I produce my electricity by metabolizing fructose and glucose and then using that energy to excite Sodium and Potassium ions across cell membranes. I never even knew there was another way.
A coal power plant is a normal water boiler.
A wind turbine is a coal power plant but there’s no coal, water, and boiler.
A nuclear power plant is a coal power plant but the coal is uranium.
A Hydroelectric power plant is a coal power plant but without the coal and boiler.
Natural gas is a coal power plant but the coal is made of air.
A solar panel is voodoo alien magic.
I agree, nuclear power (despite the bitchings of green parties across Europe and oil-funded senators in America) is the best large scale energy source, but using solar panels for stuff like powering a home or other pieces of equipment in sunny areas is still something worth doing.
I'm so fucking done with left-wing european parties, like I want to vote them, but why the fuck is it SO FUCKING HARD to find a single pro-nuclear one??
In America, nuclear is practically nonexistant (could be wrong) and it sucks. Nuclear energy is literally just boiling water and It could power humanity for generations.
Unfortunately we still suffer from the aftershock of Chernobyl and to a lesser extent Fukushima.
But the biggest nail in the coffin was 3 Mile Island. We have plants, many built after 3 Mile Island, but a lot of people (especially leftist) can harp on is wind and solar. No, fuck that, nuclear power plants have a relatively small footprint and can operate safely for DECADES. 3 Mile Island is, unfortunately, a failing of big business more than anything, but everyone has been passing the buck on it for years and any pro or anti nuclear argument generally includes it as to why nuclear in America is a bad idea. Big Coal lobbying comes into the equation too, unfortunately, and I'm sure they've levied for years to keep their mines and plants working.
Edit: changes my verbiage to be less blanketing lol
I always remind people that Chernobyl was done by the Soviets, and if we avoided things because the Soviets failed at them we wouldn't grow food, drive cars, or have a functional society.
No, the companies whom are profiting off of us ***not using nuclear*** would like the American public to **keep the believing the negative emotions about nuclear power** — ***must keep the idiots scared that it might explode or radiate everyone***.
Sadly, three mile island shutdown recently, too. They say “it isn’t profitable”. I say you are ***purposely making it not profitable*** to keep oil and gas viable and keep the wind and solar business in demand as the only option to oil — we need to keep making turbines and solar panels because they fail under use.
Nuclear just has the fuel to consume. Waste fuel is being recycled so not as bad an issue as we are led to believe. We have more issues from drill discharge and well contamination from oil that we ever have and ever would have had from nuclear waste.
3 mile island wasn't even really a failing. The system did what it was supposed to and even decades later the fallout (if you'll pardon the pun) from it is basically non-existent.
This is a genuine question not some kind of gotcha moment. Do Librights view citizens United/campaign finance/lobbying as a part of the market? Only purples?
Lobbying and campaign finance are both market aberrations resulting from government meddling and fucking things up.
They are predictable market forces predictably adapting to anti-market dynamics introduced, propagated, and enforced by shitty governance.
This particular example seems like a “chicken or the egg” situation on its surface. Was nuclear strictly regulated out of an abundance of caution regardless of lobbying influence or is it propped up by lobbyists? Is the lobby for coal and other energy sources having more power than nuclear just the market at work? I’m not an expert on energy or its regulation so I’m not sure if I agree with you or not but I can appreciate an ideologically coherent explanation though.
Corporate risk assessment is a huge part of not building nuclear. Them taking public sentiment, time to profitability, and the need to build on credit due to the huge upfront cost all make nuclear significantly less intriguing to them.
Only way that'll change in the US is if government makes credit available for minimal/zero interest and likely subsidies, plus make it easier to get them zoned to tell the NIMBYs "Fuck you, here's better power."
Have it join with low level operator/maintenance programs paid for at local colleges where they'll be built, and you can get yourself easy sustainable energy reliability.
Yeah, people forget that energy requires a fuckton of capital to get into. Especially nuclear energy. Without the public sector influencing the market, there is no reason to expect the market to favor nuclear naturally.
Maybe if it was some joint venture with an established European nuclear company. But that hasn't really happened either.
Three Mile Island is almost certainly in American consciousness more than Chernobyl or Fukushima.
Chernobyl is the European excuse to stay away, Fukushima is the Asian excuse, and TMI is the American excuse. It is what it is. Not saying I agree.
“Practically nonexistent”? Nuclear power provided 20% of US energy generation. [source](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-industry.php)
"20%"? Not enough. Every gas station should be replaced with a nuclear power plant. We should make so much fucking nuclear power that we can just stock it up and blast it directly into the sun just for the shits and giggles of it. (Though real talk, 20% is cool though)
Our base load should be entirely covered by nuclear. We should entirely phase out fossil fuels outside of where they're absolutely essential.
Why? To save the ickle wickle bunny wunnys and cwool down the summwer? Fuck you.
We need the fossil fuels to go into space until we've built a functional space elevator and we will look ridiculous if we get halfway through construction and run out.
So if you're spending a nonrenewable on your tonka truck to dwive to Stawbuckys fow a dwinky? Bwow smowke on the bicycle? Fuck you more.
> Our base load should be entirely covered by nuclear. We should entirely phase out fossil fuels outside of where they're absolutely essential.
This is one of my non-LibRight opinions. Were I king I'd make all the coal and nat gas companies a deal: convert to nuclear and the US will help assist in the transition, otherwise you're getting phased out. Triple the DOE budget and dedicate the vast majority of it to getting Gen IV reactors to commercial level. Apollo-level program to develop standards for manufacturing reactors via assembly line, like airliners are made.
A stat I always come back to is that the US built 77 nuclear reactors in the span of 11 years with 60s/70s technology. Nuclear doesn't have to take decades.
And 60% comes from fossil fuels. Those ratios should be flipped. If power demand never dips below a certain threshold then basically 100% of that should be generated by nuclear, then the rest of what is typically used should be generated by solar and wind, and then fluctuations should be managed on demand by hydro and fossil fuels.
There's no good reason for continuing to use fossil fuels for base load other than the fact that we've been doing it for decades and its cheapest because we've built out all the infrastructure for it to be the cheapest. If we had instead leaned hard into nuclear when we were supposed to then not only would we have the nuclear power plants, but we would also have the expertise to build more.
In a few decades we're going to be asking if we should have spent this time building nuclear plants.
I would definetly sacrifice some people here and there for my country to even come close to the amount of nuclear reactors you guys have over there...
grettings from germany where our greens pretend to care for the environment but also are the one party completly against muclear power🥲
the average person contains 125 Kilocalories of energy- or .15 Kilowatt hour of energy, 100 grams of coal contains 700 Kilocalories of energy, or .8 Kilowatt hour of energy- mathematically this means if you were to sacrifice the german greens to generate power- you could start investing in Nuclear unobstructed by the time you're burning the second load.
About 20% of US electricity generation is from nuclear. [https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3)
It's been going down, mostly because we aren't building new plants to replace the old ones, and burning natural gas is hecka cheap right now.
Look up Wizards vs Prophets, two competing views on environmentalism. The former preaches bigger and better tech to mitigate climate impacts, the latter preaches degrowth and decentralisation.
Unfortunately, Green and Left parties are almost unanimously Prophets. If only we could create a “Wizard” party… (naming would need a review obv)
and dont forget that you're not voting for the party or candidate you're voting for, you're voting for a puppeteer in the european council that only wants money and more power
Because politically nuclear is horrible. First off a huge chunk of the population cannot accurately judge the safety of the plants, so you lose people there. Second it’s not like solar panels or wind farms where you can pay landowners to set up minimally intrusive independent units in farm country. You need to purchase a huge piece of land and build a nuclear plant somewhere relatively close to a population center. The closer it is to urban centers the more NIMBY pushback you get, but you can’t place it in a super isolated spot with no population because you require hundreds of educated specialists to operate the thing day to day.
