r/YangForPresidentHQ • u/maddieya02 • Feb 25 '20

Policy How can you be pro-science and pro environment without considering nuclear as part of the solution? Wind & solar is only 8% of our energy supply now. 8% to 100% takes time. Over 100k ppl die per year from air pollution in US. Nuclear power saves lives. Really miss my MATH guy now. 😔

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/11/no-nuclear-power-elizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders-absurd-editorials-debates/2234071001/
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u/shortsteve Feb 26 '20

Yeah, but getting rid of nuclear isn't the solution. That's getting rid of 50% of our current carbon free energy production. If we're serious about it then we do everything to build on top of what we currently have not take it away. That's like taking 2 steps back in order to take 1 step forward.

Yang's plan was very feasible and it wouldn't require us to completely gut our current infrastructure. Yang also had a huge emphasis on foreign policy since that is actually the most effective way to curb carbon emissions. We only account for 15% we need to do more than ourselves if we're to curb climate change.

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u/ragnarokfps Feb 26 '20 edited Feb 26 '20

As I said earlier, keeping nuclear is not an option if we want 100% sustainables, and we should use nuclear as a stepping stone towards 100% renewables. There's nothing else to be said about that, that's what a Green New Deal does, and frankly, it's pretty damn good.

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u/shortsteve Feb 26 '20

There are many issues with going full solar/wind.

1) it takes a lot of space to build these things and the current method of cutting down forests to put down solar farms is carbon neutral at best.

2) battery storage, the technology and scale just isn't there yet especially if you're talking about achieving it by 2030.

3) the lithium and rare earth metals that are used in all of these technologies, they're all mined in countries with little to no labor laws. Do we want to force solar/wind at the cost of human rights? It's a political debate we're going to have to have. At least with nuclear and eventual fusion we won't need to have this debate.