Watching the Tour in Spain the other day, they showed an old, still functioning nuclear plant. I’d be concerned about that thing even if it was a steel factory….50s technology.
So we are in the ludicrous position where nations refuse to build new nuclear plants with much improved safety systems, but continue to run these old plants built just after nuclear power was discovered.
To put this in context here is an informative little excerpt on power use post Covid:
‘ Coal accounted for over 40% of the overall growth in global CO2 emissions in 2021, reaching an all-time high of 15.3 billion tonnes. CO2 emissions from natural gas rebounded well above their 2019 levels to 7.5 billion tonnes. At 10.7 billion tonnes, CO2 emissions from oil remained significantly below pre-pandemic levels because of the limited recovery in global transport activity in 2021, mainly in the aviation sector.’
…….. .. . ..
We are at about 35 billion tons of CO2 emissions, nearly half of which is from coal, which is still growing. There is a huge opportunity to reduce emissions, the simplest way forward, replacing coal with nuclear.
Approximately half of coal use is for electricity, which means roughly a quarter of the 35 billion tons comes from coal used to provide electricity. Nuclear is the best CO2 performer for electricity after hydro.
If global warming is a threat, as the liberals assert, replace coal and for that matter oil in every new power plant. And we would be far better off replacing existing plants with nuclear, rather than legislating electric cars. Money spent with a much bigger CO2 payoff.
The only two caveats should be all safety systems on existing plants should be upgraded and nuclear plants should not be built in geologically unstable areas.
And the other big opportunity is replacing oil with natural gas, which also preserves crude for it’s crucial materials role.