# Global Warming and the Necessity for Nuclear Power **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 5, 2016, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910 "2016-12-05T06:17:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SmartAlecCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SmartAlecCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAlecCat)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/21 "2016-12-05T15:57:40Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > [url=[http://www.richardcarrier.info/about](http://www.richardcarrier.info/about)]He sounds like a smart guy, but I don’t think energy is really his field, eh. Pages of sourced arguments and analysis to consider and that’s all you’ve got? ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/22 "2016-12-05T16:10:58Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > It would also help **Sam** ’s credibility if he were somewhat more candid about sourcing his rather carefully cherrypicked claims. For instance, he shifts from talking about Germany’s renewable energy in general to their solar energy in particular, because saying Germany gets only 6.5% of its total energy from solar sounds more discouraging than saying Germany gets [around 12% of its total energy consumption from renewables](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-climate-targets). > > Likewise, he claims that the US reduced carbon emissions almost twice as much as Germany did in the time since Germany started a “big push to solar”, which presumably means in the early 2000s. He carefully ignores the fact that most of the US’s [12% carbon emissions reduction over 2005-2015 came from the natural gas/fracking boom plus the effects of the Bush 2008 recession](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=26152), and that [the US has not actually been outperforming Germany in carbon reduction either over the last few years or long-term:](https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-showdown-has-the-us-uk-or-germany-done-more-to-cut-emissions) > > IOW, the habitually carbon-blasting US experienced a sort of “carbon crash diet” during a few years due mostly to a massive recession and the fracking boom. The much more carbon-frugal Germany, OTOH, with nowhere near as much low-hanging fruit available in the area of potential carbon emissions reduction, nonetheless has achieved larger and steadier reductions over a longer period. > None of this, of course, in any way negates the various genuine benefits of nuclear power as an energy source. It just confirms that you can’t look to **Sam Stone** ’s post for an honest and thorough appraisal of the comparative benefits and costs. One of the chief reasons Germany likes to use 1990 as a baseline for carbon emissions is that it allows Germany to take credit for the shutdown of the very dirty East Germany power plants. If you look at the German emissions since 1990 there is a huge dip form 1990 to 1999 as East German plants are shut down, then they are level until the Great Recession where there is another large dip, and then steady every since. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/23 "2016-12-05T16:27:12Z")
> [@SmartAlecCat](#): > > Pages of sourced arguments and analysis to consider and that’s all you’ve got? In some places the sources are the plain Wikipedia definitions when he gets close to the “paltry” argument regarding solar and wind, and then he misses a lot about supporting that point. He is actually missing what it is happening in the battery front that will complement solar, wind and other sources with intermittent issues. And I did notice that the National Geographic cite he uses is actually optimistic also about the Solar industry getting better on the pollution and waste front. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/24 "2016-12-05T16:36:53Z")
[QUOTE=Kimstu] It would also help Sam’s credibility if he were somewhat more candid about sourcing his rather carefully cherrypicked claims. [/QUOTE] Unlike your’s, right? 😛 Definitely the No Spin Zone™ going on here. It’s rather ironic that you point to the 2008 recession and fracking boom as if that somehow means the US cheated (or something) while ignoring (as your cites do as well) some of the similar reasons that German carbon emissions dropped and also that they started rising again in 2015. At any rate, I found [this](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601514/germany-runs-up-against-the-limits-of-renewables/) article talking about why Germany has had issues reducing it’s carbon emissions despite a full court press on solar and wind renewables that some might find interesting. > [@](#): > > Germany Runs Up Against the Limits of Renewables > > Even as Germany adds lots of wind and solar power to the electric grid, the country’s carbon emissions are rising. Will the rest of the world learn from its lesson? > [@](#): > > At one point this month renewable energy sources briefly supplied close to 90 percent of the power on Germany’s electric grid. But that doesn’t mean the world’s fourth-largest economy is close to being run on zero-carbon electricity. In fact, Germany is giving the rest of the world a lesson in just how much can go wrong when you try to reduce carbon emissions solely by installing lots of wind and solar. > > After years of declines, Germany’s carbon emissions rose slightly in 2015, largely because the country produces much more electricity than it needs. That’s happening because even if there are times when renewables can supply nearly all of the electricity on the grid, the variability of those sources forces Germany to keep other power plants running. And in Germany, which is phasing out its nuclear plants, those other plants primarily burn dirty coal. > > Now the government is about to reboot its energy strategy, known as the Energiewende. It was launched