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In reply to the discussion: Georgia nuclear plant's cost now forecast to top $30 billion [View all]hunter
(38,311 posts)It's almost impossible for any affluent person in North America to avoid that.
And there's no reason rural electrification "in the middle of Africa" can't occur in the same manner as it did in the U.S.A.. Typically these rural electric systems were powered by large hydroelectric projects and coal. The scope of those power projects then was similar to that of nuclear power now. Building dams in the Columbia River basin, for example, was not a trivial engineering project. My mom's rural grandparents got electricity from that.
A simple connection to an electric grid powered by small modular reactors requires nothing more of the consumer than the aluminum wires connecting their home to the power plant. Even the distribution transformers can be constructed of aluminum wires on iron cores. These materials are all readily available and easily recycled when it comes time to replace them.
Such a power system has a much smaller environmental footprint than any solar/wind/battery/diesel system. It can supply anything from urban apartments and factories to large farms and ranches.
I used to oppose nuclear power because it works. I didn't think it was a good idea to further expand our high energy industrial economy. I was sort of hoping Peak Oil would reduce carbon emissions and dampen some of the excesses of our consumer lifestyles. Maybe we could all live in a renewable energy utopia. Unfortunately I couldn't make the math work for eight billion people and then it became apparent there was enough natural gas in the ground to destroy what's left of the natural world as we know it.
In many ways wind and solar energy are the best thing that ever happened to the natural gas industry, and they know it. That's why you see wind turbines in Texas, that's why they built gas pipelines from Russia to Germany.
At the end of the day nuclear power is as much a threat to the renewable energy industry as it is to the fossil fuel industry. If I have a safe, reliable, and affordable supply of nuclear energy I don't need solar panels on my roof and I don't need natural gas. I can cook my food with electricity, I can heat the water for my shower with electricity. If I have a modern urban lifestyle my home will require minimal amounts of electricity for heating and cooling and I won't need to own a car, electric or not. That could be true any peaceful place anywhere on earth and is already everyday reality in some places.
At the moment 16% of my electricity is from natural gas and 9% is nuclear. 62% of my electricity is renewable. That's California. The gas input never goes away. It goes up substantially when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. And a few gas plants are always kept hot in reserve should wind or solar resources drop out suddenly, which they frequently do because they are dependent on the weather. I don't have any solar panels on my roof and don't regard that as any kind of ethical failure. The less stuff I have the better. Keep it simple.
When my wife and I were young we owned a house with a 20 amp 120 volt electric service. That was about as simple as it got. The electric service was an old fashioned switch box with a replaceable 20 amp glass fuse in an Edison socket. I sort of miss that. Coming from a land of 200 amp 240 volt electric service we did blow a few fuses before we got used to it.