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Nuclear Reactors - Not CO2 - Are The Likely Cause of "Global Warming/ Climate Change"

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posted on May, 26 2021 @ 01:06 PM
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Or its something simple like the Grand Solar Minium



posted on May, 26 2021 @ 01:07 PM
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originally posted by: 5StarOracle
Interesting stuff and I do believe nuclear reactors are a major contributor to climate change...
But the reality is nothing is playing a larger role than the troubled state of the oceans...
The health of the Oceans is the key to turning things around...
Not sure why not much is said about the Ocean when it’s the most important factor...
The culprit? Micro Plastics...
Unfortunately the time is very short to act on this by 2050 it will be too late...
Or at least next to impossible because the Oceans will be virtually void of life...


I agree, micro plastics are very harmful and certainly they have an impact.

But I don't think we should ignore the effects that significant excess heat from nuclear reactors can have on the oceans and overall water cycle as well. The "greenies" are pushing for more nuclear reactors - and Small Modular Reactors at that. They will need a water source as well for pushing the turbines and cooling. They are very likely to be just as inefficient as the nuclear reactors we use now in terms of waste heat. So we are still in the same position again. Clean water or not - the heat can still offset a fragile water cycle.

Meanwhile we still approach the "problem" of CO2 with a marxian approach via Agenda 2030.



posted on May, 26 2021 @ 01:10 PM
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originally posted by: unwokebutawake
Or its something simple like the Grand Solar Minium


As I believe I have mentioned in previous posts. If it's not man made, it certainly is the sun. Heck it could be both!

That said, I am all for cleaning up the planet. But reasonably and logically. I do not support Agenda 2030 - it's full on lunacy and will likely do absolutely nothing for the environment other than usher in global tyranny.



posted on May, 26 2021 @ 01:34 PM
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originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck
I've heard that water vapor is the number one greenhouse "gas", although technically it's not a gas. Water holds a lot of heat in liquid or vapor form.

One of the posters mentioned the heat captured in the asphalt jungles that drives up the temperature in urban areas. Apparently many weather stations are situated in these over heated environments and are inflating the regional averages thus contributing to global warming data. There are efforts to green up city roof tops, but that's an expensive idea that can't be good for a flat roof on an old multi-story building, could be a fire hazard as well.

Plants of all kinds are good at making O2 from CO2. Algae is really good at it and grasslands aren't too far behind forests for sequestering carbon. So let your lawn grow tall, let moss cover your roof and let your pool get green and slimy to help erase your carbon foot print. Maybe stop brushing your teeth until they turn green too.


Not sure how water vapor is not a gas. i doubt it's helpful for discourse if we start making up our own version of science here. I mean, you can if you want to, but don't expect to go anywhere with it.

There are 4 states of matter: Gas, liquid, solid, plasma. Pick one?


Also, I do not see how greening a city alone will off set decades of significant non-fossil fuel sourced heat produced by hundreds of nuclear reactors worldwide and continually doing so. I'm not against it - but I don't think it would address the issue I am presenting. I think the only solution to the issue I am presenting is focusing on turning off the reactors, go back to fossil fuels and keep plant-life happy and healthy in as many areas around the globe as possible.

MY BIG POINT - the heat created by nuclear reactors is SIGNIFICANTLY different than the heat produced by the energy released from fossil fuels. That heat has never been seen on this planet before (nuclear explosions included). I believe that alone is what tips the scale for nature to try and balance itself. To focus on CO2 as the item that tips the scale is ridiculous as that IS part of a natural, self-correcting system...so long as we have all the parts (plant life to convert to O2) available. Clear cutting old growth forests, continually poorly managing forests causing intense wildfires and then blaming humans because CO2 is simply a RUSE for more top down control, as has been laid out in UN Agenda 2030.

I am not claiming that nuclear power plants alone are a sole cause of climate change - but I really do not buy the CO2 BS that is being spewed. It just seems to gimmick related to global taxes. Easy for idiot politicians to sell. Easy for the average person to buy.

I guess I'd side with Edward Snowden on this - the most complicated and unsexy conspiracies are usually the real ones. I'd say this is pretty unsexy and very complicated, to say the least.



posted on May, 26 2021 @ 02:27 PM
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originally posted by: buddha
So they have the next thing up from nuclear reactors.
less heat? um no!
Mast Upgrade: UK experiment could sweep aside fusion hurdle
"Initial results from a UK experiment could help clear a hurdle to achieving commercial power based on nuclear fusion, experts say.
The researchers believe they now have a way to remove the excess heat produced by fusion reactions."

its the heat of a small star, all the time!


Yeah, therein lies the problem. The incredible heat produced is a by-product we have to deal with. And again, not only is it just a tremendous amount of heat, it's a heat that has NEVER been on this planet before. So, rolling down the windows and letting the heat out IS still a huge error. Same dung, different pile kind of thing.

Just one small point to make here, that is a fusion (fusing the atoms together) reactor they are talking about, which is very much experimental. All active nuclear reactors are fission (splitting atoms apart). Either way, both make massive amounts of heat.

I could see a great use for fusion reactors in space, if and when we can make them small enough to launch off planet. Or perhaps they get built in space. Either way, at that point, if it's out of our atmosphere, we don't have much to worry about.



posted on May, 26 2021 @ 02:49 PM
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originally posted by: Sparkymedic

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: AutomateThis1
a reply to: Gothmog

I'd like to add another point.

5) Learn that fuel doesn't come from fossils.

Agreed .
And there has been some research that "fossil" fuels may well be replenishing between the crust and the mantle. It actually oozes up from below.


Would love to see that research. Care to share?

Abiotic oil.
US News



posted on May, 26 2021 @ 03:52 PM
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originally posted by: butcherguy

originally posted by: Sparkymedic

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: AutomateThis1
a reply to: Gothmog

I'd like to add another point.

5) Learn that fuel doesn't come from fossils.

Agreed .
And there has been some research that "fossil" fuels may well be replenishing between the crust and the mantle. It actually oozes up from below.


Would love to see that research. Care to share?

Abiotic oil.
US News


That site has a cookie wall.



posted on May, 26 2021 @ 06:56 PM
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originally posted by: mc_squared

originally posted by: Sparkymedic
To begin, we have to understand and agree that CO2 is a self correcting system.


. . . But you see that other signal - the one going drastically up year over year instead of up and down? That's what it looks like when you take something nature spent millions of years burying away and release it in just a few decades.

Nature can't keep up.


Yes, the big flaw in this theory.

True, the sun heated up the atmosphere eons ago when the plants that formed coal, oil and gas were growing. These plants removed ancient carbon from the air and stored it away underground. These plants also used a lot of solar radiation to fix the carbon, but that was solar heat it absorbed millions of years ago. Now we are adding that back as heat and CO2 into our current atmosphere. The extra CO2 is causing the Earth to retain heat from the sun and from what we generate.



posted on May, 26 2021 @ 07:07 PM
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a reply to: Sparkymedic


Vapor is a gas and liquid mixture. Indeed, matter exists in that phase and may contain the same number of molecules as a liquid. It is formed as a result of change and can even undergo further alterations. When something exists in this nature, it is regarded as a multiphasic substance. Well, that substance is said to have the same structure as gas.


Difference Between Gas and Vapor

You must think that gasoline fumes are a gas and not a vapor.



posted on May, 26 2021 @ 08:34 PM
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originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck
a reply to: Sparkymedic


Vapor is a gas and liquid mixture. Indeed, matter exists in that phase and may contain the same number of molecules as a liquid. It is formed as a result of change and can even undergo further alterations. When something exists in this nature, it is regarded as a multiphasic substance. Well, that substance is said to have the same structure as gas.


Difference Between Gas and Vapor

You must think that gasoline fumes are a gas and not a vapor.
That source is poor, but even so, it says this:


steam exhibits the properties of a gas when it is still hot


Water vapor doesn't just exhibit properties of a gas, it IS a gas, until it's not. When you take a cold glass out of the refrigerator, the condensation on the glass is water that condensed from the gaseous water vapor in the air. Clouds usually form by a condensation process, so clouds are not water vapor, they have some tiny water droplets in them. But no clouds in the sky? The air has water vapor and it is a gas.

Here is a better source, from a The University of Illinois:
Water existing as a gas is called water vapor.

If the source you posted leads you to believe water vapor is not a gas, I suggest you trash it and find better sources. I'm not sure that's what it really says though, given the comments about steam. At best I think it's confusing, and you seem confused.


edit on 2021526 by Arbitrageur because: clarification



posted on May, 26 2021 @ 08:44 PM
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originally posted by: Sparkymedic
Absolutely that plays a part.

So, what do you want to do about that?

I'm more interested in realistic/ pragmatic solutions.
I thought energy secretary Chu's suggestion to use white roof tiles or put white coating on your roof was very simple and pragmatic, and by the way, I have white colored shingles on my roof, they don't cost any more and all else being equal, they seem to last longer because they don't get as hot.

How much can a white roof help reflect heat?


A white (or at least light-colored) roof provides two benefits. The first is reduced air conditioning costs, which can drop 15 to 20 percent. The second benefit is more cosmic. A lighter-colored roof will reflect as much as 80 percent of the solar radiation that hits your house back into space. This increases the albedo (reflectivity) of the planet, which could help reduce global warming-surely a worthwhile goal for any home improvement project.



Turning off nuclear power plants and focusing on fossil fuels AND reforestation I think are pretty manageable goals as opposed to...I dunno....seems like you could write your own thread about how you might want to find realistic ways to cool cities?

In 2019, the cumulative capacity of nuclear power plants in operation worldwide reached approximately 392.1 gigawatts.
Normally I use scientific notation, but the OP says he's not a scientist, so for that reason I will write out the numbers to see how big they really are.

392.1 Gigawatts is 392,100,000,000 watts

Now let's look at the amount of energy Earth receives from the sun:

Calculating Planetary Energy Balance & Temperature

we find that our planet intercepts about 174 petawatts of sunlight... quite a lot of energy!

174 petawatts is 174,000,000,000,000,000 Watts.

So to see how much power generated from nuclear power plants is as a percent of the total energy from the sun divide one by the other.

392,100,000,000 watts/174,000,000,000,000,000 Watts = .00000225

Now, that's not the total energy added by Nuclear plants. Thermal efficiency of nuclear power plants is about 33% so total heat is three times that much:

.00000225 x 3 = .00000675

So that's a tiny fraction of Earth's incoming heat budget. To look at it another way, the incoming energy from the sun is about 150,000 times greater.

So, the CO2 and other greenhouse gases either trapping or not trapping heat is dealing with a base amount of energy that's about 150,000 times larger.

That doesn't mean that turning nuclear power plants off won't make a small difference, but just that the heat they generate is a very small fraction of the Earth's energy balance.

But what are you going to replace them with when you turn them off? Coal burning plants are still going to generate a lot of excess heat, their thermal efficiency is somewhat higher, but the pollution from burning coal will kill many more people than nuclear power plants. Coal burning plants produce more deaths and more radiation than nuclear plants (barring any accidents).

www.scientificamerican.com...


the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.


I could dispute some of the figures in this video, but, I have to agree with their point that coal plants will kill many more people than nuclear plants:



edit on 2021526 by Arbitrageur because: clarification



posted on May, 26 2021 @ 09:01 PM
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a reply to: Sparkymedic

I am fairly sure that nuclear fuels, nuclear detonations, and the processing required in their use contributes something towards global warming, however that is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the 2,400,000,000,000 tons of carbon emitted from 1850 to 2019.

Also, the natural carbon cycle keeps most of the carbon sequestered in biomass, it doesn't release most of it into the atmosphere, like when you burn it.

In the case of marine organisms, when they bind carbon and die, they sink to the bottom and concentrate carbon sequestered safely under the seas. 2/3rd of the Earth's surface is water, so there is a lot of carbon sequestering going on there. The Earth's atmosphere is usually very balanced without the human burning of fuels and so burning of carbon fuels, especially in the amounts that we do, upsets that.

edit on 26/5/2021 by chr0naut because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 26 2021 @ 11:38 PM
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Water vapor is, indeed a very powerful greenhouse gas. However its concentration in the atmosphere is dependent upon temperature. The warmer it is, the more water vapor the atmosphere can hold. CO2 concentrations are not temperature dependent.

Rising concentrations of CO2 will result in an increase in temperatures due to increased radiative forcing. This increase in temperatures will lead to greater amounts of water vapor which will lead to further warming. It is a positive feedback loop. One of several which are initiated by the increase in CO2 concentrations (changes in Arctic albedo would be another).

The heat contributed to the system by nuclear power plants is utterly insignificant when compared to that which comes from the Sun. But, since radiative forcing is increasing (due to increases in greenhouse gasses), less of even that insignificant amount of heat can escape the system.

When heat is retained temperatures rise. When temperatures rise climates change.

edit on 5/26/2021 by Phage because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 26 2021 @ 11:47 PM
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a reply to: Sparkymedic




If it's not man made, it certainly is the sun. Heck it could be both!

Is the Sun sending more radiation our way?



posted on May, 27 2021 @ 07:52 AM
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originally posted by: Phage
Water vapor is, indeed a very powerful greenhouse gas. However its concentration in the atmosphere is dependent upon temperature. The warmer it is, the more water vapor the atmosphere can hold. CO2 concentrations are not temperature dependent.

Rising concentrations of CO2 will result in an increase in temperatures due to increased radiative forcing. This increase in temperatures will lead to greater amounts of water vapor which will lead to further warming. It is a positive feedback loop. One of several which are initiated by the increase in CO2 concentrations (changes in Arctic albedo would be another).

The heat contributed to the system by nuclear power plants is utterly insignificant when compared to that which comes from the Sun. But, since radiative forcing is increasing (due to increases in greenhouse gasses), less of even that insignificant amount of heat can escape the system.

When heat is retained temperatures rise. When temperatures rise climates change.


I agree with some of what you said.

How do you know the heat contributed by power plants, which is new heat that has never been seen on this planet, is utterly insignificant?

If H2O is the most abundant greenhouse gas, and the new heat from nuclear reactors increases the temp of the water in the water cycle (would love to know how it doesn't), thereby increasing the heat in the atmosphere due to more water in the atmosphere (heat rises) then would that not in and of itself contribute to the heating of the planet?



posted on May, 27 2021 @ 07:53 AM
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originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Sparkymedic




If it's not man made, it certainly is the sun. Heck it could be both!

Is the Sun sending more radiation our way?


depends on the sun's cycle. At the end of the day though - I doubt we would see massive fluctuations in earths temperature from the suns cycles, but who knows. We've not been recording the earths climate for very long.



posted on May, 27 2021 @ 08:00 AM
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originally posted by: butcherguy

originally posted by: Sparkymedic

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: AutomateThis1
a reply to: Gothmog

I'd like to add another point.

5) Learn that fuel doesn't come from fossils.

Agreed .
And there has been some research that "fossil" fuels may well be replenishing between the crust and the mantle. It actually oozes up from below.


Would love to see that research. Care to share?

Abiotic oil.
US News


Very interesting. Still just a theory and doesn't really offer an alternative as to where or how that oil is produced/ replicated. But something to consider for sure. Thanks for sharing!



posted on May, 27 2021 @ 08:02 AM
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originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: Sparkymedic

I am fairly sure that nuclear fuels, nuclear detonations, and the processing required in their use contributes something towards global warming, however that is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the 2,400,000,000,000 tons of carbon emitted from 1850 to 2019.

Also, the natural carbon cycle keeps most of the carbon sequestered in biomass, it doesn't release most of it into the atmosphere, like when you burn it.

In the case of marine organisms, when they bind carbon and die, they sink to the bottom and concentrate carbon sequestered safely under the seas. 2/3rd of the Earth's surface is water, so there is a lot of carbon sequestering going on there. The Earth's atmosphere is usually very balanced without the human burning of fuels and so burning of carbon fuels, especially in the amounts that we do, upsets that.


How much of that carbon dioxide was absorbed by plant life and converted to oxygen?



posted on May, 27 2021 @ 08:33 AM
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originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: Sparkymedic
Absolutely that plays a part.

So, what do you want to do about that?

I'm more interested in realistic/ pragmatic solutions.
I thought energy secretary Chu's suggestion to use white roof tiles or put white coating on your roof was very simple and pragmatic, and by the way, I have white colored shingles on my roof, they don't cost any more and all else being equal, they seem to last longer because they don't get as hot.

How much can a white roof help reflect heat?


A white (or at least light-colored) roof provides two benefits. The first is reduced air conditioning costs, which can drop 15 to 20 percent. The second benefit is more cosmic. A lighter-colored roof will reflect as much as 80 percent of the solar radiation that hits your house back into space. This increases the albedo (reflectivity) of the planet, which could help reduce global warming-surely a worthwhile goal for any home improvement project.



Turning off nuclear power plants and focusing on fossil fuels AND reforestation I think are pretty manageable goals as opposed to...I dunno....seems like you could write your own thread about how you might want to find realistic ways to cool cities?

In 2019, the cumulative capacity of nuclear power plants in operation worldwide reached approximately 392.1 gigawatts.
Normally I use scientific notation, but the OP says he's not a scientist, so for that reason I will write out the numbers to see how big they really are.

392.1 Gigawatts is 392,100,000,000 watts

Now let's look at the amount of energy Earth receives from the sun:

Calculating Planetary Energy Balance & Temperature

we find that our planet intercepts about 174 petawatts of sunlight... quite a lot of energy!

174 petawatts is 174,000,000,000,000,000 Watts.

So to see how much power generated from nuclear power plants is as a percent of the total energy from the sun divide one by the other.

392,100,000,000 watts/174,000,000,000,000,000 Watts = .00000225

Now, that's not the total energy added by Nuclear plants. Thermal efficiency of nuclear power plants is about 33% so total heat is three times that much:

.00000225 x 3 = .00000675

So that's a tiny fraction of Earth's incoming heat budget. To look at it another way, the incoming energy from the sun is about 150,000 times greater.

So, the CO2 and other greenhouse gases either trapping or not trapping heat is dealing with a base amount of energy that's about 150,000 times larger.

That doesn't mean that turning nuclear power plants off won't make a small difference, but just that the heat they generate is a very small fraction of the Earth's energy balance.

But what are you going to replace them with when you turn them off? Coal burning plants are still going to generate a lot of excess heat, their thermal efficiency is somewhat higher, but the pollution from burning coal will kill many more people than nuclear power plants. Coal burning plants produce more deaths and more radiation than nuclear plants (barring any accidents).

www.scientificamerican.com...


the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.


I could dispute some of the figures in this video, but, I have to agree with their point that coal plants will kill many more people than nuclear plants:





I appreciate the effort in replying, so thank you for that.

White roof's are a great idea! Seems pretty easy to do over time - but I thought time was of the essence on this topic?

I agree, the sun is the sun - it will always be THE source of the earths heat. I will never deny that.

But when you say the GHG's are trapping the heat, would you not consider H2O as the main GHG doing so? And what if we add a completely new source of heat to the water cycle, likely putting just that much more water into the atmosphere (heat rises). How much heat/ water in the atmosphere is required to tip the scales? I don't know the answer to that, but I would imagine not much.

Nuclear fission does not naturally happen, at least not very commonly - the only natural fission reactor on earth is estimated to barely have produced 100kW for a few hundred thousand years, approximately 1.7 billion years ago - I would consider this to be insignificant. Nor did it emit to the atmosphere, that we know of - so moot point.