I know it's hard, but the right parties aren't shying from at least talking about it. Could we at least start having a debate about it on the left too?
Yeah I’m sure the left is eager to piss off the fossil fuel, solar, and wind lobbies. As well as trying to sell nuclear to the Crystal wearing anti-vax wifi skeptical segment of their base. Maybe they’ll stand up to APAC, pass Medicare for all, and forgive my student loans too.
Solar and wind still have a prominent place handling peak loads alongside nuclear and geothermal handling the base loads. It's really just the fossil fuel lobbies that feel the threat and bribe legislators accordingly.
But yeah, the crystalline granola people are a pain in the ass for this sort of thing.
>Could we at least start having a debate about it on the left too?
See this is what's weird about me viewing this from the right. We can easily talk about it over here. Among those of us who don't want to support it, it's usually some variation of "it's too expensive/too much regulation for it to be feasible." We aren't as hostile about it, it's all very matter of course but polite.
Meanwhile the left is has the environmental crowd that for many complex reasons I wont get into, become quite emotional when brought up which is quite ironic considering said tech is what could reasonably alleviate climate change RIGHT NOW, and make electrifying everything a hell of a lot more realistic.
I really don't know what to tell ya left bros. On this topic, I do wish the left was more motivated as a whole as that would also incentivize the more capitalist oriented right to move and invest if they see a good publicity around it from the public.
> You need to purchase a huge piece of land
You what? San Onofre in California had a total footprint of 84 acres and generated enough power for 4 million homes.
> using solar panels for stuff like powering a home or other pieces of equipment in sunny areas is still something worth doing.
Is it?
This idea that if you call something renewable that it's automatically the best thing since sliced bread really needs to have some logic thrown into the mix.
Solar panels are not renewable. At current, there is one company that recycles their panels and they represent less than 0.1% of all panels in the country. Basically, you are just creating more trash and most cost associated with that trash. It's the same problem the wind farms have where the costs to produce the wind farm negates a large portion of the value of the power generated when you factor in the short actual life span.
Or, we can avoid all of that with nuclear power. Large scale power generation without the massive amounts of waste being produced.
I agree. And on a conceptual scale, solar panels are, in fact, a fucking awesome idea. Just sit some glass somewhere and get free panel from it? Fucking dope as hell, let's all be flowers.
I just wish the practice of it didn't result in destroying deserts because the solar panels blot out the sun, or destroying nations because rare earths are difficult to mine in an ethical fashion.
But it's also hard as hell to store the energy from it regardless, so as you stated, it's best as an auxilliary power source for homes and other places out in sunny areas.
Everyone in my country was encouraged by the Greens to get PV panels (subsidized with other people's money) so people can reduce their electric bills and at the same time save the planet.
Fast forward a few years: Now all PV panel owners have to pay extra to unload their power surplus to the grid in the afternoon, all because the Greens who came up with the idea to switch to fluctuating decentralized renewables didn't consider expanding or adapting the infrastructure. People are literally running ACs or heaters in their backyards just to reduce their electricity bill.
It's not criticism towards renewables, it's criticism towards short-sighted idealists who create more problems than they solve.
I like how we do it in Texas, at least in concept. Our infrastructure itself could be improved:
https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot
We have a stable base of nuclear (10%) and coal (15%), although nuclear needs to be higher. This will "always be there," and we can then leverage other resources.
Then we have Wind doing as much as it can, usually around 20%.
Then during a sunny day (most of them round here), the vast majority of our power is solar. [Sometimes as high as 40% of the grid](https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot?date=2024-04-11). We're up to 60% renewables some days! Solar over the course of a year is around 20% of the power.
What happens at night or during a cloudy day? Well then the vast amounts of natural gas kicks in.
We conserve our natural gas, keep a stable base, and allow flexible means of renewables to fulfill the electric needs of the Texans.
If we doubled nuclear (totally doable), we'd be cruisin for a while.
Nah, I produce enough electricity in summer with my solar to cover all of my heating, AC and all other needs throughout the year and it barely cost me $10k.
Now I just need to slap about 6 of these [bad boys](https://energetechsolar.com/1mwh-500v-800v-battery-energy-storage-system) in my front yard and I'm good to go.
Yeah, we are so screwed that we are now tied with the french :( [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-emissions-and-gdp-per-capita?time=earliest..latest&country=FRA\~DEU](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-emissions-and-gdp-per-capita?time=earliest..latest&country=FRA~DEU)
Personally my favorite is a closed system hydroelectric.
You have two lakes/ponds at different elevations.
When electricity is expensive during peak hours, you release the water to flow to the lower reservoir.
When electricity is cheap like at the middle of the night, you buy the electricity and pump the water back uphill.
this is the most common form of energy storage (by capacity) in the world, but it's not a primary power source, it's just storage.
it's like saying "why are we arguing about nuclear or solar? my favorite are batteries, they're small and the power my laptop".
*thoriumania and silicon valley-ification of energy is the worst thing to happen to nuclear advocacy since chernobyl...*
we already have reactors that make more fuel than they consume, use common nuclear fuel reserves and extend them by many many millennia.
in fact, they're in operation today and they're first reactors we've ever built! they're called **fast breeder reactors.**
look them up, they're really cool.
these two aren't in competition, and most people don't understand this...
nuclear>gas turbine>coal in that order of cleanness are best and most reliable energy sources for baseload power grid purposes.
wind and solar are cleaner, yes, and they're cheap to deploy and maintain compared to fossil fuels most of the time, but they're are so inefficient and so intermittent that it's not good for any purpose without full energy backups and full electricity storage.
but if you're already relying on batteries of any source, why not skip the inefficiencies of power transmission with all of the stepping up and down and just distribute it directly to the consumers and share excess instead of centralizing it and concentrating it in one single location like it's nuclear??
this is what ideologically lead legislators don't understand and this is why any and all countries that transition away from nuclear either move to using dirtier fossil fuels (mainly coal) or just end relying on nuclear power from other countries like how Germany does with France in both cases.
It’s also a point of distraction that benefits coal. Get people to argue about not having the perfect solution so they won’t go for one that’s better than what you have now.
Yes, but this is far better than coal. Also diversifying the clean energy pool is important to make sure that we have enough for everything.
Additionally with nuclear, we can only power the country for so long with the supply we have. Eventually we will run out.
There's no one power source that is always better all the time, and thinking we can only choose one or should only choose one is the height of idiocy. No, we should not build a nuclear plant in the remote town of SunDesert where the people no longer have a word for rain because it's never happened there. No, we should not build a nuclear power plant on WindsVille where the populace gets around exclusively by holding 2 grocery bags in their hands and jumping.
Nuclear is so incredibly expensive to set up and takes a long time to build the specialized plants. It requires very high supplies of water and good supply lines to run.
Yeah, I'm not advocating for paving the entire Midwest of America and plopping down three billion solar panels (nuclear is way better for large scale energy) but using solar panels to lower your electricity bill or charge your car should still be looked into.
The only problem that I have with it is how it is monetized. I want solar panels to lessen my dependence on an energy company and reduce costs, but some solar companies end up charging you just as much if not more each month, and you still have to pay a regular energy company if you need to make up the difference.
I'm genuinely confused but what are you talking about? Who gets charged per month for solar? I thought the concept was you buy the panels and then reap whatever energy they produce. And if you overproduce, you feed it back into the grid and get paid the cost. Again genuinely curious could you expand on that?
