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

  • thru_dangers_untold@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Yes, countries like Germany are turning to coal as a direct result of nuclear-phobia.

    The US, with all its green initiatives and solar/wind incentives, is pumping more oil than Saudi Arabia. The US has been the top oil producer on whole the planet for the last 5-6 years. The problem is getting worse.

    • klisklas@feddit.de
      0·
      1 year ago

      Sorry, this is just false info. Germany is not turning to coal as a result of your called nuclear phobia.

      I will repeat my comment from another thread:

      If you are able to read German or use a translator I can recommend this interview where the expert explains everything and goes into the the details.

      Don’t repeat the stories of the far right and nuclear lobby. Nuclear will always be more expensive than renewables and nobody has solved the waste problem until today. France as a leading nuclear nation had severe problems to cool their plants during the summer due to, guess what, climate change. Building new nuclear power plants takes enormous amounts of money and 10-20years at least. Time that we don’t have at the moment.

      • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
        01·
        1 year ago

        There is no “nuclear lobby” stop making shit up. Nuclear isn’t profitable, that is why we don’t have it. If it’s not profitable, there will be no industry lobby pushing for it. The fact that it isn’t profitable shouldn’t matter. I care about the environment and if Capitalism can’t extract profit without destroying the environment (it can’t) then we need to stop evaluating infrastructure through a Capitalist lens.

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
    0·
    1 year ago

    There are concerns outside of the list you wrote. For example:

    • people need energy and coal is a source of energy
    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
      0·
      1 year ago

      And they’re going for coal in some places because the political situation has made other reliable energy sources unavailable:

      • the Russia-Ukraine war has destroyed natural gas supply lines to Europe
      • anti-nuclear activism has resulted in lack of nuclear investment

      Outside of coal, nuclear, and natural gas, there aren’t many options for reliable sources of electricity.

      • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        the Russia-Ukraine war has destroyed natural gas supply lines to Europe.

        Didn’t the US bomb them, tried to blame Russia at first, and are now trying to blame Ukraine? With friends like that, who needs enemies?

        The big problem with nuclear is scalability and infrastructure. The power plants take long to construct and require huge investment. Even if that’s solved and the whole world goes nuclear tomorrow, there’s huge doubts about there even being enough easily minable Uranium. Honestly solar and wind should be the way to go, but then there’s the intermittency issue. Which is an issue fossil fuels don’t have. At this point degrowth is desperately needed to avert the worst effects of global warming.