170
all 17 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] ersatz@infosec.pub 16 points 6 months ago

This would have been amazing progress twenty years ago.

[-] u_tamtam@programming.dev 13 points 6 months ago
[-] magnetosphere@kbin.social 4 points 6 months ago

I knew France leaned towards nuclear power, but damn

[-] Arcturus@kbin.social 2 points 6 months ago

That's actually shrinking now, it used to be a larger share a decade, two decades ago. Being replaced by renewables.

[-] filoria@lemmy.ml 12 points 6 months ago

Natural gas is a dirty fucking lie. Leaked methane from natural gas extraction and transportation is orders of magnitude worse for the environment than carbon dioxide in the short term (20-year to 100-year horizon).

It's technically better past that, but by that point we'll all be dead or underwater anyway.

[-] CptKrkIsClmbngThMntn@hexbear.net 5 points 6 months ago

It also breaks down to CO2 after, right? A small amount but still.

[-] Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net 10 points 6 months ago

I mean it would have been nice to get this earlier but I'm somewhat impressed.

[-] ShadowRam@kbin.social 9 points 6 months ago
[-] zhunk@beehaw.org 7 points 6 months ago

60% is still a ton of fossil fuels. At least solar and wind are the cheapest sources of electricity, so hopefully that helps speed things up.

[-] pan_troglodytes@programming.dev 3 points 6 months ago
[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 1 points 6 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


But some of the trends now seem locked in for the year: wind and solar are likely to be in a dead heat with coal, and all carbon-emissions-free sources combined will account for roughly 40 percent of US electricity production.

Weather can also play a role, as unusually high demand for heating in the winter months could potentially require that older fossil fuel plants be brought online.

This is in keeping with a general trend of flat-to-declining electricity use as greater efficiency is offsetting factors like population growth and expanding electrification.

Its output has been boosted by a new, 1.1 Gigawatt reactor that come online this year (a second at the same site, Vogtle in Georgia, is set to start commercial production at any moment).

But that's likely to be the end of new nuclear capacity for this decade; the challenge will be keeping existing plants open despite their age and high costs.

The explosive growth of natural gas in the US has been a big environmental win, since it creates the least particulate pollution of all the fossil fuels, as well as the lowest carbon emissions per unit of electricity.


The original article contains 849 words, the summary contains 191 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[-] mino@lemmy.ml -2 points 6 months ago

What I find truly amazing is that they have found a way to produce all the technology required for this system without any emissions!

[-] Nudding@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

It's literally unbelievable!

this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
170 points (96.7% liked)

World News

31452 readers
1272 users here now

News from around the world!

Rules:

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS