I know that this depends on the situation, so I will tell you the situation.
No Nuclear power (yet) but has a plant capable of revival. There are lots of geothermal plants already powering the grid, about 17%. The target is to double the capacity by 2030. With so much focus on Geothermal, making it cheaper, will Nuclear ever make sense? Which is better, considering both environment and energy independence?
Posted Sep 10, 2021, 10:26 AM UTC · edited
You know what, maybe we should worry very much about radiations, especially exposure of the public?
Good thing is, the UN not only has the IPCC working on climate change (which says that nuclear is slightly less emitting than geothermal), but also has United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.
Ain't that great, they have a report on radiation exposure from electricity generation technologies.
Shall we see what they say: "In normal operations, the coal cycle gave a higher collective dose per unit of electricity generated than the nuclear cycle, and a significantly higher dose per unit of electricity produced than the other technologies evaluated, with the exception of geothermal power".
(in case you were wondering what they say about the exposure of the workers: The largest collective dose to workers per unit of electricity generated resulted from coal mining, because of exposures to naturally occurring radionuclides. [...] With regard to the construction phase of the electricity-generating technologies, by far the largest collective dose to workers per unit of electricity generated was found in the solar power cycle, followed by the wind power cycle." )
That being said, obviously geothermal should be a nobrainer for every region blessed with enough capacity.
Which makes ridiculous such oppositions.
United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation
The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) was set up by resolution of the United Nations General Assembly in 1955. 21 states are designated to provide scientists to serve as members of the committee which holds formal meetings (sessions) annually and submits a report to the General Assembly. The organisation has no power to set radiation standards nor to make recommendations in regard to nuclear testing. It was established solely to "define precisely the present exposure of the population of the world to ionizing radiation".
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Good bot.
I find it funny, but well when our version of 'Skynet' is created, at least it will know we treated his retarded ancestors with respect :)
Why isn't Japan using more geothermal? They want clear energy and don't like nuclear very much.
Before they had a lot of nuclear and were planning on expanding, now they had no time to adapt to it. I think they will try to fix nuclear and go back to it, since in Japan earthquakes are a very big deal, and geothermal has a bad reputation regarding that.
They are also afraid of earthquakes destroying atomic power stations. And apparently spa owners don't like geothermal power stations.
Spa owners are possibly idiots, if they want hot water just use the waste heat from the power station, that's a lot of heat.
They also have the IAEA
The environmental impacts definitely depend on the location of the power plants and as for energy Independence, geothermal is better because it relies on the geography of the land not external resources
Also FYI the heat source for geothermal is radioactive decay deep within the earth’s crust, so technically geothermal is nuclear energy.
Overall, they are all nuclear energy.
Solar energy is also nuclear energy. All our energy ultimately stems from atomic energy.
Downsides of nuclear today are huge capital investments required because of on site construction and concrete containment building. With upcoming reactors the need for both would go away. There is no this or that when it comes to carbon free electricity generation. We would need every carbon free source to quickly phase out fossil fuels ASAP. If coal and natural gas could coexist, why can't nuclear and geothermal.
Spot on comment. We need all sources of carbon free energy and with all energy we must make sure that we address recycling or safely dealing with all the waste. We have billions of people and that requires generation of enormous amounts of power and dealing properly with enormous amounts of waste. If we had political leadership with advanced scientific and critical thinking capabilities all this would be addressed and good jobs for everyone would be being created. The brain dead methods of the past need to be swept away and replaced with sophisticated and elegant solutions using creative talent from across the globe. Our global political leadership is literally playing their fiddle while the world is burning.
What he said.
Because solar and wind enthusiasts have an axe to grind. Apparently, they care more about that than curbing climate change.
Solar and wind enthusiasts may be allies with fossil fools
What a shock.
hydro and geothermal generally make more sense where they are available than nuclear. Of course there are ecological considerations to damming rivers but just on the money nuclear really only shines compared to FF with a carbon tax included or solar/wind+storage exclusively. baseload is about 60% though so even at ~35% geothermal there might be plenty of room for some nuclear, not strictly necessary though to decarbonize if you have that much geothermal. Nuclear is a hard sell for emerging economies though. It does require a lot of physical/cultural/educational/institutional infrastructure that is sometimes not a good fit while a country is still industrializing.
True! All solutions need a complete solution with a systems engineering approach that makes protection of the environment a critical requirement. The costs to clean up any mess must be collected at the point if sale as a tax that is based on the true remediation costs as was done for nuclear, except this time the funds must be fenced for remediation cost and must be controlled by an independent board of scientists and engineers that will ensure the clean up is done right by proven expert organizations in the industries involved.
Geothermal is technical a form of nuclear energy. The earth’s core is theorized to be heated by natural radioactive decay and can be thought of as a nuclear reactor
I like to call geothermal "underground atomic"
If you can achieve X without needing Y… what is the reason to have Y?
Because to date the ability to achieve X without Y is really not assured, ie no one has done a fully industrial society with only intermittent renewables. The countries that are heralded as examples all have significant hydro resources. Hydro has significant geological and environmental requirements that make it a non started to replace fossil fuels.
“All have significant hydro resources”
That my friend, is the ability to achieve X without needing Y. If you have the environment to not need nuclear then great. Unfortunately not all countries benefit from that kind of situation.
Again those few countries aren't the problem. They have low populations and they are not big carbon emitters. They also are hardly worth talking about other than to note they will have a very easy time getting to zero carbon emissions. As for the rest of the world they aren't really role models to follow or able to pioneer solutions for the rest of the world.
Yes, those countries aren’t role models you’re right. But the point still stands that if you don’t need nuclear there is no point in going out of your way to get it.
I don't know which country you are referring to.
Iceland has lots of hydro and geothermal, so obviously they don't need nuclear.
But it's location dependent. Not every country can expand hydro and geothermal energy.
For the major industrialized nations of the world (G7 and China), there is no path to zero emissions without nuclear.
The Philippines. We have huge geothermal potential but we are densely populated. I'm not sure if Geothermal is going to be sufficient for the growing economy.
Also, note that the average geothermal heat flux is measured in milliwatts per square meter (much higher some places like Iceland and probably Phillipines, lower in others). What geothermal is tapping is basically a fossil reservoir of heat, built up over thousands and millions of years. It will deplete in less than a century; look at the history of production at The Geysers in California.
That's true for some areas, but not others. Some reservoirs get constantly replenished (Iceland) .
It DOES put a hamper on "just dig a hole anywhere".
As for the Phillipines... no idea. Ring of Fire volcanism in the area?
It does. The official estimates of geothermal potential in the USA is a few handfuls of GW, almost all of it in the West.
Mt. Pinatubo is in the Phillipines.
The Phillipines has quite good Geothermal resources. And the nice thing about geothermal is that it can balance the intermittancy of wind and solar.
I don't know if they have enough to fully decarbonize without nuclear.
Ultimately, it's just math.