So, if nuclear reactors, which mainly heat water and put it back into the water cycle (H2O, the most abundant GHG) for power generation and cooling purposes, would that completely new source of heat not have any contribution to adding more of the most abundant GHG to the atmosphere?

I don't know the answer on this, but do you know how much heat it will take to push the water cycle out of balance?

I guess this is my main point. I really think focusing on CO2 is simply asking the wrong question about a common problem. Therefore, we are naturally going to get the wrong answers, thinking they are the right answers.

That video was just pure cringe BTW (could the presenters get more of an inflection with every word they said?) - again, focusing on the wrong question of CO2 and not addressing the NEW HEAT produced by the nuclear power plants and only focusing on "yay no CO2", therefore not giving much insight in terms of this conversation.
edit on thpamThu, 27 May 2021 08:55:27 -0500k2105America/Chicago2755 by Sparkymedic because: other thoughts.



posted on May, 27 2021 @ 11:35 AM
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originally posted by: Sparkymedic
I appreciate the effort in replying, so thank you for that.

White roof's are a great idea! Seems pretty easy to do over time - but I thought time was of the essence on this topic?
There are no easy solutions that can be done immediately that I know of. Locking everything down for COVID certainly reduced CO2 emissions temporarily, but it's not sustainable, we need the economy.


I agree, the sun is the sun - it will always be THE source of the earths heat. I will never deny that.

But when you say the GHG's are trapping the heat, would you not consider H2O as the main GHG doing so? And what if we add a completely new source of heat to the water cycle, likely putting just that much more water into the atmosphere (heat rises). How much heat/ water in the atmosphere is required to tip the scales? I don't know the answer to that, but I would imagine not much.
You didn't answer my question, so that would be a polite thing to do if you want me to answer yours. You talked about shutting down nuclear plants. I asked what you would replace the nuclear plants with if you shut them down, and I don't see where you answered that. If nothing, someone will be going without electricity. If coal or gas-fired plants, they also generate heat, and of course they add to the CO2.


Nuclear fission does not naturally happen, at least not very commonly - the only natural fission reactor on earth is estimated to barely have produced 100kW for a few hundred thousand years, approximately 1.7 billion years ago - I would consider this to be insignificant. Nor did it emit to the atmosphere, that we know of - so moot point.
Radioactive decay happens naturally, Earth would be an iceball if it didn't add heat. But the way we refine uranium and generate heat with it speeds up the process, so yes we are adding heat, but again, how is that any different than a coal plant? We burn a lot more coal than burns naturally too. Why the focus on nuclear, and not worry about any process of generating electricity that adds heat then, like coal-fired plants, gas-fired plants? If you want to shut down every electric plant that adds more heat than naturally occurs it seems you'd also have to shut down coal and natural gas plants too.


So, if nuclear reactors, which mainly heat water and put it back into the water cycle (H2O, the most abundant GHG) for power generation and cooling purposes, would that completely new source of heat not have any contribution to adding more of the most abundant GHG to the atmosphere?

I don't know the answer on this, but do you know how much heat it will take to push the water cycle out of balance?
Regardless of what the answer to that is, why is this a nuclear plant question? Coal and natural gas plants also add heat. Replacing nuclear with coal or gas is not going to stop adding heat.


I guess this is my main point. I really think focusing on CO2 is simply asking the wrong question about a common problem. Therefore, we are naturally going to get the wrong answers, thinking they are the right answers.
Your main point makes no sense to me for the reason I just explained. Even if you forget about CO2 completely, changing from nuclear to coal or gas plants doesn't stop adding heat, they all add heat. And if CO2 does have an effect which it apparently does, then you've got that added to the heat you're so concerned about.


That video was just pure cringe BTW (could the presenters get more of an inflection with every word they said?) - again, focusing on the wrong question of CO2 and not addressing the NEW HEAT produced by the nuclear power plants and only focusing on "yay no CO2", therefore not giving much insight in terms of this conversation.
I can dispute some of what they said, but, they do have a point about pollution from coal plants killing more people than nuclear plants, which is true independent of any concern about CO2.




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