this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
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The big issue with that is that it's already too late. We need a solution yesterday, not in 10-20 years. Nuclear should have been part of that, it's perfect for base load.
Unfortunately, politics and fear have effectively killed it for now. Too much knowledge has been lost, due to people getting old and retiring. The Chinese are doing well bootstrapping back up, but even they are well behind.
Would building one of the salt towers with mirrors from the salt gained from the desalination process be a better solution?
Solar thermal power plants? I can definitely see large scale use of them. The salt is generally not the limiting factor building them, however.
It's often just easier to dump excess salt back into the sea.
Dumping salt into the sea like that causes major problems in the local ecosystem.
It depends where and how much. It would obviously need to be controlled, and spread out. You don't want to dump a lot of it into slow moving water, that's asking for problems. However, diluting it down, and dispersing it into stronger currents, over a large area should be fine (subject to proper environmental monitoring).
I was thinking instead of a nuclear plant for power, the salt could be used for the tower to power the desalination plants and prevent the salt from being dumped in the ocean, which can damage the ecosystem.
Better late than never, what would you prefer?
We should definitely be pursuing proper nuclear power. The more modern designs are a massive step up from the bomb factories of the last century. They are a lot safer, as well as not producing significant amounts of waste. (Fyi, most coal power stations would fail on radioactive emissions, coal contains enough radioactive material to be above the limit).
My point is we can no longer rely on them to get to carbon neutral in time to not completely screw the planet. Renewables will have to carry the whole load. To do that they will need to significantly oversupply, matching average to average won't work. In that case, we need somewhere to dump/use the excess energy.
Why frame it as "nuclear or renewables"? We need both.
We don't need both. Both would just make it easier.
What we don't have is time. Nuclear is slow to bring online, and we've lost a lot of the expertise associated with it. We don't have 20 years to retrain the personnel, educate the public, and get the designs done and built, at scale. Solar and other renewables are ready to go now.
The only weakness is energy storage/buffering. That can be covered by either additional storage, or over supply, combined with supplementary usage, like desalination, or hydrogen/hydrocarbon production.
Don't get me wrong, nuclear should be part of the solution, but we no longer have time to wait on it anymore.
The effects of climate change and other environmental disasters will be with us for hundreds of years. We have time and should think long term. Nuclear is a reliable source of massive amounts of energy that we can use for carbon capture, cleaning water, and creating fuel.
I'm not disagreeing with you on the long term. I'm disagreeing on the 5-20 year range. If we give politicians the out of "waiting for nuclear to carry the base load" they will take it, and we will be completely fucked (or rather our children will be).
Nuclear needs investment, and will let us continue to grow, post fossil fuels. It will take time to regain the knowledge base we have already lost however, as well as building the next generation of nuclear power stations properly (as opposed to the old modified bomb factories).
Yes agreed, renewables are the best immediate option and it's urgent that we change