Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere just hit a 'depressing' new record | Hacker News Reader

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere just hit a 'depressing' new record

scientificamerican.com

31 pointsrolph11 comments

All this new scalable renewable energy sources such as solar and wind (biomass is not scalable and hydro, geothermal depend on geology) are not cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels for industrial applications. Energy not electricity. 1 GJ of heat from coal is still cheaper than 1 GJ of electicity from solar, especially when needed 24/7.

There many countries in the global south with large populations which want to grow and don't have enough energy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_co...

We need very cheap nuclear power not only for electricity, but also for heating, water desalination, hydrogen production, CO2 capture.

Nuclear costs far more per kWh than solar/Wind plus storage

Yes we need lots more electric. Nuclear isn’t the answer.

Nuclear is an answer along with other sources. Opposition to nuclear by the Green Party in the UK is a self-sabotage IMHO. They may argue how limited government subsidies should be allocated but outright opposition to nuclear energy is just stupid to me.

Lets look at price of thermal coal in China

https://www.sunsirs.com/uk/prodetail-369.html

830 RMB/ton for a coal with calorific value: 5500 kcal/kg

This gives thermal cost of heat 5 USD/GJ .

"The Middle East and Africa achieved the lowest levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) among regions in 2025, with an LCOE of US$37/MWh, while the LCOE of utility-scale solar PV in China reached US$27/MWh."

https://www.pv-tech.org/solar-pv-retains-most-competitive-lc...

Solar US$27/MWh can be converted to 7,5 USD/GJ.

How much changes the cost when you have industrial application which needs energy 24/7 ?

Nuclear is indeed the answer. Nuclear power is incredibly safe nowadays and it also provides kinetic inertia, something that solar and wind power lack (they are all DC based and only produce AC when using an inverter, which is wasteful too).

Unfortunately I think it's already too late for nuclear. People who don't understand energy grids are voting for anti-nuclear policies, with very predictable results.

Great, great, except climate change is driving geopolitical rupture, and a nuclear plant, as we have seen in Ukraine, is an irresistible target, for physical and digital attacks alike. That's a lot of leverage, especially when the drones and cyberattacks can be heightened by AI.

The nuclear age did not survive the advent of the LLM. Ironic, as no customer needs electricity more than AI.

We've had nuclear power since the 1950s with a boom in the 60s and 70s. Since then annual carbon emissions are up 6.5x (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-...)

It doesn't seem to be fixing things and I suspect never will. Personally I'd go with carbon pricing and let the market sort which tech to use.

Building of new nuclear power plants effectively ended in the US and Europe in 1980s. Instead of nuclear power plants, coal power has expanded. Later after 2000 gas started to replace coal for electricity generation. So the rise in carbon emissions not suprising.

Also after 2005 China started to by big player in CO2 emissions, but CO2 per capita is still lower in China then in US.

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions

I too would like to see carbon pricing, but in all countries, because otherwise countries not paying price on carbon would get big competetive advantage.

Maybe at some point we’ll all pull our collective head out of our collective ass and will start going all in on nuclear (along side solar and wind power).

It will still be late, but better late than never.

I'm so depressed.

Yes, and all the paper straws in the world isn't going to save it, between wars, attacks on critical infrastructure and AI overlords.

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