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.)
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 problem with this concept, is that nuclear plants are built ground up to be a containment vessel. If you can build a core that produces heat, very effectively, and very safely, this is definitely an option. But even the external building of a nuclear reactor is going to be a containment vessel of some kind.
the market sucks at doing anything other than profits for an increasingly small populace
thermal reactor skill issue, just use a fast reactor design.
Btw the mining is vastly less significant to something like coal, oil, and probably even natural gas production. It’s just a fraction of the volume being mined, to produce the same amount of energy.
I did not compare it to oil., coil or natural gas. I am not sure why you are using those as some kind of comparison or justification.
because you literally talked about mining. You mentioned the environmental impact of mining, which is still significantly less, than any other form of extraction. Except for maybe natural gas. Though im not familiar with how that works.
Maybe you weren’t referring to nuclear, but judging by the fact that the literal entire rest of the post refers to nuclear, and you are yelling at me about how you didn’t mention it, im going to assume, for lack of any better context, that you meant mining in regards to nuclear.
I don’t think I understand what you’re trying to say. I’m saying nuclear power requires mining to get the fuel. It’s just one negative point about the power source. I didn’t compare it to any other form of power generation in that regard.
Edit: I should have said “non-renewable form” - I’m listing it as a negative around nuclear because it’s not a (direct) negative in renewables.
i mean even solar panels require mining material. Rare earth materials at that. Wind? Same deal there, hydro? Same deal there. Literally every form of energy production requires extraction processing and refining. Nuclear is arguably one of the least significant contributors, most of it’s primary extraction and processing is very similar to how large buildings and structures are built. The secondary extraction is very minimal. Compared to something like solar where you need continual extraction, processing, and refining, of rare earth materials in order to turn funny photon energy into electrical energy so we can bitch and yell at each other for no reason.
Wind is arguably better than solar, but it has the cool side effect of using fiberglass, particularly in the blades, which is basically landfill from the factory, due to how they wear, and how you can’t really dispose of them.
Of course mining material is a negative, but we can literally leech uranium out of the ground using zero human involvement, while it’s probably not great for the environment itself. That might even be a marked improvement over something like solar, nuclear probably has one of if not the lowest recurring cost of extraction for producing energy.
I’m not sure what the point of mentioning that is unless you legitimately believe that free energy exists. It’s entirely redundant otherwise.
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
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.
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