I mean im guessing its because it may not be as profitable, or atleast at first, boycotts or directly just capitalism fucking everything up? i legit always imagine aliens seeing us still use coal while having DISCOVERED IN 1932
I mean im guessing its because it may not be as profitable, or atleast at first, boycotts or directly just capitalism fucking everything up? i legit always imagine aliens seeing us still use coal while having DISCOVERED IN 1932
Renewables get cheaper because we are building them… if we built nuclear at the same frequency as renewables their price would plummet as well.
Personally see the best option as a combination, in places like LA, Las Vegas, Phoenix solar should be the number 1 power source. Build wind power in places like Wyoming, and off shore wind where it’s possible. But when you have a place that needs huge amounts of batteries to try and compensate for inconsistent wind/solar that’s where you should build nuclear.
Nuclear is not renewable and has a lot of issues but we also shouldn’t ignore the negatives of lithium, nickel, cadmium, and cobalt mining. At the end of the day all of them are better than fossil fuels
With High Voltage transmission lines, it’s possible to send excess energy hundreds to thousands of miles away with relatively little loss. I believe Germany sends solar power north where it’s more cloudy, and wind power south.
China also went this route, sending solar energy across the country thanks to that infrastructure.
There’s nothing technological stopping the EU or the US from doing the same, only politics.
There are still losses in those lines that can be around 10%, high voltage transmission lines use a lot of copper and can have high cost, they can be a point of failure, they can start forest fires, and if we actually build full scale nuclear system their price will drop down extensively. An MIT study estimated $66/MWh is achievable with a full build out which is already cheaper than solar plus storage, So when you factor in the additional cost of transmission lines nuclear just makes more sense.
But for places like LA that see huge electricity transients during the day as peak sun correlates to peak AC nothing is better than solar and while I haven’t done extensive research on off shore wind everything I have heard about it is incredible where it works.
Nuclear is for places like Seattle that for large chunks of the year gets negligible sun so the amount of storage you need to maintain full power is impracticable and the losses for sending electricity there from sunny places is unsustainable
I definitely don’t think nuclear should be our first or even second choice but it should be an option that fits its niche because our number one priority needs to be reducing our fossil fuel usage and wasting a bunch of material in places that aren’t a good fit is irresponsible
At least in China, the losses have been negated by recent technology that allows higher voltages than previously feasible, bringing the losses down to 2.6% per 500 miles.
I’m not against any existing nuclear power continuing to exist, it would be foolish to shut any down at this point. I’m also not entirely against new construction depending on who’s doing it and where (France seems capable of getting them online fairly quickly, while the US seems incredibly bad at keeping on time and on budget).
I just think overall, due to how solar can scale up and down, it’s overall the most promising solution, as individuals can collectively take action now, instead of waiting for a nuclear power plant to maybe get built in time to help with the climate.