With Daylight Savings once again coming up, it never fails for it to spark discussions about its purpose in modern times. People hate it widely while few seem to be okay with it and depending where you live, others don’t even know what the deal is.
Politicians have actually put it on the docket to be voted on, but seems to have lost traction. Quite frankly, this is an issue that should be done and over with. Just end it, but please end it when we have the clocks dialed back than forward, because I wouldn’t like time going faster than it already is.
You can mostly solve the solar issue by building more solar, it generates power in virtually any weather, maybe less but then you just build more to account for it. And when it’s not sunny it’s normally windy.
Also grids normally span multiple areas, you don’t build all your solar in the same spot, you spread it around so it’s sunny somewhere.
Batteries or even pumped hydro also solve the problem of power being generated at a different time than needed.
Outside of the US, solar capacity is being added at speed because it has become so cheap.
Yeah, solar IS fantastic, but as someone who lives in northern Europe, when we need stable power, in the winter, there is very little sun.
I realize that I am probably projecting our climate onto the entire nuclear question world wide, and that is unfair.
I just want us to shut down fossil plants as soon as possible, while maintaining a supply for baseload, and the way I read it, the grid isn’t ready for dispersed power generation yet, and while solar is very cheap, it isn’t yet able to deal with a baseload in northern europe.
There is also a geopolitical question here, the vast majority of solar panels and wind powerplant components are made in China, until we can produce our own panels and components of similar quality/cost we are in a quite vulnerable position if we become dependant on China for everything needed for power generation.
Nuclear obviously have similar issues, but seems less so as Europe has the capability of building our own reactors, and the cost is less of an issue due to longer lifetimes.
Eh, I freely admit that I am quite tired of the anti nuclear crowd who for decades has been against nuclear power out of fear and not reason, and thus prevented closure of fossil plants earlier.
China alone is pushing the world into the renewables age. For the rest of us, we just follow the wave.
Nuclear does not have similar issues. Nuclear is a super long game that basically leaves a few states left to explore and invest in this area. Nuclear power is basically a bespoke option that needs to be developed like an art piece and an investment. Any nuclear power installation requires massive budgets, massive budget overruns, and over 10 years of development and installation which will overrun as well. By the time a nuclear project breaks ground, only the next generation will possibly enjoy whatever power is generated.
Nuclear also requires massive investments of teams of specialists. They basically need teams to operate over huge periods of time to retain the institutional knowledge of building, maintaining, and improving upon these installations. In that sense nuclear is similar to rail companies in that we want teams with over 100 years of experience in this business to maintain a certain level of competence.
Nuclear is fun to drop like in SimCity or Civilzation, but it is completely, seriously inaccessible for many.