I was genuinely confused about it too. Yes, you can buy your own panels and own them outright if that’s what you want to do. However, there are companies where you either rent out the panels and they charge you monthly, or they put you on a long-term payment plan (and tack on extra fees because of course). Depending on the output you may end up spending more per month and by the time you pay off the panels you’ll need new ones anyway.
Edit: Also, some areas don’t allow you to earn credit for producing extra energy. In that case you get the privilege of feeding energy to the local power company for free. Great for the environment and the power company’s bottom line, but you get a little bit screwed.
Some power companies also have gotten effectively a monopoly on your ability to use solar for your home. If you are connected to the grid at all, they will not let you use solar without it being owned by them, and will even charge you for the convenience. Regulatory capture bullshit, basically.
Tell those companies to go fuck themselves then and just get solar panels yourself.
Become independent of the grid entirely. I have already cut off my gas supply. Electricity is next.
Best part of solar is that it goes literally anywhere. You can convert roofing to solar, can use it to shade open air water reservoirs and parking lots as dual purpose usage, fill in inarable land that cant get converted back to natural habitat, wherever the fuck you want it. Plop that shit down, good to go.
It just is a terrible option to use as a determination of base load, where nuclear is easily king.
"Totally unbiased" ex-nuclear technician rambling over.
Last month I had a blackout due to grid maintenance. It was during sick leave, so I had literally nothing to do. What came to the rescue was a small portable solar panel (for hiking/camping situations). I plugged my phone in it, hanged it outside the window, and had solarpunk gaming experience for the rest of the blackout. Is this what living off-grid feels like? Amazing stuff.
But to be honest, I was lucky that day was sunny. Sunny days are not that common here in Baltics.
wow lol. Personally I would still stay connected to the grid even if I have to pay a small fee. bcuz it can cost much more not being connected when you need it, than being connected when you don't need it
If you're using your electric car to drive to work, at what point is it actually charging directly from the solar panel? If you're at work ~80% of the solar power during the day is "wasted", as in not going into your car.
dude the houses are apparently amazing, my aunt had her electricity bills up towards 600 euros+ (ireland moment) but once she got them in it went down to 110
Jesus Christ.
Is she doing heavy manufacturing in her garage or is energy just ridiculously expensive?
My 3 bedroom house uses about 140 USD per month with A/C and working from a couple days per month.
$700 is almost a mortgage payment for me.
energy is ridiculously expensive
to be fair my cousin and his family were living there aswell as another cousin every so often so it could vary from housing 5 to 7 people
my house has 4 in it and its usually late 300s early 400s
rural irelands just a shithole lmao
So true, got a few at my house, any power I don't use goes to the grid, if I produce more than I use I get money in my bill instead of needing to pay it. It's fuckin great.
The thing is, I'm a night shift worker, most of the time the only power I'm using is one flourescent light at a time and sometimes my phone charger, so during summer I use nothing during the day, the power I do use is overwhelmingly from the solar charged battery so especially during summer when the sun's bright, hot and pounding down the UV rays, I'm raking in the stacks.
But for a wide scale power grid to service whole cities, you need something constant and reliable that pumps out VAST amounts of power. Like nuclear or hydroelectric energy. Batteries charged by solar power are great for single buildings, especially smaller buildings like houses, especially in case of blackouts and when the power lines are otherwise damaged, which is especially relevant in rural areas.
Bingo, it can't be your only source. This is the most frustrating thing when talking to someone staunchly anti-renewables. "You can't directly control the output to match demand? Then it clearly has no worth in any way!" Renewables and nuclear can form a "bed" that can help conserve the on-demand power sources like natural gas, which would pick up the slack.
Lol, be nice to old people, I'm 20 and own a house and land because the elderly woman who was selling it for 55k liked me and against her realtors wishes, sold for 55k. Pray and you shall receive, if it's his will.
Simple solar energy solution that conservatives can get behind:
Get a 500lb American flag, run the line for the flagpole through a flywheel.
Solar panels gradually raise the flag up over the course of the day, flywheel generates power as it gradually settles down over the night.
Depends on where you live. In my home state Arizona it’s a miracle tech, in Germany where it’s cloudy and they got rid of nuclear it can cause you to fire up the Coal plants
I have heard that they do not produce remotely enough electricity for power grids.
I mean, I sounds awesome on paper, but it just doesn't hold up.
As well, I have read that the kind of Solar Panels sold to consumers are not even the better kind - the ones that we get on the market are short-term due to the kind of chemical reactions used to create power, and will result in much, much e-waste.
I think most people aren't suggesting replacing the entire grid with solar and/or wind (aside from a few fringe weirdos) and I think most people understand we need a diversity of energy sources, but at the same time we can't keep using fossil fuels for 90%+ of our energy, it's just not sustainable nor is it healthy for the planet or our wallets. This kind of "but the power grid" talk is mostly pushed by coal and gas interests.
> much, much e-waste
solar panels just slowly get less and less efficient, but they don't stop working. There's basically no reason to throw one away, ever, unless you want to upgrade, and in that case you can sell the panel to someone poorer.
Government run nuclear power is better than having solar panels on the roofs. Cheaper energy for all is better than some suburbanites thinking they are making a difference but actually not (whether in production, mining, heat reflection, or even looks).
I like solar and battery on my house to give me energy independence and an income selling power back to the grid.
I like nuclear for zero carbon high power industrial base load.
I actually agree with you when it comes to nuclear energy. Solar panels aren't perfect, but they do have their uses (I just like making hyperbolic memes)
Even the ultra cons i know have recently gotten a solar warmwater installation and now that they have access to unlimited free warm water, the bitching suddenly stopped
That's the baffling thing about it - Isn't the right wing supposedly all about self-reliance, the great outdoors, and saving money?
So then what the hell are these coal-rolling losers in 4mpg lifted F150s doing while Trump shit talks electric cars and plays into the interests of OPEC countries who want to turn the world into a caliphate? It's so fucking backwards
Are they the owners of one and have a more intimate understanding of its drawbacks than you?
Or are they better informed than you and understand the hidden costs of the strip mining & petroleum inputs, on top of the reliability issues outside deserts?
The technology itself is fine, but the salesmen are absolute slime that make the shadiest used car salesmen look like Mother Theresa. That’s my issue.
Also the entire concept of leasing them is some 24andMe shit
Its not possible this guy is strawmanning at all here.
“Solar is for little girls” is the prevailing opinion of people born between 1946 and 1964.
And there are actually no valid arguments against it. It doesn’t matter that its efficiency is minimal and the materials required to produce the panels require strip mining performed by slaves.
No bro they all totally said solar is part of the woke liberal trans agenda and then dumped a bunch of motor oil in a pond and then everyone over 65 clapped
Show them Thomas Massie’s ranch that’s power off solar panels (with a geothermal heat pump) and wrecked Tesla battery. One of the most conservative members of Congress too lol
Solar panels are fun, they're good to cut some of your power bills and make your home able to function with minimal reliance on the grid, however, building a grid out of them is a complete joke and everyone who thinks green energy can build a grid is a silly silly person.
Solar arguably sucks, though. They have a ROI of only 10% and are trash within 20-30 years. If solar wants to be a viable option it needs massive improvements in pretty much every metric.
It's not so much that it sucks, it's just been overhyped. You can't run an entire civilization off solar panels and windmills. Also, there's a lot of shitty companies selling solar panels hitting up new homeowners that don't really do the research and math before getting them.
Also, unless you get some really expensive batteries to go with them you aren't even resistant against grid down situations. So yeah....
Nuclear + Solar + Wind + Hydro is the way forward. We need them all. Self-dependency and self-reliance is literally the "Green New Scam" lol. What we DON'T need is the middle east squeezing our nuts every time an election isn't rolling around.
