Asklemmy

Why "going back to it" have we ever stopped?

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

• people need energy and coal is a source of energy

Climate change 'looming'? Dude, it's already here.

Because it got cheaper than natural gas.

Nobody thinks it's clean, they just don't care.

In my country, because of a decades long fearmongering and disinfomation campaing that destoyed the nuclear energy industry. So now we're stucked with coal to keep the power running at night and during winter.

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.

It didn't, at least not in the way you think. The headlines of the past few days show the aftermath of the last decades: industry contracts that were made in the last century and the political heritage of a generation of politicians who are no longer in power.

Coal is being phased out and that's not changing. It cannot change substantially anyway; there is only so much coal in the gound. Recent political decisions moved to keep most of it there. For technological, political, economical and industry related reasons this won't be a fast process unfortunately.

One of the roadblocks of our transition to a sustainable energy supply is how much money (and in our capitalisic society, therefore, power) the industry itself holds. Coal lobbies will work hard for you not to think about them too much. Nuclear lobbies will work hard for you to blame those pesky environmentalists. A game of distraction and blame shifting. This thread is a good example of how well it's working.

Our resources are limited. This is true for good old planet earth as well as our societies. We only have so much money, time, and workforce to manage this transition. And as much as I'd love to wake up tomorrow to a world with PVC on every roof, a windmill on every field, and decentralised storage in every town center, this is just not realistic overnight. We'll have to live with the fact of our limited resources and divert as much as possible of them towards such a future. (And btw, putting billions of dollars in money, time, and workforce towards a reactor that will start working in 10-30 years is not the way to do this, as much as the nuclear lobby would like you to think that.)

Again? Did we stop?

It doesn't look like anyone has mentioned metallurgical coal yet. Even if you don't burn it for energy, the carbon in steel has to come from somewhere and that's usually coke, which is coal that has been further pyrolised into a fairly pure carbon producing a byproduct of coal tar.

Over here (Australia) we never stopped. Our coal lobby is simply too influential with our government.

It will slow when nuclear is the main energy source, especially in the United States (its currently ~47%)

Nuclear can also get recycled, and for the average American, the actual waste that can no longer be recycled is about a soda can (standard 12 ounce can)

Imo, the US needs to work toward nuclear usage being 90-95% instead of using coal. There's still a need for natural gas but it can be minimized

I'm sure places that are still banning nuclear power aren't helping either.

$$$

I blame the release of both Factorio and Victoria 3.

Until all coal plants are replaced there will be a need for more coal. We can’t just shut down these plants over night, the world is transitioning to cleaner energy production, unfortunately it’s just not happening fast enough.

Tf you mean stopped

• a German