in 2010 in hopes of dramatically increasing the share of the country’s electricity that comes from renewable energy and slashing the country’s overall carbon emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 (see “The Great German Energy Experiment”). What happens next will be critical not only for Germany, but also for other countries trying to learn how to best bring more wind and solar online—especially if they want to do it without relying on nuclear power. > [@](#): > > Some aspects of the Energiewende have been successful: renewable sources accounted for nearly one-third of the electricity consumed in Germany in 2015. The country is now the world’s largest solar market. Germany’s carbon emissions in 2014 were 27 percent lower than 1990 levels. > > However, an expert commission appointed by the country’s minister of economy and energy has said the 40 percent target probably won’t be reached by 2020. And the energy revolution has caused problems of its own. Because fossil-fuel power plants cannot easily ramp down generation in response to excess supply on the grid, on sunny, windy days there is sometimes so much power in the system that the price goes negative—in other words, operators of large plants, most of which run on coal or natural gas, must pay commercial customers to consume electricity. That situation has also arisen recently in Texas and California (see “Texas and California Have Too Much Renewable Energy”) when the generation of solar power has maxed out. > > In hopes of addressing such issues, Germany’s Parliament is expected to soon eliminate the government-set subsidy for renewable energy, known as a feed-in tariff, that has largely fueled the growth in wind and solar. Instead of subsidizing any electricity produced by solar or wind power, the government will set up an auction system. Power producers will bid to build renewable energy projects up to a capacity level set by the government, and the resulting prices paid for power from those plants will be set by the market, rather than government fiat. The article goes on to talk about an auction system as well as the potential for a half a trillion dollar upgrade to Europe’s power grid that might defray some of this, but really the key factor in the short term goes along with the OPs theme…if Germany hadn’t had a knee jerk reaction to nuclear and started down the path to get rid of the things it would have the short and even medium term solution already. Nuclear power plants could be used instead of having to keep coal or other fossil fuel burning plants on standby due to the nature of solar and wind. Instead, they do have to keep those plants running on idle to step in when wind and solar can’t produce the energy needed. To solve this problem they need to get all of Europe on board with a smart grid and probably some sort of energy storage capability to solve a problem they already have the solution for and have had for decades but have decided to turn their backs on…nuclear energy. I don’t see why certain types of left wing eco types fight so hard on this. Nuclear is the clear solution to at least mitigate global warming, and something we can do right now, today, as opposed to trying to patch in an energy source that doesn’t scale and has so many issues with demand and will require reworking our entire grid and how we distribute energy today. Yeah, smart grids and energy storage are going to be great…but they are going to take decades of small, incrimental changes to get there. We aren’t going to gut our current infrastructure and change to them in the next few years or even the next few decades, at least not in the major developed countries with their huge investments in the current grid. Nuclear we can do right now, today, and if you replace coal plants with nuclear and use nuclear to augment your renewables energy scheme we will start getting real benefits in a decade at most…instead of waiting around for a few more decades before, maybe, we have replaced enough of the grid and have changed how we distribute and process energy to, hopefully, make a difference. ---
**Author:** ![Doubticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@Doubticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doubticus)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/25 "2016-12-05T16:38:13Z")
I’m a pro nuclear liberal and would support the construction of more next gen plants. But as others have stated the regulatory requirements for nuclear are super expensive and deregulation wouldn’t be simple, cheap or timely. Given the rather benign impact of solar generation, I believe money would be better spent on building more solar plants and advancing solar technology. Oh what about solar’s intermittent nature, the high cost of battery storage, blah,blah,blah? I think that gravity power storage such as this: [Let Gravity Store the Energy](http://www.powermag.com/let-gravity-store-the-energy/) is the way of the future. No one has been able to explain to me how a float in a storage tank is too high tech and expensive compared to nuclear power. ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/26 "2016-12-05T16:45:00Z")
