A big drama in the UK as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace discover that solar farms occupy plenty of space and cannot decide what is more evil: 7 hectares of nuclear power plant or 298 km2 of solar power plant.
@kravietz that reads more like propaganda than coherent argument, as if land use were the only topic here. Very one-sided.
But not surprising as he is part of this "generation atomic" thing, that is basically a lobby group posing as a "grassroots" organisation, no? ... whilst also working in the nuclear industry.
This kind of communication gives me the feel of PR greenwashing like when oil companies try to rebrand themselves as environmental. Not the whole story.
And yes, land use *is* a huge concern here, especially if you have to cover ~300 ha of land with glass.
@kravietz @nicksellen Hi there! Since I read your debate, I would like to add some thoughts.
1. Rewilding by nuclear power can really be effective. Demonstration sites can be visited in the Ukraine and in Japan.
2. Solar power can be integrated very well into the built environment. There is still a huge potential of space, even if it is more costly than solar farms. And it has the potential of democraticing the energy production and use (please don't start with mini nuclear plants, it is a difference if I get my energy from the sun, or from fission, including handling the waste).
3. If people decide to live with and from nuclear power, I respect that. As long as people who do not trust in this technology get a chance to live in nuclear free zones. And I personally would rather reduce my energy consumption than to live near a nuclear power plant. Besides, the question should not be nuclear vs. regenerative, but how do we want to live on this planet.
> get a chance to live in nuclear free zones
And if you preference is to live in a "nuclear free zone" then you probably chose a wrong place in the universe to live, because the whole Earth - and probably any other planet - is literally bathed in radiation, coming both from the space and from the radioactive elements in the ground. And you should get rid of any solar panels and wind farms in the first place, as their mining releases radioactive elements.
@kravietz @nicksellen You know very well what I meant, free of nuclear power plants and I might add free of nuclear weapons (and of course these two industries are entirely unrelated).
> free of nuclear power plants
This is precisely why I compared it to racism: a fear originating from a misplaced and generalized blame, rationalized using manipulated, biased and cherry-picked data.
Unlike racism, radiophobia leads to choices that are potentially catastrophic for the whole humanity and result in thousands estimated cases of increased mortality as result of increased air pollution.
As of today "green" Germany emits 5.5x more CO2 than "evil nuclear" France.