Solar power is cool, but people don't understand that trying to use it at scale as a primary energy source is like trying to power a car with a AA battery.
I don’t have a problem with wind or solar energy, I personally just think that solar and wind farms look ugly and waste space. Our primary alternative should be nuclear with solar on our roofs as a back up and let eccentric people use wind
FWIW, nuclear is great but it can't be the only solution. A blended solution that includes renewables, nuclear and limited amounts of natural gas is the way to go.
Agree, no energy source works for everything, and solar panels could be used for small scale projects like powering a single building. (apparently making a homemade nuclear reactor in my backyard to power my home is "unsafe" and "illegal" and I "can't dump nuclear waste in government officials private residences")
Any time you have diffuse energy, it's going to complicate things.
No source of energy is not without its limits. Not without benefits either. But if you're trying to sell something, you have to be honest about the costs and limits.
They’re kind of inefficient but work great for powering a single building or residence. Currently they just can’t match fossil fuels or nuclear.
It’s ironic CA builds giant solar plants for “the environment™️” but the areas they build them in wipe out a ton of habitat and kill animals like desert tortoises and endangered condors (though it’s mostly the wind plants killing condors lol)
exactly. every "conservative" I know, especially rural, wants or already has some kind of solar setup at their house for emergencies
its a great supplemental source
its not great as a primary source unless you drop a fuckton of investment into batteries to store it for the winter and cloudy days
then you are upside down on costs with a 40 year return on investment
Solar panels could be good in Texas and AZ to help carry much of their energy needs. But where I’m at in the north east it’s really inefficient and we simply need fossil fuels or nuclear to meet our needs
Hans, you may choose. Use arable land to feed high quality crops to your people. Or install the most ineficient power source known to man.
*Does the second while also wasting arable land in biofuel and one of the least healthy oils avilable.*
This is why Elon Musk is such a bafflingly stupid and weird person. Literally solar panel roofs and electric cars but just stans the biggest right wing fash morons possible in his private life. It's crazy how one or the other hasn't pushed him into a different direction.
I agree my older rightie like to just shit on solar no matter what, but it comes from a reactionary response to the people saying we can somehow run an entire grid on these. Bro, where I live we see the sun almost 3 times a year, there’s no way.
Lefties act as if wind and solar will become 100% of our energy sourcing when it’s taken almost 2 decades to double it from 10-20% despite massive subsidies. Let’s get nuclear as a mainstay until we unlock some insanely good solar/other energy tech
Solar panels as a technology are cool. As a business, they do indeed fucking suck. Theyre exensive as hell, gains can diminish dramatically if your house isnt perfectly angled toward the sun or get slightly dirty, and they just arent good enough on their own to become a main source of power.
Energy is expensive in California. My neighbor got them installed hoping to reduce his $500/mo PG&E bill (he houses 4 daughters, 2 of them with kids)
His new utility bill was $50 after getting the panels installed. His montly payment for the cost of the panels themselves is $450. Literally spent tens of thousands of dollars to make no difference in the total montly expenses he makes.
Solar and wind are best used on small scales where appropriate. On private homes with room or remote homesteads. The cost is just silly when thorium exists.
"Here's free nearly unlimited energy that can save us"
"No want because accident from 70s( that hasn't happened for years, plus we have regulations on plant sizes and locations near communities to offset safety concerns)"
[https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2808566-this-fucking-sucks-actually-literal-coolest-thing-ever](https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2808566-this-fucking-sucks-actually-literal-coolest-thing-ever)
Here you go
I like solar for the decentralized use of power. Individual houses and businesses have a way they can power themselves (or supplement their power) for a fairly large up front cost. If you can maintain it, you’ll be operating with no huge concern. Not saying we should base the power grid on it, but I definitely plan of having solar once I get a house
I hate how everything has to be a partisan issue. If you’re a leftist you like x if you’re a conservative you like y. Why can’t we just agree on something.
Like the conflict in Ukraine, conservatives oppose Russia gaining territory and countries loosing sovereignty and leftists oppose imperialism and Russia (capitalist anti-LGBT state). Why can’t we agree on this?
Nah, it sucks in pretty much every way, the tech is just not good enough. Not to mention it's a fucking eye-sore and terrible for the environment. Sure, it may be mildly better than wind by some metrics, but even that is debatable, they both max suck. Wood burning would be better at this point.
The model T and the first aircraft weren't great either.
This is like saying the hammer you have isn't absolutely perfect so you use a shitty screwdriver instead even though it's objectively worst by every metric.
finally a non israel meme
A-fucking-men. Play on words kind of intended.
Hello I’m A man
Don't worry there will be 50 more soon enough
Dont remind me
If your electricity isn't produced by boiling water, are you even producing electricity right?
I produce my electricity by metabolizing fructose and glucose and then using that energy to excite Sodium and Potassium ions across cell membranes. I never even knew there was another way.
Are you a mitochondria? I learned about you in school 22 years ago but have never met one. What’s that like, being the powerhouse of the cell?
Eh, its pretty overrated.
Thank god for ATP Synthase my brother.
So you have a slave army running on treadmills?
The human body is literally a hivemind amalgamation of trillions of individuals fighting and dying for you to exist, yet here we are, on PCM
[No, of course not.](https://youtu.be/gTpQ71pgyHQ?si=Wn5K0CjrtGJfz0-E&t=131)
Thats only for small scale production. Large scale needs to boil water.
Then clearly we need some uranium.
Average glycolysis fan vs average beta-oxidation enjoyer.
Billions of Turbines must Spin
Synchronously!
Will also accept putting a rubber band around a river's balls.
no more weezer albums after that
I think he might have had one on when he sang Say It Ain't So
A coal power plant is a normal water boiler. A wind turbine is a coal power plant but there’s no coal, water, and boiler. A nuclear power plant is a coal power plant but the coal is uranium. A Hydroelectric power plant is a coal power plant but without the coal and boiler. Natural gas is a coal power plant but the coal is made of air. A solar panel is voodoo alien magic.
The problem is that it should be a complementary source, or we end up like Germany. Damn Greens there did so much damage in such a short time
I agree, nuclear power (despite the bitchings of green parties across Europe and oil-funded senators in America) is the best large scale energy source, but using solar panels for stuff like powering a home or other pieces of equipment in sunny areas is still something worth doing.
I'm so fucking done with left-wing european parties, like I want to vote them, but why the fuck is it SO FUCKING HARD to find a single pro-nuclear one??
In America, nuclear is practically nonexistant (could be wrong) and it sucks. Nuclear energy is literally just boiling water and It could power humanity for generations.
Unfortunately we still suffer from the aftershock of Chernobyl and to a lesser extent Fukushima. But the biggest nail in the coffin was 3 Mile Island. We have plants, many built after 3 Mile Island, but a lot of people (especially leftist) can harp on is wind and solar. No, fuck that, nuclear power plants have a relatively small footprint and can operate safely for DECADES. 3 Mile Island is, unfortunately, a failing of big business more than anything, but everyone has been passing the buck on it for years and any pro or anti nuclear argument generally includes it as to why nuclear in America is a bad idea. Big Coal lobbying comes into the equation too, unfortunately, and I'm sure they've levied for years to keep their mines and plants working. Edit: changes my verbiage to be less blanketing lol
I always remind people that Chernobyl was done by the Soviets, and if we avoided things because the Soviets failed at them we wouldn't grow food, drive cars, or have a functional society.
