First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia::ATLANTA — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.

  • mwguy@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    Even at smaller scales, utility-scale solar plants are $1 per watt.

    Solar is being built at 100% speed. We’re utilizing all the solar panel manufacturing capacity in the world building and deploying solar right now. There’s simply not enough rare earth metals to increase production more. Wind, Hydro, Nuclear and Geothermal are all needed of we want to replace coal and LNG power plants.

    • oyo@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      oyo

      You can build entirely new solar supply chains from mining through manufacturing faster than a single new nuclear plant.

      • timkmz@lemy.lol
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        1 year ago

        But solar panels take up a lot more space for the energy they give out than a nuclear plant iirc

        • dlanm2u@sopuli.xyz
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          1 year ago

          i mean if you mix them all together and use land area for geothermal and solar or nuclear and solar you kinda fix the issue because solar’s issue is it takes up space but it can go in the same place as another thing like wind or nuclear or geothermal or hydro but it doesn’t work the other way too well, you can’t have wind efficiently at a nuclear place all the time, nor can you do geothermal at every nuclear plant or hydro

          so tl;dr solar is useful for combined energy sources on already used land areas but otherwise its kinda dumb as a primary energy source so is wind on land for other reasons but if you combined wave or other hydro, wind, and solar all together it’d be great though idk how good that’d be for the ocean cuz you’re occluding sunlight

          its a whole intricate balance tbh

      • doggle@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That probably depends on how well connected and moneyed you are. Though, in fairness, it took nearly 15 years for this reactor to come online.

    • joel_feila@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Speaking of geothermal did you hear about the brrak through in drilling using mocrowaves. It radially speeds up driving

    • schroedingershat@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Monocrystalline solar doesn’t involve rare earths at all, idiot.

      If you want to pearl clutch about them, pearl clutch about gadolinium in nuclear plants.

      • doggle@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They aren’t pearl clutching, they’re stating the obvious fact that humanity is pumping out solar panels as fast as macroeconomic (or perhaps geographic) forces will allow.

        Monocrystalline panels take quite a lot of pure silicon, which may not technically be rare earth, but it is in quite high demand right now.

        • schroedingershat@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          This is even more ridiculous.

          It’s sand. Literally the most abundant element in earth’s crust. And quartz sand isn’t even as particular as construction sand, because only the composition is important, not the shape.

          You’re literally pearl clutching about the scarcity of Silicon as a way of justifying calling it a rare earth.

          The only limitation is manufacturing, and you can build manufacturing and the output faster than you can build a nuclear reactor. You’re also comparing an industry that’s adding >300TWh/yr to one that is adding zero net (and about 20TWh/yr gross) as if the latter is significant and the former is not.

          The insane reaches that nukebros go to to justify their insanity would be comical if it wasn’t so harmful.