Shuttering of New York facility raises awkward climate crisis questions as gas – not renewables – fills gap in power generation
When New York’s deteriorating and unloved Indian Point nuclear plant finally shuttered in 2021, its demise was met with delight from environmentalists who had long demanded it be scrapped.
But there has been a sting in the tail – since the closure, New York’s greenhouse gas emissions have gone up.
Castigated for its impact upon the surrounding environment and feared for its potential to unleash disaster close to the heart of New York City, Indian Point nevertheless supplied a large chunk of the state’s carbon-free electricity.
Since the plant’s closure, it has been gas, rather then clean energy such as solar and wind, that has filled the void, leaving New York City in the embarrassing situation of seeing its planet-heating emissions jump in recent years to the point its power grid is now dirtier than Texas’s, as well as the US average.
FWIW, I’m an Xer against nuclear power, but not for the reason you outlined: it’s because it’s an overall bad approach to energy generation.
It produces extremely long-lasting waste, on timescales humans are not equipped to deal with. It has a potential byproduct of enabling more nuclear weapons. The risks associated with disaster are orders of magnitude greater than any other power generation system we use, perhaps other than dams. It requires seriously damaging mining efforts to obtain the necessary fuel. It is more expensive.
We have the tech to do everything with renewables and storage now.
It’s not my trauma, it’s my logic that leads me to be generally against nuclear. (Don’t have to be very against it, no one wants to build these now anyway.)
Very little waste compared to burning coal or oil which also produces waste we aren’t equipped to deal with. See oh idk global warming.
Also, dont coal plant spew out loads of radiation?
Not loads per say, but the workers are exposed to more radiation than a nuclear reactor operator would be.
A lot compared to renewables. Did you read what he said? “We have the tech to do everything with renewables and storage now.”
Nuclear is unexpectedly safer and less polluting than renewables. That’s including stuff like Chernobyl. Also less expensive overall. The plant itself is expensive yes but for the energy output/cost per watt it’s by far cheaper last I checked.
This is not true and you are spreading misinformation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_'Ndrangheta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilaria_Alpi
https://feddit.de/comment/8462209
Worth mentioning it’s actually quite small by mass (only 1% or so of what goes in), but only a few places actually separate out those isotopes.
Yeah nuclear waste is super overblown we can very easily store it away which isn’t exactly great but we fuckn bury our garbage so I’m cool with putting nuclear waste in some sort of vault
You volunteering to have it stored where you live?
Yup right in my room preferably, keeps the heating bill down
Oh a serious note sure, most nuclear waste is actually PPE which is only mildly radioactive. Uranium glass will give you more radiation exposure than a bin of that stuff
I never argued for coal power. I don’t know if you’re an oil/gas lobby shill or what, but I said absolutely nothing about coal, oil, or gas, none of which are good options vs. renewables.
Huh? Bro what. What kinda oil shill would be promoting fuckn nuclear
Nuclear is incredibly expensive, uneconomic and for all countries starting only now would delay phasing out fossil fuels by decades of planning and construction. When they could start reducing fossil fuels and emmissions right now by building renewables and adding storage successively over years.
So the actual answer is: all of them. They know fossil fuels don’t have a future, so they have long changed to delay tactics.
Nuclear is very expensive to build it’s the cheapest to maintain. Even accounting for horrible disasters like Chernobyl it’s safer and less polluting. But yes, renewables are great! Most of our power where I live is from a dam. My grandpa had his house heated primarily via solar energy. They generated enough power through solar that they were able to sell it off to the energy dudes. When solar was bad they’d get power from the nearby wind turbines or the dam. All this stuff is great, it’s way better than coal but a single nuclear plant would out perform all of that energy generation and ultimately, cost less.
only if you dont count cost of salaries. Nuclear takes a lot of highly skilled people to run/maintain.
You tell me why people advocate for a more dangerous, more expensive option.
I figure it’s in the best interests of non-renewables to slow adoption of renewables any way they can - advocating for big expensive projects that typically go way over budget as the answer to the fossil fuels issue feels like a way for them to push back their reckoning.
A decade ago I thought nuclear was a good option, I’ve seen the data in the intervening time and renewables have scaled too quickly for nuclear to have any chance of keeping up. (At least, not without more research, as I think another commenter suggested should be our primary focus of any dollars allocated to nuclear.)
But I’m getting all the down votes, not counter arguments, so you tell me what’s going on.
Well I’m not calling anyone an oil shill so I’m sure you’ll feel very persecuted no matter what’s said to you
Fair criticism. I’ll think on this.
I won’t aim to change your mind but I’ll add that one of the reasons they’re so expensive is, at least in the US, there is simply a struggle to build mega engineering projects. From project management to the blue collar skills required (nuclear isn’t the only large scale engineering project with cost overruns). Things were more favorable in the 80s when plants were built somewhat regularly and the country had collective experience completing these projects.
Renewables are similar too on both the installation and design side. More experience in manufacturing, developing, and installing helps to lower costs.
Yes, then deregulation really began, gutting our unions and thereby our trades. It robbed us of valuable experience for the benefit of a handful of wealthy people. It wasn’t a fair trade and we need to reverse it asap if we want to have a.futire as a society.
There have been more deaths and major environmental disasters with fossil fuels than with all nuclear accidents combined (including the less reported ones that happened in the 50s and 60s). Nuclear plants are generally safe and reliable. They do not produce excessive waste like wind (used turbine blades) and solar (toxic waste from old panels that cannot be economically recycled).
Nuclear is the superior non-carbon energy source right now. Climate change is an emergency, so we shouldn’t be waiting on other technologies to mature before we start phasing out emitting power plants in favor of emission-free nuclear plants.
If I were advocating for more use of non-renewables, your comment would make sense in this context.
I am arguing against non-renewables getting more funding.
But really my arguments don’t matter, the market has decided and I feel like these nuclear posts are becoming mostly sour grapes and not any kind of legitimate discussion about what things nuclear would need to do to be price competitive.
Probably should be mentioned too that there’s the very clever idea of simply repurposing existing coal power plants to run nuclear fuel. The main ‘expense’ of nuclear power plants, as I understand, is the general equipment itself, not the nuclear core. Those can be built much quicker than building an entire plant from scratch.
the market sucks at doing anything other than profits for an increasingly small populace
You make a really good point with the comparison to dams. It’s not that it’s not a great way to generate power, but it is a fact that the worst case scenarios for failure are really really bad. It’s perfectly rational to worry about that. Consider, for example, how both dams and nuclear plants have been targeted by Russia in Ukraine. No one is worried if they smash a few solar panels
Thank you for considering what I am saying. I really appreciate at least one person being open to thinking about their position.
The problem IMO is that there are a lot of entrenched beliefs here, but none of this is black and white
The only reason I put myself through these discussions is I used to be pro-nuclear. (And am not nearly as anti-nuclear as pro-nuclear people think me to be.) 😂
Shut up Xer they said it’s a security problem don’t use your logic