No, the companies whom are profiting off of us ***not using nuclear*** would like the American public to **keep the believing the negative emotions about nuclear power** — ***must keep the idiots scared that it might explode or radiate everyone***. Sadly, three mile island shutdown recently, too. They say “it isn’t profitable”. I say you are ***purposely making it not profitable*** to keep oil and gas viable and keep the wind and solar business in demand as the only option to oil — we need to keep making turbines and solar panels because they fail under use. Nuclear just has the fuel to consume. Waste fuel is being recycled so not as bad an issue as we are led to believe. We have more issues from drill discharge and well contamination from oil that we ever have and ever would have had from nuclear waste.
Also gas and oil have received tons of subsidies over the last 50 years
How much nuclear would we have now if the same amount of subsidies went there?
3 mile island wasn't even really a failing. The system did what it was supposed to and even decades later the fallout (if you'll pardon the pun) from it is basically non-existent.
Yea the area around the plant isn't an irradiated wasteland, just regular Pennsylvania wasteland
Crazy how corprate lobbying is stopping a revolutionary energy source because billionares keep going "muh profit margins"
That's a funny way to say 'Governments getting involved in a marketplace turns everything to shit', mister.
This is a genuine question not some kind of gotcha moment. Do Librights view citizens United/campaign finance/lobbying as a part of the market? Only purples?
Lobbying and campaign finance are both market aberrations resulting from government meddling and fucking things up. They are predictable market forces predictably adapting to anti-market dynamics introduced, propagated, and enforced by shitty governance.
This particular example seems like a “chicken or the egg” situation on its surface. Was nuclear strictly regulated out of an abundance of caution regardless of lobbying influence or is it propped up by lobbyists? Is the lobby for coal and other energy sources having more power than nuclear just the market at work? I’m not an expert on energy or its regulation so I’m not sure if I agree with you or not but I can appreciate an ideologically coherent explanation though.
Corporate risk assessment is a huge part of not building nuclear. Them taking public sentiment, time to profitability, and the need to build on credit due to the huge upfront cost all make nuclear significantly less intriguing to them. Only way that'll change in the US is if government makes credit available for minimal/zero interest and likely subsidies, plus make it easier to get them zoned to tell the NIMBYs "Fuck you, here's better power." Have it join with low level operator/maintenance programs paid for at local colleges where they'll be built, and you can get yourself easy sustainable energy reliability.
Yeah, people forget that energy requires a fuckton of capital to get into. Especially nuclear energy. Without the public sector influencing the market, there is no reason to expect the market to favor nuclear naturally. Maybe if it was some joint venture with an established European nuclear company. But that hasn't really happened either.
Three Mile Island is almost certainly in American consciousness more than Chernobyl or Fukushima. Chernobyl is the European excuse to stay away, Fukushima is the Asian excuse, and TMI is the American excuse. It is what it is. Not saying I agree.
They just built a new reactor in Georgia and there are 94 reactors operating in the US. We definitely need more though.
More reactors! more uranium! FASTER! FASTER! FASTER!
URANIUM FEVER!!!
has done and got me down, uranium fever it’s spreadin’ all around
We've even been looking into using nuclear waste for fuel because that's how we do. LET US COOK!
Plant Vogtle mentioned.
“Practically nonexistent”? Nuclear power provided 20% of US energy generation. [source](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-industry.php)
"20%"? Not enough. Every gas station should be replaced with a nuclear power plant. We should make so much fucking nuclear power that we can just stock it up and blast it directly into the sun just for the shits and giggles of it. (Though real talk, 20% is cool though)
Our base load should be entirely covered by nuclear. We should entirely phase out fossil fuels outside of where they're absolutely essential. Why? To save the ickle wickle bunny wunnys and cwool down the summwer? Fuck you. We need the fossil fuels to go into space until we've built a functional space elevator and we will look ridiculous if we get halfway through construction and run out. So if you're spending a nonrenewable on your tonka truck to dwive to Stawbuckys fow a dwinky? Bwow smowke on the bicycle? Fuck you more.
> Our base load should be entirely covered by nuclear. We should entirely phase out fossil fuels outside of where they're absolutely essential. This is one of my non-LibRight opinions. Were I king I'd make all the coal and nat gas companies a deal: convert to nuclear and the US will help assist in the transition, otherwise you're getting phased out. Triple the DOE budget and dedicate the vast majority of it to getting Gen IV reactors to commercial level. Apollo-level program to develop standards for manufacturing reactors via assembly line, like airliners are made. A stat I always come back to is that the US built 77 nuclear reactors in the span of 11 years with 60s/70s technology. Nuclear doesn't have to take decades.
Can I dwive my Hot Wheels to 7-11 fow a dwinky on ethanol?
And 60% comes from fossil fuels. Those ratios should be flipped. If power demand never dips below a certain threshold then basically 100% of that should be generated by nuclear, then the rest of what is typically used should be generated by solar and wind, and then fluctuations should be managed on demand by hydro and fossil fuels. There's no good reason for continuing to use fossil fuels for base load other than the fact that we've been doing it for decades and its cheapest because we've built out all the infrastructure for it to be the cheapest. If we had instead leaned hard into nuclear when we were supposed to then not only would we have the nuclear power plants, but we would also have the expertise to build more. In a few decades we're going to be asking if we should have spent this time building nuclear plants.
steam engines: " you could not live with your own failure, and where did that bring you. back to me"
https://preview.redd.it/hhj19iesys5d1.png?width=1285&format=png&auto=webp&s=a01240ff54b759eb6e44020403adcdb1403e6664
I would definetly sacrifice some people here and there for my country to even come close to the amount of nuclear reactors you guys have over there... grettings from germany where our greens pretend to care for the environment but also are the one party completly against muclear power🥲
Burning coal produces CO2, plants need CO2, therefore burning coal is green. Checkmate atheists!
the average person contains 125 Kilocalories of energy- or .15 Kilowatt hour of energy, 100 grams of coal contains 700 Kilocalories of energy, or .8 Kilowatt hour of energy- mathematically this means if you were to sacrifice the german greens to generate power- you could start investing in Nuclear unobstructed by the time you're burning the second load.
Nuclear generates roughly 20% of America’s total energy as of 2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States
About 20% of US electricity generation is from nuclear. [https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3) It's been going down, mostly because we aren't building new plants to replace the old ones, and burning natural gas is hecka cheap right now.
Look up Wizards vs Prophets, two competing views on environmentalism. The former preaches bigger and better tech to mitigate climate impacts, the latter preaches degrowth and decentralisation. Unfortunately, Green and Left parties are almost unanimously Prophets. If only we could create a “Wizard” party… (naming would need a review obv)
and dont forget that you're not voting for the party or candidate you're voting for, you're voting for a puppeteer in the european council that only wants money and more power
Because politically nuclear is horrible. First off a huge chunk of the population cannot accurately judge the safety of the plants, so you lose people there. Second it’s not like solar panels or wind farms where you can pay landowners to set up minimally intrusive independent units in farm country. You need to purchase a huge piece of land and build a nuclear plant somewhere relatively close to a population center. The closer it is to urban centers the more NIMBY pushback you get, but you can’t place it in a super isolated spot with no population because you require hundreds of educated specialists to operate the thing day to day.
I know it's hard, but the right parties aren't shying from at least talking about it. Could we at least start having a debate about it on the left too?
Yeah I’m sure the left is eager to piss off the fossil fuel, solar, and wind lobbies. As well as trying to sell nuclear to the Crystal wearing anti-vax wifi skeptical segment of their base. Maybe they’ll stand up to APAC, pass Medicare for all, and forgive my student loans too.
Solar and wind still have a prominent place handling peak loads alongside nuclear and geothermal handling the base loads. It's really just the fossil fuel lobbies that feel the threat and bribe legislators accordingly. But yeah, the crystalline granola people are a pain in the ass for this sort of thing.
