becoming wastes, so I doubt you would replace nuclear power with this solution

I guess in some regions it could work, but you're still depending on the weather

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Yeah, lithium mining and processing is extremely toxic and destructive to the environment. On one hand, it's primarily limited to a smaller area, but on the other hand, is it sustainable long-term unless a highly efficient lithium recycling technology emerges? And yes, I know there are some startups that are trying to solve the recycling problem, some that are promising.