I’m not actually opposed to building some nuclear power. Especially if we could build small-capacity, flexible nuclear power. But the OP is **way** too pessimistic about the progress we can get with renewable power. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > **Now, take off your political and ideological hats, and just think about this as an engineering problem.** Now **this** I agree should be the core of the discussion. It’s clear that most renewable supporters and renewable support Websites are not engineers and tend to pass over the engineering issues when discussing building renewables. So as an engineer, I too go to those sites and think “oh, those liberal treehuggers”. **But that doesn’t mean what they want can’t be done.** The engineering perspective (limiting the discussion to electricity, and ignoring efficiency…) is that we need to eliminate fossil fuel **generation (not capacity)** as much as possible, as quickly as possible. Keep around all those fossil plants, for use when there’s not enough renewable generation, but make sure to run them as little as possible. That’s the way to quick decarbonization without disruption. The quickest and cheapest way to achieve this is to build more and better solar PV and wind, along with making sure all fossil fuel generation is flexible and improving the grid. At this point in time: - Every kWh of solar or wind electricity that you can generate, can be and must be be a kWh of fossil fuel equivalent you are not burning. - A kWh of solar or wind generation can be installed extremely quickly and cheaply. Utility scale solar and wind these days is sold by generation (kWh), not capacity (kW) and the price per kWh is [lower than any other form of generation](http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/deutsche-bank--us-utility-scale-solar-costs-to-fall-below-1-per-watt_100025468/) (ignore that headline, scroll to last paragraph). Most large solar projects that I read about go from close of financing to full commission in [barely a year](http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/mississippi-and-alabama-approve-utility-scale-solar-projects_100021929/). Also, there is nowhere in the world yet where rooftop solar has reached even close to its full potential. I had rooftop solar installed almost 2 years ago and from offer to installation took less than a month. My city has eliminated all permitting for the appropriate type of rooftop solar. So with good public policy, rooftop solar can be built very quickly and cheaply. In contrast, there’s nowhere in the world today where you can build nuclear power either [cheaply](http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-Hinkley-Point-C-contract-terms-08101401.html) or quickly. Not in [Great Britain](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/15/new-era-of-uk-nuclear-power-as-hinkley-point-finally-gets-go-ahe/). Not in [Finland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Timeline). Not even in [China](http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/safety-03072016114147.html). So **as an engineer** my conclusion is that renewable, in particular solar and wind is the quickest and cheapest way to make progress on decarbonization right now. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/27 "2016-12-05T16:46:23Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > If you look at the German emissions since 1990 there is a huge dip form 1990 to 1999 as East German plants are shut down, then they are level until the Great Recession where there is another large dip, and then steady every since. That is a… peculiar way of describing [this graph](http://www.carbonbrief.org/media/394541/emissions-based-to-ref-year.png) (left side for the percentage drop in emissions), which I referred to in the final [link](https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-showdown-has-the-us-uk-or-germany-done-more-to-cut-emissions) in the quoted post. As plainly shown on that graph, German emissions were not “level” but in fact decreasing overall from 1999 to 2007. Then they dipped sharply in the Great Recession, climbed back up to a bit under 2007 levels, and started dropping again. Note also that the current German emissions are well **under** what it was in 1990, while US emissions are still somewhat above our 1990 benchmark (and have started rising again). Believe me, if increased US climate-change mitigation efforts can get us outperforming Germany on long-term carbon emissions reduction, I will be very happy to acknowledge it. But at present, that’s simply not what’s happening. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/28 "2016-12-05T17:06:14Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I don’t see why certain types of left wing eco types fight so hard on this. Nuclear is the clear solution to at least mitigate global warming, and something we can do right now, today, as opposed to trying to patch in an energy source that doesn’t scale and has so many issues with demand and will require reworking our entire grid and how we distribute energy today. Yeah, smart grids and energy storage are going to be great…but they are going to take decades of small, incrimental changes to get there. We aren’t going to gut our current infrastructure and change to them in the next few years or even the next few decades, at least not in the major developed countries with their huge investments in the current grid. Nuclear we can do right now, today, and if you replace coal plants with nuclear and use nuclear to augment your renewables energy scheme we will start getting real benefits in a decade at most…instead of waiting around for a few more decades before, maybe, we have replaced enough of the grid and have changed how we distribute and process energy to, hopefully, make a difference. Those certain types were not much minded by the Obama administration. In any case I pointed already at the spin the Republicans continue to do, many times I pointed already at legislation regarding climate change that included support for nuclear power. Because the bills were about controlling emissions the Republicans did not lift much of a finger for them, except the middle one, and continue to toss the nuclear baby with the bathwater. IMHO the executive should use the military and turn many of the nuclear missile silos to be converted to use medium or small nuclear plants. The government in my proposal will have the capability to act as a second layer of security, almost independent from the nuclear power industry that will have access to the site. What I think is that if the nuclear plant goes south we should be able to bury the site that is already deep underground and basically forget about it. The location of the small plants would also take care of many security issues that is an added cost to industry. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/29 "2016-12-05T17:12:06Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Clearly the Daily Caller did mislead others, but I can see why you will not deal with that. The Daily Caller didn’t mislead anyone. Hillary did, or at least tried to. > [@](#): > > What does count indeed is what Clinton did put in writing and what the current president was doing. So she lied during the debates. Got it. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/30 "2016-12-05T17:20:18Z")
[QUOTE=technologyreview] Germany is giving the rest of the world a lesson in just how much can go wrong when you try to reduce carbon emissions solely by installing lots of wind and solar. [/QUOTE] Nonsense. There is nothing is wrong in Germany. What is true is you don’t reduce carbon emissions **“solely by installing lots of wind and solar”**. You have to make sure in addition that **both** the fossil **and the renewable** generation is **flexible** , that the grid will handle it, and the dirtiest fossil plants reduce their generation first. 90% generation by renewable? Fantastic! Only 10% generation needed by fossil fuels. Can’t quickly throttle down and load-follow with those ancient, dirty coal plants? Too bad for them. Shut them down. Shut them down now. No, shut them down yesterday. Build better ones, if needed, but small and flexible ones. But you don’t want to? Oh, but that’s politics… ---
**Author:** ![jonesj2205](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecc23a/32.png) [@jonesj2205](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jonesj2205)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/31 "2016-12-05T17:23:47Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > IMHO the executive should use the military and turn many of the nuclear missile silos to be converted to use medium or small nuclear plants. The government in my proposal will have the capability to act as a second layer of security, almost independent from the nuclear power industry that will have access to the site. What I think is that if the nuclear plant goes south we should be able to bury the site that is already deep underground and basically forget about it. The location of the small plants would also take care of many security issues that is an added cost to industry. Are you suggesting turning nuclear silos into small nuclear plants? Because from a size perspective you have to be talking orders of magnitude difference. Not to mention small plants scattered around mean much more infrastructure for transmission wires needing to be built. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/32 "2016-12-05T17:25:27Z")
I’ve always thought the overblown claims of the exaggerated ‘dangers’ of nuclear waste could be simply solved by everyone in favour of nuclear power adopting a bucket of waste and keeping it in their home. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/33 "2016-12-05T17:34:47Z")
> [@Frankenstein\_Monster](#): > > Nonsense. There is nothing is wrong in Germany. > > What is true is you don’t reduce carbon emissions **“solely by installing lots of wind and solar”**. You have to make sure in addition that **both** the fossil **and the renewable** generation is **flexible** , that the grid will handle it, and the dirtiest fossil plants reduce their generation first. > > 90% generation by renewable? Fantastic! Only 10% generation needed by fossil fuels. Can’t quickly throttle down and load-follow with those ancient, dirty coal plants? Too bad for them. Shut them down. Shut them down now. No, shut them down yesterday. Build better ones, if needed, but small and flexible ones. > > But you don’t want to? Oh, but that’s politics… I’m glad you changed the attribution there. 🙂 You do realize that, in Germany today they are also having a similar debate about coal, yes? And that there is going to be a lot of resistance to even building ‘small and flexible ones’, right? And, again, that this could ALSO be solved by, you know, not shutting down current nuclear plants and instead building newer generation plants? You are right, it’s all politics…and that the politics in Germany ARE an issue and one that is causing the problems they are having. They want to get rid of coal and nuclear at the same time without having the hooks in to replace them with a flexible and scalable alternative, and they are setting time tables based on unicorn wishes and dragon dreams. Being an engineer, as you say, should make all of this clear. Your own proposal here, while I think is viable (though I think less so than just accepting nuclear energy) is equally politically unpalatable to the German public, and basically isn’t going to happen. What I predict will happen is that the Germans will simply buy energy from their neighbors instead…energy produced by coal fired or nuclear powered plants. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/34 "2016-12-05T17:38:29Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I agree that nuclear power needs to be emphasized; and I applaud **Mr. Stone** for writing a long post with no snide remarks about misguided liberals or tree-huggers. I didn’t know he was capable of that. This is a warning for personal insults. Do not insult other posters outside the Pit. [/moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/35 "2016-12-05T17:44:20Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > I’ve always thought the overblown claims of the exaggerated ‘dangers’ of nuclear waste could be simply solved by everyone in favour of nuclear power adopting a bucket of waste and keeping it in their home. When I started to respond to this, I didn’t understand how many levels of dumb is contained in this comment. Now I have an estimate. ---
