this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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The cleanup for fossil fuels is an order of magnitude more expensive, and an order of magnitude more difficult. It also impacts so many things that its true cost is impossible to calculate.
I'm aware of the issues with nuclear, but for a lot of places it's the only low/zero emission tech we can do until we have a serious improvement in batteries.
Very few countries can have a large stable base load of renewable energy. Not every country has the geography for dams (which have their own massive ecological and environmental impacts) or geothermal energy.
Seriously, we need to cut emissions now. So what's the option that anti-nuclear people want? Continue to use fossil fuels and hope battery tech gets good enough, then expand renewables? That will take decades. Probably 30+ years at the minimum.
We’re talking 11 years for 7 “small” reactors. The first decade just to establish a business, but no real difference in the overall picture. How many years, decades after that to make a noticeable difference?
Meanwhile we’re building out more power generation in renewables every year. Renewables are already well developed, can be deployed quickly, and are already scaling up, renewables make a difference NOW.
Right but how about actually addressing the question?
What about base load then. It's all well and good building shit tons of solar panels and wind farms but sometimes you need energy and the sun isn't shining and it isn't windy. What do you do then?
That's why we need base load and I'd rather the base load came from nuclear than from fossil fuels, as I'm sure you would too, but you seem to be anti-nuclear as well, so what do you want?
I'm so sick of you eco warrior types with absolutely no understanding of the problem. It's not as if the internet doesn't exist it's not as if you couldn't educate yourself if you wanted to. People are out here trying to educate you all about it, and you cope by ignoring them.
Base load? Oh you mean the kind of power only the industry needs but wouldn't be able to pay for if it wouldn't be shifted towards the public? Don't try to fool people by just not talking about this little fact.
Solar and small scale power buffering could easily be decentralized for the publics overall power need, including charging and utilizing cars as buffers. A private person isn't "the base load"... but we all pay for "the base load".
Base load err... educate yourself nuclear boy.
Apart from that: Your arguments didn't change, they are still wrong, that's why "we" stopped listening. You reproduce Industry talking points without checking. (e.g. "bAsE loAD") like an angry little LLM.
Who needs the power needs to pay for it. Including the waste. I don't see why I should clean up Google's micro nuclear waste.
This reply is both unintelligible, and unhinged. You also seem to be berating someone for not knowing what baseload is, while simultaneously showing (I think, it’s hard to tell honestly) that you have no idea what it means.
I don't berate. He is right, but again I don't see how the containment of nuclear waste, Google is producing for LLM training for their profits, should be a public concern. Even on a global scale, "base load" is the continuous need of power .... so mostly industries. You don't need Nuclear Power Plants to run street lights and Hospitals, you need them to run steel mills and manufacturing plants.
My point is exactly: Why should the industrial need for reliable power be priced on our bill without a fair share on the profits for society? And this isn't even touching the impossibility of putting a price tag on something that has to be stored for 1000ns of years.
Unhinged? I just replied in the same tone. He didn't even reply to any of my points. Come clear, what's your point?
You need to be on pills.
Base load is the amount of charge that you need in the system to deal with just basic usage. This includes powering your computer so you can post incoherent rents on the internet. Something I assume you think is very important.
Without base load when it's night and not windy all the power goes out, I assume you would think that was inconvenient even though you are not a mega corporation.
Now rather than trying to deflect answer the question how do we supply fundamental power when the sources are renewable are not operating and don't say we can store it in batteries because we can't not at that capacity.
That's not completely wrong but in parts. I can easily buffer solar energy to cover 80% of my energy needs. You have to understand that most of the base load isn't "our" power consumption. It's mostly commercial.
And again. Google training LLMs is not Base-Load and nether deflection. It's the subject of the Article!
Why you continuously talking about AI you're the only one talking about AI here I'm talking about power load in general. And what you can do is irrelevant because you aren't the only human on the earth. Lots of people are not in a position to put solar panels on their roof so their load has to be supplied from the national national grid. Where does that energy come from at night?
Yeah, That's what base load is.
It would be really nice if you could educate yourself a little bit rather than being rude to people on the internet.
You piss others off by being condescending and generalize your answer over the specifics of the post (Google) and then act surprised when someone pisses back?
Okay then I educate you:
Base Load = 70% Industrial Needs 24/7
Base Load = Paid by everyone
Base Load = Reliable Power
Again... you don't need nuclear to run hospitals and street lights.
I never even said "nuclear bad" only: If nuclear, attach the correct price point to it... including waste disposal. Suddenly huge investments on buffering reliable regenerative energy becomes an option... because nuclear is only cheap when everyone carries the cost, because the Industry needs (base load level safety) power.
And for the article: Where steel mills produce jobs, LLM training is killing them. So we all will have to pay for the disposal of nuclear waste produced by a startup nuclear reactors without any participation on the profits. It's not even about Base Load, because Google tries to minimize the strain on "Base Load" by integration of the reactors into the data centers. Still... waste is an issue as with bigger nuclear too. And they won't pay for the disposal.
And you are repeating yourself like: "Base Load" " Educate yourself" without even being able to explain anything... except: Base Load is "Night energy"... WTF? BRO?
Are you even trying? Or is this just another shill/troll post from some "nuclear to the moon" bullshit from Wallstreet bets?