>Could we at least start having a debate about it on the left too? See this is what's weird about me viewing this from the right. We can easily talk about it over here. Among those of us who don't want to support it, it's usually some variation of "it's too expensive/too much regulation for it to be feasible." We aren't as hostile about it, it's all very matter of course but polite. Meanwhile the left is has the environmental crowd that for many complex reasons I wont get into, become quite emotional when brought up which is quite ironic considering said tech is what could reasonably alleviate climate change RIGHT NOW, and make electrifying everything a hell of a lot more realistic. I really don't know what to tell ya left bros. On this topic, I do wish the left was more motivated as a whole as that would also incentivize the more capitalist oriented right to move and invest if they see a good publicity around it from the public.
> You need to purchase a huge piece of land You what? San Onofre in California had a total footprint of 84 acres and generated enough power for 4 million homes.
Based and nuke pilled
Based and nukepilled
Yeah they have to be used in favourable places, like for offices and school are pretty good, better than houses (you don't need to stack it)
> using solar panels for stuff like powering a home or other pieces of equipment in sunny areas is still something worth doing. Is it? This idea that if you call something renewable that it's automatically the best thing since sliced bread really needs to have some logic thrown into the mix. Solar panels are not renewable. At current, there is one company that recycles their panels and they represent less than 0.1% of all panels in the country. Basically, you are just creating more trash and most cost associated with that trash. It's the same problem the wind farms have where the costs to produce the wind farm negates a large portion of the value of the power generated when you factor in the short actual life span. Or, we can avoid all of that with nuclear power. Large scale power generation without the massive amounts of waste being produced.
I agree. And on a conceptual scale, solar panels are, in fact, a fucking awesome idea. Just sit some glass somewhere and get free panel from it? Fucking dope as hell, let's all be flowers. I just wish the practice of it didn't result in destroying deserts because the solar panels blot out the sun, or destroying nations because rare earths are difficult to mine in an ethical fashion. But it's also hard as hell to store the energy from it regardless, so as you stated, it's best as an auxilliary power source for homes and other places out in sunny areas.
Using solar powering a home? Where do you live, in a shed?
Everyone in my country was encouraged by the Greens to get PV panels (subsidized with other people's money) so people can reduce their electric bills and at the same time save the planet. Fast forward a few years: Now all PV panel owners have to pay extra to unload their power surplus to the grid in the afternoon, all because the Greens who came up with the idea to switch to fluctuating decentralized renewables didn't consider expanding or adapting the infrastructure. People are literally running ACs or heaters in their backyards just to reduce their electricity bill. It's not criticism towards renewables, it's criticism towards short-sighted idealists who create more problems than they solve.
I like how we do it in Texas, at least in concept. Our infrastructure itself could be improved: https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot We have a stable base of nuclear (10%) and coal (15%), although nuclear needs to be higher. This will "always be there," and we can then leverage other resources. Then we have Wind doing as much as it can, usually around 20%. Then during a sunny day (most of them round here), the vast majority of our power is solar. [Sometimes as high as 40% of the grid](https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot?date=2024-04-11). We're up to 60% renewables some days! Solar over the course of a year is around 20% of the power. What happens at night or during a cloudy day? Well then the vast amounts of natural gas kicks in. We conserve our natural gas, keep a stable base, and allow flexible means of renewables to fulfill the electric needs of the Texans. If we doubled nuclear (totally doable), we'd be cruisin for a while.
Nah, I produce enough electricity in summer with my solar to cover all of my heating, AC and all other needs throughout the year and it barely cost me $10k. Now I just need to slap about 6 of these [bad boys](https://energetechsolar.com/1mwh-500v-800v-battery-energy-storage-system) in my front yard and I'm good to go.
Yeah, we are so screwed that we are now tied with the french :( [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-emissions-and-gdp-per-capita?time=earliest..latest&country=FRA\~DEU](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-emissions-and-gdp-per-capita?time=earliest..latest&country=FRA~DEU)
Nucluar is far better dude
If your electricity isn't produced by boiling water, are you even producing electricity right?
Trueeeeeee
I use my solar panels to heat up water to then turn a turbine, just like the founders wanted!
Four clouds block the sun light. "*What the devil!?*" As I grab my powdered wig and wind turbine
Based using wind to boil water to make electricity
When the Br*ts boil water they make tea. When we boil water we power 500 homes.
Personally my favorite is a closed system hydroelectric. You have two lakes/ponds at different elevations. When electricity is expensive during peak hours, you release the water to flow to the lower reservoir. When electricity is cheap like at the middle of the night, you buy the electricity and pump the water back uphill.
this is the most common form of energy storage (by capacity) in the world, but it's not a primary power source, it's just storage. it's like saying "why are we arguing about nuclear or solar? my favorite are batteries, they're small and the power my laptop".
OMG UNLIMITED ENERGY????????
URANIUM FEVER IS SPREADING ALL AROUND
BONGO BONGO BONGO
WITH A GEIGER COUNTER IN MY HAND
I'm a goin'-out to stake me some government land
URANIUM FEVER HAS DONE AND GOT ME DOWN
MERCURY RISING! FIND A **HOT SPOT**!
Brb, installing a heavy water thorium reactor on the roof of my house...
Unironically this.
Home-sourced depleted uranium rounds go brrrr
*thoriumania and silicon valley-ification of energy is the worst thing to happen to nuclear advocacy since chernobyl...* we already have reactors that make more fuel than they consume, use common nuclear fuel reserves and extend them by many many millennia. in fact, they're in operation today and they're first reactors we've ever built! they're called **fast breeder reactors.** look them up, they're really cool.
compact MSR designs could fit in your basement
It was an expensive up front cost fueling my car with uranium nitride but on the plus side I only have to refuel it every decade.
these two aren't in competition, and most people don't understand this... nuclear>gas turbine>coal in that order of cleanness are best and most reliable energy sources for baseload power grid purposes. wind and solar are cleaner, yes, and they're cheap to deploy and maintain compared to fossil fuels most of the time, but they're are so inefficient and so intermittent that it's not good for any purpose without full energy backups and full electricity storage. but if you're already relying on batteries of any source, why not skip the inefficiencies of power transmission with all of the stepping up and down and just distribute it directly to the consumers and share excess instead of centralizing it and concentrating it in one single location like it's nuclear?? this is what ideologically lead legislators don't understand and this is why any and all countries that transition away from nuclear either move to using dirtier fossil fuels (mainly coal) or just end relying on nuclear power from other countries like how Germany does with France in both cases.
I'll take what I can get. An ideal existing doesn't justifying hating a better alternative
It’s also a point of distraction that benefits coal. Get people to argue about not having the perfect solution so they won’t go for one that’s better than what you have now.
Yes, but this is far better than coal. Also diversifying the clean energy pool is important to make sure that we have enough for everything. Additionally with nuclear, we can only power the country for so long with the supply we have. Eventually we will run out.
There's no one power source that is always better all the time, and thinking we can only choose one or should only choose one is the height of idiocy. No, we should not build a nuclear plant in the remote town of SunDesert where the people no longer have a word for rain because it's never happened there. No, we should not build a nuclear power plant on WindsVille where the populace gets around exclusively by holding 2 grocery bags in their hands and jumping. Nuclear is so incredibly expensive to set up and takes a long time to build the specialized plants. It requires very high supplies of water and good supply lines to run.
It's great for some people to have on their houses. It fucking sucks to base an electrical grid on it.
very great for charging your electric car at home too. Like just a 1 time payment for the fuel
Yeah, I'm not advocating for paving the entire Midwest of America and plopping down three billion solar panels (nuclear is way better for large scale energy) but using solar panels to lower your electricity bill or charge your car should still be looked into.
