Comment by grafmax
5 months ago
Gas isn’t climate friendly just because of its debatable attractiveness vs coal. And nuclear comes with catastrophic risks that require large costs to mitigate. Let’s not pretend it’s some panacea. Renewables are better than both.
Fun fact: The US achieved more for the climate with fracking gas than Germany did with its "Energiewende".
Do you care to explain more, id be interested :)
In 2005, both the US and Germany had specific emissions of around 600g CO₂/kWh.
In 2015, due mostly to fracking gas, the US was down to around 450g CO₂/kWh.
Germany, with its Energiewende, was at around 560g CO₂/kWh.
Because, of course, the Energiewende was not about climate change. It was about shutting down climate-friendly (CO₂ free) nuclear plants.
Both could have done better. France is currently at something like 32g CO₂/kWh and has been at roughly that level for decades.
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> And nuclear comes with catastrophic risks that require large costs to mitigate
Those are still very low compared to fossil fuels. I mean in hindsight if that was something people cared about 40-50 years ago we'd be in a much better place climate change wise.