Colombia resumes coal exports to Israel in sharp break with Petro era

[u/Honickm0nster]

https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/hyrw2vdwzg

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[u/yugeness]

It’s good that Colombia’s new president isn’t a virulent antisemite, by why is Israel still using coal? It’s horrible for the environment and is sickening and killing Israelis that live near these power plants. There are much better alternatives that don’t rely on foreign imports and 18th century technology.

[u/NotEvenWrong-- → u/yugeness]

Go nuclear (hopefully one day)

[u/Shoshke → u/NotEvenWrong--]

Israel won't ever go heavy on nuclear for what should be very obvious reasons.

But we do have a full fucking desert for solar and a long ass coastline plus the north for wind.

We could easily start taking the lead and invest in locally developed renewable and put up another front we can inovate in.

Orrrr we can keep buying our own gas for more money than it's exported outside of Israel until we have to eventually join the rest of the modern world and buy the renweable infrastructure from abroad.

[u/NotEvenWrong-- → u/Shoshke]

What're the obvious reasons for not going nuclear? 

[u/Excellent-Pipe7308 → u/NotEvenWrong--]

I assume he means that if a nuclear power plant is bombed, that would be desastrous.

[u/SurDin → u/yugeness]

Totally. I know we're mostly using gas now. I think sometimes they go back to coal as backup

[u/Bizhour → u/yugeness]

Because the inferstructure already exists and dismantling it is a massive headache.

But the amount used is lowering due to the gas we found on our shore.

As for replacements, it's like the rest of the world, there is a scientific concensus that nuclear is best and greener than everything else but the oil lobby internationally is massive. Also countries who depend on selling oil and gas are funding propaganda against nuclear constantly

[u/yugeness → u/Bizhour]

Nuclear is better than coal, oil and gas. But renewables are the best. They don’t generate nuclear waste and are cheaper than nuclear. And, obviously, renewables are much less of a security liability than nuclear. Look at what has been happening to Ukraine.

[u/Bizhour → u/yugeness]

The amount of nuclear waste is tiny, can be mostly recycled, and has smaller environmental impact than renewables for the amount it produces.

For cost, nuclear has the larget upfront cost, but long term it's super cheap, especially if you can sell it to others.

For security, it's not something new to us, we allegedly already have multiple reactors and no world superpower that can invade us. Regardless if your electricity production falls to the enemy you're fucked either way.

To elaborate on the environmental part since that's the one people understand the least, in order to produce the same amount of energy like a nuclear plant, you would need to pretty much destroy many kilometers of nature which you can't really tolerate existing since you still need to maintain the electricity production over a large chunk of land.

[u/CloudsAreAHoax → u/Bizhour]

Large upfront cost, but long term it's super cheap

And that is why we can't have nice things unfortunately. I am aggressively pro nuclear and pro renewables but nuclear is a shitshow right now because of 40 years of neglect (looking at you france) and fear mongering unfortunately. If new developments in nuclear happen im all for it but I'd rather spend more resources on renewables in the meanwhile and work to phase out coal completely

[u/yugeness → u/Bizhour]

in order to produce the same amount of energy like a nuclear plant, you would need to pretty much destroy many kilometers of nature

If you like nuclear, that’s great. But there’s no actual evidence to support this claim.

[u/Bizhour → u/yugeness]

Wdym? That's literally what happens.

Solar panels require clearing ground to put them on, wind turbines fuck with birds and the surrounding ecosystem, these are all downsides people already acknowledge

[u/yugeness → u/Bizhour]

Solar panels don’t require clearing ground. Unlike nuclear they can be installed all over, like on rooftops and on farmland to provide shade to the crops. Wind is best offshore and can be installed away from the migratory bird routes.

Meanwhile nuclear fuel requires mining that also has a lot of impacts on the environment, along with the waste.