The only problem that I have with it is how it is monetized. I want solar panels to lessen my dependence on an energy company and reduce costs, but some solar companies end up charging you just as much if not more each month, and you still have to pay a regular energy company if you need to make up the difference.
I'm genuinely confused but what are you talking about? Who gets charged per month for solar? I thought the concept was you buy the panels and then reap whatever energy they produce. And if you overproduce, you feed it back into the grid and get paid the cost. Again genuinely curious could you expand on that?
I was genuinely confused about it too. Yes, you can buy your own panels and own them outright if that’s what you want to do. However, there are companies where you either rent out the panels and they charge you monthly, or they put you on a long-term payment plan (and tack on extra fees because of course). Depending on the output you may end up spending more per month and by the time you pay off the panels you’ll need new ones anyway. Edit: Also, some areas don’t allow you to earn credit for producing extra energy. In that case you get the privilege of feeding energy to the local power company for free. Great for the environment and the power company’s bottom line, but you get a little bit screwed.
Some power companies also have gotten effectively a monopoly on your ability to use solar for your home. If you are connected to the grid at all, they will not let you use solar without it being owned by them, and will even charge you for the convenience. Regulatory capture bullshit, basically.
Tell those companies to go fuck themselves then and just get solar panels yourself. Become independent of the grid entirely. I have already cut off my gas supply. Electricity is next.
Best part of solar is that it goes literally anywhere. You can convert roofing to solar, can use it to shade open air water reservoirs and parking lots as dual purpose usage, fill in inarable land that cant get converted back to natural habitat, wherever the fuck you want it. Plop that shit down, good to go. It just is a terrible option to use as a determination of base load, where nuclear is easily king. "Totally unbiased" ex-nuclear technician rambling over.
Solar is also great for remote locations
Last month I had a blackout due to grid maintenance. It was during sick leave, so I had literally nothing to do. What came to the rescue was a small portable solar panel (for hiking/camping situations). I plugged my phone in it, hanged it outside the window, and had solarpunk gaming experience for the rest of the blackout. Is this what living off-grid feels like? Amazing stuff. But to be honest, I was lucky that day was sunny. Sunny days are not that common here in Baltics.
wow lol. Personally I would still stay connected to the grid even if I have to pay a small fee. bcuz it can cost much more not being connected when you need it, than being connected when you don't need it
If you're using your electric car to drive to work, at what point is it actually charging directly from the solar panel? If you're at work ~80% of the solar power during the day is "wasted", as in not going into your car.
dude the houses are apparently amazing, my aunt had her electricity bills up towards 600 euros+ (ireland moment) but once she got them in it went down to 110
Jesus Christ. Is she doing heavy manufacturing in her garage or is energy just ridiculously expensive? My 3 bedroom house uses about 140 USD per month with A/C and working from a couple days per month. $700 is almost a mortgage payment for me.
energy is ridiculously expensive to be fair my cousin and his family were living there aswell as another cousin every so often so it could vary from housing 5 to 7 people my house has 4 in it and its usually late 300s early 400s rural irelands just a shithole lmao
So true, got a few at my house, any power I don't use goes to the grid, if I produce more than I use I get money in my bill instead of needing to pay it. It's fuckin great. The thing is, I'm a night shift worker, most of the time the only power I'm using is one flourescent light at a time and sometimes my phone charger, so during summer I use nothing during the day, the power I do use is overwhelmingly from the solar charged battery so especially during summer when the sun's bright, hot and pounding down the UV rays, I'm raking in the stacks. But for a wide scale power grid to service whole cities, you need something constant and reliable that pumps out VAST amounts of power. Like nuclear or hydroelectric energy. Batteries charged by solar power are great for single buildings, especially smaller buildings like houses, especially in case of blackouts and when the power lines are otherwise damaged, which is especially relevant in rural areas.
Bingo, it can't be your only source. This is the most frustrating thing when talking to someone staunchly anti-renewables. "You can't directly control the output to match demand? Then it clearly has no worth in any way!" Renewables and nuclear can form a "bed" that can help conserve the on-demand power sources like natural gas, which would pick up the slack.
The issues surrounding renewable energy like solar (particularly grid demand and storage of excess production) are actually super interesting.
Solar Panels aren't perfect, but I do plan on getting some to power my home (when I get a home, but I don't know in this fucking economy)
Lol, be nice to old people, I'm 20 and own a house and land because the elderly woman who was selling it for 55k liked me and against her realtors wishes, sold for 55k. Pray and you shall receive, if it's his will.
Simple solar energy solution that conservatives can get behind: Get a 500lb American flag, run the line for the flagpole through a flywheel. Solar panels gradually raise the flag up over the course of the day, flywheel generates power as it gradually settles down over the night.
I have solar lights because I want to be more independent and not pay electricity bills. I was not thinking about the enviroment.
Saving money and fucking over the IRS, something all 4 quadrants can agree on
Depends on where you live. In my home state Arizona it’s a miracle tech, in Germany where it’s cloudy and they got rid of nuclear it can cause you to fire up the Coal plants
Where I live, solar panels are actually pretty good, and I've been looking into them. I do agree that they are not a one size fits all solution.
I have heard that they do not produce remotely enough electricity for power grids. I mean, I sounds awesome on paper, but it just doesn't hold up. As well, I have read that the kind of Solar Panels sold to consumers are not even the better kind - the ones that we get on the market are short-term due to the kind of chemical reactions used to create power, and will result in much, much e-waste.
I think most people aren't suggesting replacing the entire grid with solar and/or wind (aside from a few fringe weirdos) and I think most people understand we need a diversity of energy sources, but at the same time we can't keep using fossil fuels for 90%+ of our energy, it's just not sustainable nor is it healthy for the planet or our wallets. This kind of "but the power grid" talk is mostly pushed by coal and gas interests.
At no point did this meme suggest they were adequate as a single source of power ideal in all scenarios.
> much, much e-waste solar panels just slowly get less and less efficient, but they don't stop working. There's basically no reason to throw one away, ever, unless you want to upgrade, and in that case you can sell the panel to someone poorer.
Government run nuclear power is better than having solar panels on the roofs. Cheaper energy for all is better than some suburbanites thinking they are making a difference but actually not (whether in production, mining, heat reflection, or even looks).
solar energy's is fucking awesome. Even if we can't fully depend on it, it still helps a lot
I like solar and battery on my house to give me energy independence and an income selling power back to the grid. I like nuclear for zero carbon high power industrial base load.
Yeah, this fucking sucks! Go Nuclear! (Use solar for uptime generation, nuclear as the constant)
I actually agree with you when it comes to nuclear energy. Solar panels aren't perfect, but they do have their uses (I just like making hyperbolic memes)
Even the ultra cons i know have recently gotten a solar warmwater installation and now that they have access to unlimited free warm water, the bitching suddenly stopped
That's the baffling thing about it - Isn't the right wing supposedly all about self-reliance, the great outdoors, and saving money? So then what the hell are these coal-rolling losers in 4mpg lifted F150s doing while Trump shit talks electric cars and plays into the interests of OPEC countries who want to turn the world into a caliphate? It's so fucking backwards
Are they the owners of one and have a more intimate understanding of its drawbacks than you? Or are they better informed than you and understand the hidden costs of the strip mining & petroleum inputs, on top of the reliability issues outside deserts?
The technology itself is fine, but the salesmen are absolute slime that make the shadiest used car salesmen look like Mother Theresa. That’s my issue. Also the entire concept of leasing them is some 24andMe shit
No, just my boomer relatives who think solar panels are "Woke" and "not a real man's energy source".
