• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Nuclear power is the ONLY form of clean energy that can be scaled up in time to save us from the worst of climate change.

    Long term nuclear is great…

    But building new plants uses a shit ton of concrete. So we’re paying the carbon cost up front, and it can take years or even decades to break even.

    So we can’t just spam build nuke plants right now to fix everything.

    30 years ago that would have worked.

    • Ertebolle@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      But building new plants uses a shit ton of concrete. So we’re paying the carbon cost up front, and it can take years or even decades to break even.

      That’s not remotely on the same scale, carbon-wise. Global output is like 4 billion tons of concrete per year, a nuclear plant uses like 12 tons per megawatt; an all-in nuclear buildout would use a tiny, tiny fraction of global concrete production and the carbon costs aren’t even remotely equivalent.

      (also, wind power uses way, way more concrete)