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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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Given the financial cost of this type of energy source compared to other low emission energy sources, I am yet to find a defense of Nuclear as a feasible strategy for lowering CO2 emissions that comes across as based, good faith argument by someone with true concern about the issue, rather than an attempt at subverting the discussion around energy transition.

OK I'll bite. There is a huge difference in used land area used when compared between the same amount of power generated between wind power when compared with nuclear power. Because when you calculate in the Capacity Factor (and actually look further down on the actual combined capacity of wind compared with nuclear you see the difference is 3x). I'll give you the initial number 1000 MW of power from a nuclear power plant and the average size of wind power plant of 3 MW. How many turbines do you need to get the same amount of power when you have the Capacity Factor in the calculation? I'm not going to run the numbers for you! You need to calculate them yourself to understand the argument. You need educate yourself on how much forests are cut to avoid wind shear on the turbine blades, to have maintenance roads and so on. And how that deforestation affects the fauna around the turbines. There are cost calculations on the displacements of humans but seldomly I see a monetary value associated with the environmental costs of displacement of wildlife. I crunched the numbers and I think that the environmental costs of just the land use with what I know about wind power made me pro nuclear.