• itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    10 months ago

    Meanwhile Germany has more than twice the renewables than the US (and still more than their renewables and nuclear combined), and is set to quit coal entirely by 2038. Still too slow, but how about instead of shilling the dangerous¹ technology that is nuclear, you start pointing fingers at those doing next to nothing to change for the better?

    ¹ not necessarily during regular operations to regular people. But since Germany doesn’t have uranium it would introduce foreign dependencies, nuclear power plants are high value targets both for terrorism and state warfare, as seen in Ukraine. There is no safe way to store nuclear waste long-term. Mining of uranium is furthermore massively harmful to workers and the environment.

    • DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months ago

      Everything we do is harmful. Using more coal is even worse. The very dirty coal that Germany is using worse worse. Depending on the method of mining coal, it is massively harmful to the workers. I don’t think the method Germany is using is as bad as say the method the Appalachian miners used.

    • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      The UK hit zero coal in 2020 without even trying. 2038 is actually a piss take. If you used nuclear like France and China you would be able to do it much sooner lol.

      • itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        10 months ago

        Oh, it’s bullshit, don’t get me wrong. But nuclear is not changing that, the UK has less than 10% as well.

        Besides, nuclear power station take a minimum of 20 years to construct, so even if we reversed course, we wouldn’t have them running until the 40s. Contrast that with less than 5 for most renewables. Nuclear is also really expensive, so we could instead invest the money into a better and more flexible grid.

        Nuclear is not the answer to climate change. Let existing plants run until coal is gone, then shut them off in favor of renewables.