**Author:** ![Doubticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@Doubticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doubticus)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/36 "2016-12-05T17:44:43Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > I’ve always thought the overblown claims of the exaggerated ‘dangers’ of nuclear waste could be simply solved by everyone in favour of nuclear power adopting a bucket of waste and keeping it in their home. Mainly is the issue that the US doesn’t reprocess it’s nuclear fuel rods. Reprocessing would create plutonium. But if we let the government process them and used the plutonium in well regulated breeder reactors we’d have solved most of the waste issues. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/37 "2016-12-05T18:06:51Z")
> [@XT](#): > > What I predict will happen is that the Germans will simply buy energy from their neighbors instead…energy produced by coal fired or nuclear powered plants. AFAIK, although that might be a loophole for the emissions reduction part of Germany’s energy plan, it would run afoul of the energy generation part. That is, I think Germany has set targets for how much of their **total** energy use has to be generated from renewable sources, no matter whether it’s produced domestically or bought from neighbors. Of course, the mere existence of an official target doesn’t guarantee that that target will be met, but it does mean that Germany can’t pretend that “dirty energy” purchased from a neighbor just “doesn’t count” in their environmental accounting. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/38 "2016-12-05T18:13:00Z")
I don’t think nuclear is a practical solution because I don’t see the regulatory climate/political climate changing enough to see big Western nations start rolling out large increases in their reactor fleet. I would also add one advantage of nuclear, if we were ever able to get significantly into roll outs of new reactors in the United States, is the companies that build these plants are usually extant large utility companies, which have a good relationship with the GOP. So nuclear power is something that can help fight climate change that _also isn’t vulnerable to being reversed with Republicans in power_, which is a nice thing. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/39 "2016-12-05T18:14:57Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The Daily Caller didn’t mislead anyone. Hillary did, or at least tried to. What you told us what that we should not trust the democrat, and the Daily Caller pointed at Clinton. It did not bother to mention what she actually had in her site. > [@Shodan](#): > > So she lied during the debates. Got it. Not sure about that. > **[Trump Correctly States U.S. 'Nuclear Program Has Fallen Behind' Russia's](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2016/10/10/trump-correctly-states-u-s-nuclear-program-has-fallen-behind-russias/#5f5e21216530)** > > Though it's more likely that he was talking (incorrectly) about nuclear weapons, Russia's nuclear power program is, in fact, vibrant and building lots of new plants, especially in the international market, in sharp contrast to the U.S. > [@](#): > > There are fact sheets linked within [Clinton advised the public to go to her website regarding her energy policy] that issue that indicate that Clinton favors advanced nuclear energy and would include nuclear power in her challenge grant program. > > Bottom line - neither of the major party candidates seems to have a full grasp of the importance of a solid, balanced clean energy policy that includes healthy support for expanding nuclear energy, but Secretary Clinton’s policy statements are reasonable. > > It would be nice, however, if both candidates could add nuclear energy to their lexicon while being careful to distinguish between “energy” and “weapons” where appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2016, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910/40 "2016-12-05T18:14:58Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **XT** : > > Nuclear power plants could be used instead of having to keep coal or other fossil fuel burning plants on standby due to the nature of solar and wind. Instead, they do have to keep those plants running on idle to step in when wind and solar can’t produce the energy needed. To solve this problem they need to get all of Europe on board with a smart grid and probably some sort of energy storage capability to solve a problem they already have the solution for and have had for decades but have decided to turn their backs on…nuclear energy. While nuclear power certainly has its virtues, from what I understand this isn’t one of them. To cover for shortfalls in wind or solar, you need a generation source that can be quickly and on short notice be ramped up or down. Natural gas and hydro can do this, but it’s my understanding that coal and nuclear can’t. Nuclear is an excellent replacement for coal, but neither is a good complement for wind or solar. Ultimately, though, I think that the real solution to the intermittent supply of wind and solar is on the demand side, not the supply side. There are plenty of things that people use power for that doesn’t need to be completely consistent. HVAC, for instance, you can turn on when the wind is blowing and turn off when it’s not, since it’s only the longer-term averages you’re concerned about there. And plug-in electric cars are typically left unused for significantly longer than the time they need to charge, so you could just turn the charger on and off as needed. And HVAC and transportation are both big chunks of human power consumption. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-and-the-necessity-for-nuclear-power/773910.md?page=3)