With climate change looming, it seems so completely backwards to go back to using it again.

Is it coal miners pushing to keep their jobs? Fear of nuclear power? Is purely politically motivated, or are there genuinely people who believe coal is clean?


Edit, I will admit I was ignorant to the usage of coal nowadays.

Now I’m more depressed than when I posted this

    • Kalash@feddit.ch
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      1 year ago

      It’s renewable the same way as the sun is: Not, but it will last for a really, really long time.

    • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Because the amount of fuel used in a nuclear reactor is exponentially less than fossil fuels.

      There’s enough nuclear material on this planet to power nuclear reactors for tens of thousands of years.

      Nuclear power is clean, efficient, and lasts for essentially ever

      • Admetus@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        It’s close to ‘renewable’ but technically it should be called ‘low carbon fuel’.

      • Swiggles@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        It’s an interesting take. I guess the sun is not renewable either.

        Is any practically infinite (in human scales) source of energy called renewable? I am hearing this for the first time.

        • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I don’t understand this comment.

          How is the sun not renewable?

          Renewable energy means using renewable resources. Meaning things that either replenish themselves within a short enough period or things that produce massive amounts of energy over long periods of time.

          • Swiggles@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            1 year ago

            Because the sun is also a depleting source of energy. I question the definition of renewable that’s all.

            I would have never considered nuclear energy being renewable, but I guess a similar argument could be made.

            • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              The sun will exist for hundreds of thousands of years after humanity has gone extinct. The sun will exist for millions of years before it burns out. Humanity will thrive diminish and die before the sun dies.

              It is by all intents and purposes an infinite resource for a finite species.

              • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                The sun will exist for hundreds of thousands of years after humanity has gone extinct. The sun will exist for millions of years before it burns out.

                Your timescales are off. Even if humanity lasts a very long time, which seems unlikely, the sun will last for billions of years after humanity is gone. In one billion years the sun will have become hotter so that life becomes impossible on Earth. There will be four billion years of a lifeless Earth before the sun expands into a red giant and either swallows up or cooks the Earth. One billion years after that the sun will kick off its outer layers into a nebula and become a white dwarf. At that point it’s not reacting any more so it just gradually cools down over billions more years until it’s just a cool lump.

              • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                Technically speaking, it does not renew itself. It is being slowly depleted. You are right in saying that we can treat it as a renewable source as far as us and our technologies are concerned.

              • Kalash@feddit.ch
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                1 year ago

                I’m quite certain we can manage to stop existing before nuclear fuel runs out as well.

                • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Is lemmy just stupid?

                  Like seriously?

                  The sun is an infinite resource to humanity. This isn’t a debatable fact. Yet I seem to be receiving downvotes despite this.

                  The sun will outlive humanity a million times.

                  We can either harness it’s energy and other sources like it or run out of energy.

                  It seems people just don’t like the word “renewable”

                  That just makes those people stupid.

                  • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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                    1 year ago

                    Is lemmy just stupid?

                    Like seriously?

                    Lemmy at this point is the same as Reddit for quality of discussion.