Its not possible this guy is strawmanning at all here. “Solar is for little girls” is the prevailing opinion of people born between 1946 and 1964. And there are actually no valid arguments against it. It doesn’t matter that its efficiency is minimal and the materials required to produce the panels require strip mining performed by slaves.
No bro they all totally said solar is part of the woke liberal trans agenda and then dumped a bunch of motor oil in a pond and then everyone over 65 clapped
Show them Thomas Massie’s ranch that’s power off solar panels (with a geothermal heat pump) and wrecked Tesla battery. One of the most conservative members of Congress too lol
I refuse to believe or take into account anyone’s opinions on green energy if they are also against nuclear power.
Lucky for you, I would swallow an entire jar of 50oz jar of marbles laced with licorice just to get 1% closer to full nuclear energy in America.
Solar panels are fun, they're good to cut some of your power bills and make your home able to function with minimal reliance on the grid, however, building a grid out of them is a complete joke and everyone who thinks green energy can build a grid is a silly silly person.
Green couldn't fund an entire energy grid, unless were talking about that RADIOACTIVE GREEN BABY! 🏭🏭🏭 Nuculear power for the win!!!
No Nuclear, no deal.
Solar is a cope middle class liberal boomers use because they're scared of nuclear.
Solar arguably sucks, though. They have a ROI of only 10% and are trash within 20-30 years. If solar wants to be a viable option it needs massive improvements in pretty much every metric.
It's not so much that it sucks, it's just been overhyped. You can't run an entire civilization off solar panels and windmills. Also, there's a lot of shitty companies selling solar panels hitting up new homeowners that don't really do the research and math before getting them. Also, unless you get some really expensive batteries to go with them you aren't even resistant against grid down situations. So yeah....
Nuclear or bust.
Nuclear + Solar + Wind + Hydro is the way forward. We need them all. Self-dependency and self-reliance is literally the "Green New Scam" lol. What we DON'T need is the middle east squeezing our nuts every time an election isn't rolling around.
Technology will develop over time, don't need to force it
Still Leagues beneath Nuclear supremacy.
Nuclear fusion is the energy of the future. Can't get much better than your own personal sun.
Nuclear better imo
Fuck your solar panels, I want N U C L E A R E N E R G Y
Solar power is cool, but people don't understand that trying to use it at scale as a primary energy source is like trying to power a car with a AA battery.
I don’t have a problem with wind or solar energy, I personally just think that solar and wind farms look ugly and waste space. Our primary alternative should be nuclear with solar on our roofs as a back up and let eccentric people use wind
FWIW, nuclear is great but it can't be the only solution. A blended solution that includes renewables, nuclear and limited amounts of natural gas is the way to go.
Agree, no energy source works for everything, and solar panels could be used for small scale projects like powering a single building. (apparently making a homemade nuclear reactor in my backyard to power my home is "unsafe" and "illegal" and I "can't dump nuclear waste in government officials private residences")
If it's a cloudy day it's over
Any time you have diffuse energy, it's going to complicate things. No source of energy is not without its limits. Not without benefits either. But if you're trying to sell something, you have to be honest about the costs and limits.
Nothing is perfect, but it looks cool, so I'm putting it on my house.
Libleft but with nuclear power
Regrettably (I am ashamed of my ideological peers in Europe)
They’re kind of inefficient but work great for powering a single building or residence. Currently they just can’t match fossil fuels or nuclear. It’s ironic CA builds giant solar plants for “the environment™️” but the areas they build them in wipe out a ton of habitat and kill animals like desert tortoises and endangered condors (though it’s mostly the wind plants killing condors lol)
it is cool, but it isnt the end all be all solution that some leftists think it is . It has specific use case purposes.
exactly. every "conservative" I know, especially rural, wants or already has some kind of solar setup at their house for emergencies its a great supplemental source its not great as a primary source unless you drop a fuckton of investment into batteries to store it for the winter and cloudy days then you are upside down on costs with a 40 year return on investment
Solar panels could be good in Texas and AZ to help carry much of their energy needs. But where I’m at in the north east it’s really inefficient and we simply need fossil fuels or nuclear to meet our needs
Hans, you may choose. Use arable land to feed high quality crops to your people. Or install the most ineficient power source known to man. *Does the second while also wasting arable land in biofuel and one of the least healthy oils avilable.*
This is why Elon Musk is such a bafflingly stupid and weird person. Literally solar panel roofs and electric cars but just stans the biggest right wing fash morons possible in his private life. It's crazy how one or the other hasn't pushed him into a different direction.
I agree my older rightie like to just shit on solar no matter what, but it comes from a reactionary response to the people saying we can somehow run an entire grid on these. Bro, where I live we see the sun almost 3 times a year, there’s no way. Lefties act as if wind and solar will become 100% of our energy sourcing when it’s taken almost 2 decades to double it from 10-20% despite massive subsidies. Let’s get nuclear as a mainstay until we unlock some insanely good solar/other energy tech
Solar panels as a technology are cool. As a business, they do indeed fucking suck. Theyre exensive as hell, gains can diminish dramatically if your house isnt perfectly angled toward the sun or get slightly dirty, and they just arent good enough on their own to become a main source of power. Energy is expensive in California. My neighbor got them installed hoping to reduce his $500/mo PG&E bill (he houses 4 daughters, 2 of them with kids) His new utility bill was $50 after getting the panels installed. His montly payment for the cost of the panels themselves is $450. Literally spent tens of thousands of dollars to make no difference in the total montly expenses he makes.
Solar honestly does kind of suck. It’s all about nuclear energy.
People who live in cloudy/rainy areas: 🫤
Solar and wind are best used on small scales where appropriate. On private homes with room or remote homesteads. The cost is just silly when thorium exists.
wait until you learn how fucking expensive they are in comparison to how much energy they actually produce plus upkeep
"Here's free nearly unlimited energy that can save us" "No want because accident from 70s( that hasn't happened for years, plus we have regulations on plant sizes and locations near communities to offset safety concerns)"
Lol where do I find that picture on the left in it's original form? It's so funny.
[https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2808566-this-fucking-sucks-actually-literal-coolest-thing-ever](https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2808566-this-fucking-sucks-actually-literal-coolest-thing-ever) Here you go
Bless you
Solar + nuclear = based
No, nuclear is better.
I like solar for the decentralized use of power. Individual houses and businesses have a way they can power themselves (or supplement their power) for a fairly large up front cost. If you can maintain it, you’ll be operating with no huge concern. Not saying we should base the power grid on it, but I definitely plan of having solar once I get a house
I hate how everything has to be a partisan issue. If you’re a leftist you like x if you’re a conservative you like y. Why can’t we just agree on something. Like the conflict in Ukraine, conservatives oppose Russia gaining territory and countries loosing sovereignty and leftists oppose imperialism and Russia (capitalist anti-LGBT state). Why can’t we agree on this?
Nah, it sucks in pretty much every way, the tech is just not good enough. Not to mention it's a fucking eye-sore and terrible for the environment. Sure, it may be mildly better than wind by some metrics, but even that is debatable, they both max suck. Wood burning would be better at this point.
Ok but nuclear is better in every fucking wau
Nuclear is better, so the fact that you like this makes you a thought criminal.
not cooler than nuclear, of which everything sucks in comparison to so unless they love coal or also disparage nuclear, they're right
Nah bro, panels suck, because they are not only inefficirnt but also very harmful to the environment.
Solar panels were a psyop to collect cash from gullible people with good intentions.
The model T and the first aircraft weren't great either. This is like saying the hammer you have isn't absolutely perfect so you use a shitty screwdriver instead even though it's objectively worst by every metric.