Comment by nandomrumber

3 months ago

Since we’re here making comparisons, here’s the USA’s electricity production breakdown:

   22.2% Nuclear
   19.5% Renewable
   31.7% Natural gas
   26.0% Coal
   0.6% Petroleum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States

——

Edit to add: in response to your reply and because I’ve hit my rate limit for replies (this being one of my few favourite things to rant about)…:

It’s actually a much better mix than how I thought I remembered it.

If that’s the US’s plan, it’s a good one.

I just wish the Australian government would get onboard with nuclear, and ditch the renewables for gas. We export as much LNG by volume as Qatar!

5 comments

nandomrumber

Reply
tremon  3 months ago

If that’s the US’s plan, it’s a good one

Wait, why is almost 60% of energy coming from fossil fuels called a good plan? It's close to bottom of the class among first-world countries, but even Poland (50% coal/15% gas/25% renewable) and Australia (45% coal/15% gas/35% renewable) have more renewable power in their mix. Excluding smaller countries like Finland (35% nuclear/25% wind/15% hydro), those looking for a better plan would be advised to copy from the UK's homework instead. Their electricity generation profile for 2024 [0]:

  35% wind
   6% solar
   2% hydro
  16% nuclear
   8% biomass
  30% gas
  <1% coal

And this is for the entire EU [1]:

  17.4% wind
  11.1% solar
  13.2% hydro
  23.7% nuclear
   5.5% biomass
  15.7% gas
   9.8% coal
   3.4% other

[0] https://www.neso.energy/news/britains-electricity-explained-... -- note that the original breakdown includes 14% imports, I recalculated the percentages to exclude those (most imports come from France, whose mix is 70% nuclear/25% renewable/5% gas)

[1] https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/european-electricit...

  • nandomrumber  3 months ago

    Do you mind if some people have an opinion that differs from yours?

    Show the price per kWh for preferred options.

    Everywhere renewables go, unreliable expensive electricity follows.

    I don’t like renewable electricity because I prefer when the low income earners aren’t forced to freeze in the dark.

alecco  3 months ago

Thanks for the info. That does look like a much better composition and obviously less CO2 for same energy. I've heard the US government plan is to do gas generation aggressively for next few years to bridge untile they get all the new nuclear power plants online.

And never mind a modern power grid vs an old one causing waste of 15-16%.

zahlman  3 months ago

The article you linked is about overall energy use, so it doesn't clearly support your numbers.

But I'm actually shocked that the US is generating that much nuclear electricity. It always comes across as mired in impossible amounts of red tape.