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this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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That would, however, stop it from getting any worse, which is kind of a big deal because it's getting worse at a frightening rate.
You severely overestimate the energy efficiency of gasoline engines. A big reason to get rid of them is not only the fuel they burn, but how much of it they waste.
You severely underestimate the resources required to build those. It costs some $20 billion to build one nuclear power plant. There's a reason everybody's focusing on solar and wind.
Small modular reactors may be cheaper, but they also generate huge amounts of radioactive waste. Radioactive waste isn't a serious problem now, but it will be if we start powering everything with SMRs.
Atom cracking will not save us. Not unless there's some kind of breakthrough.
Have you stepped outside at any point in the last several years? Global warming is no longer a looming future threat for someone else to deal with. It's here and now.
Yes, it would stop making it worse indeed. I'm not saying we shouldn't stop, I'm just saying that stopping alone won't solve the issue
Global warming is an ENORMOUS problem that will require generations of people all over the world working together to fix it and I smjsut don't see that happening because face it: politicians and rich people don't give a shit.
I don't overestimate gas engine efficiency, they're about as efficient as it gets and the same goes for fuel burning in other places. Gas / coal / fuel power plants really aren't much more efficient and now you have energy centralized and Ned to transform it, transport it, transform again, store in batteries so more and more losses that altogether makes driving electrical really not that much better for climate change.
I know nuclear reactors are hugely expensive but I honestly don't see we have another option here. We can't continue with coal or gas, we need a HUGE amount of STABLE electrical energy that solar and wind simply won't be able to supply, not to mention the amount of money that goes into building solar and wind farms that gives the same energy as nuclear. That also ignores the amount of mining required to build solar and wind farms. Those alternatives aren't all that "clean" once you get into the nitty gritty details.
I fully agree with you about this, something must be done, but here is the realest problem of them all: Nothing will be done. A few token things will be done to say "look at us! Aren't we awesome politicians?" There will be a lot of clapping and patting on backs, and nothing changes. The Paris accords were a joke and even that joke wasn't followed up on anyway by most parties.
The way that I see it is that we're fucked. I'd love to slice it if I could but I can't. Neither can you. All we can do is hope (or pray of that's your thing) that our leaders will get it into heir heads that humanity is dying and start doing something real.