this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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Correct me if I'm wrong but even though Nuclear sounds cool. In the vast majority of places isn't it less costly, to go with renewables, instead? And for a greater power output? And also renewables can be created in a fraction of the time without any r&d. That's not even mentioning the potential hazards and waste management issues with nuclear.
If you only use the faceplate capacity of the facilities and include battery storage for free then yes solar and wind looks pretty good. Once you factor in needing 4-5x the capacity for wind and solar to actually produce power regularly, add cost for non existing storage it gets a lot closer to where the difference isn't significant.
nuclear is on demand though which is it's great advantage over renewables
Wind and solar are (mostly) good from a risk/benefit analysis, and I think further investment in battery tech would make them even better. But the problem with nuclear, other than waste, is the fact that noone has tried building like a bunch of reactors that are basically the same. So the training becomes industrialized, repairs and manufacturing, over time it gets cheaper. In France, correct me if I'm wrong, they did this and it was really successful. In general the main problem with both technologies is lack of public investment, i think due to political consequences from oil companies, general bourgeois resistance to public works and investment, etc.,
I don't know about initial costs, but the main problem with wind/solar is they cannot be scaled up/down on-demand. The depend on the weather and that does not align with energy demands throught the day.
As long as we cannot store energy at-scale, we will have to rely in another source of energy we can ramp up/down depending of the energy demands (being fossil fuels or, preferibly, nuclear)
That's a taking point that wasn't very true in the 70s and certainly isn't close to true now, there are endless methods of balancing a renewables grid for constant power involving endless options for continuous generation methods (solar thermal especially) or battery storage (chemical, gravity, etc) and load balancing using at-peek tied industry (especially e-fuel manufacture)
There's also a lot of stuff like tidal generation which is hugely promising and drastically underfunded, certainly compared to nuclear.
All technologies you've mentioned are in R&D, not ready to use as you seem to imply. Great investment is still required to implement them at-scale. What I'd agree on is that It's in our best interest to invest heavily in them, and they are probably underfunded given their importance in the survival of humanity.
The idea that we can transition from fossil fuels to traditional renewables (solar, wind, etc) while refusing to rely on nuclear power seems wishful thinking to me. In the short and mid-term (10-20 years) we only have nuclear as a realistic alternative for clean energy. In this transition, we can develop those promising methods of energy storage and also build the necessary infrastructure they require.
Just to provide a real case scenario: Germany vs. France.
Both Germany and France want to reach zero emissions by 2050.
We know how Germany opted to phase out nuclear power already in the year 2000 and completed its 'nuclear exit' in April 2023. Compare that to France that since 1974 has been heavily investing in nuclear power with the goal of producing most of its energy from it (Messmer Plan (Wikipedia)).
The results for me are apparent:
Source: How energy systems and policies of Germany and France compare .
I'd take a real reduction in green house emissions any day before the "wish" of reducing them while refusing to make any compromise.
Without being disrespectful, I think it is a big mistake to refuse prioritize nuclear power to replace fossil fuels in the near future if the goal is to reduce greenhouse emissions.