Nuclear is there as a back up for when the sun doesn’t shine, the wind doesn’t blow, you don’t have enough space for renewables, or you’ve reached the capacity for building and repairing renewables (Either logistically, in lack of expertise, or lack of public support). If you can’t find a solution for that the result you end up with is just going back to fossil fuels when the times are tough. That’s not carbon neutrality.
We need both renewables and nuclear, and nuclear should never be a reason not to invest in renewables. But the same goes the other way around. We’re in a crisis, we can’t be pedantic about this stuff when the world waited out the clock to the very end like a teenager the day before his exam. We can pick the perfect options when it is no longer the enemy of good options. Until then every option should be explored.
Nuclear is there as a back up for when the sun doesn’t shine, the wind doesn’t blow, you don’t have enough space for renewables, or you’ve reached the capacity for building and repairing renewables (Either logistically, in lack of expertise, or lack of public support).
Nuclear is a terrible backup. It’s far too expensive, requires a ton of highly educated personnel we don’t have and is not flexible enough to act as a quick backup if renewables fluctuate too much. On top of that there are very few moments where there is almost no wind or sunshine over a very large area all at once, making it economically unviable to an enormous degree.
Obviously the best backup is battery storage, which is ramping up in production capacity quite quickly. And it allows far more decentralisation: a lot of homes can be fitted with a small battery pack, which combined with some solar allows them to be basically off the grid. Combined with more research showing PV cells are still up to 80% the efficiency they were designed for after 30 years (suggesting they last far longer than estimated), it seems solar is becoming an ever stronger long-term solution. It’s also becoming cheaper each year beyond even the most optimistic scenarios.
But even something like gas is a more preferable alternative to nuclear. It’s very cheap and still viable when needing to spin up or down quickly. It also requires less educated personnel than nuclear and most countries have at least a few built already. Sure there’s more emissions, but for those 30 days of the year you really need them that’s still well over 95-98% of emissions cut when compared to the current fossil fuel mix.
nuclear should never be a reason not to invest in renewables
Unfortunately it is, because money is finite. And investers choose whatever is most viable, which increasingly is not nuclear.
I’m hopeful for fusion, but as always that’s at least a decade away from commercial viability.
Nuclear is there as a back up for when the sun doesn’t shine, the wind doesn’t blow, you don’t have enough space for renewables, or you’ve reached the capacity for building and repairing renewables (Either logistically, in lack of expertise, or lack of public support). If you can’t find a solution for that the result you end up with is just going back to fossil fuels when the times are tough. That’s not carbon neutrality.
Battery storage is also still a breakthrough away from being viable enough to store all the electricity renewables could potentially generate to be able to sustain a 100% load when they are less effective, not to mention the amount of infrastructure required for them to be able to do so. You need some kind of baseline to supplement it that works when nothing else does.
We need both renewables and nuclear, and nuclear should never be a reason not to invest in renewables. But the same goes the other way around. We’re in a crisis, we can’t be pedantic about this stuff when the world waited out the clock to the very end like a teenager the day before his exam. We can pick the perfect options when it is no longer the enemy of good options. Until then every option should be explored.
Nuclear is a terrible backup. It’s far too expensive, requires a ton of highly educated personnel we don’t have and is not flexible enough to act as a quick backup if renewables fluctuate too much. On top of that there are very few moments where there is almost no wind or sunshine over a very large area all at once, making it economically unviable to an enormous degree.
Obviously the best backup is battery storage, which is ramping up in production capacity quite quickly. And it allows far more decentralisation: a lot of homes can be fitted with a small battery pack, which combined with some solar allows them to be basically off the grid. Combined with more research showing PV cells are still up to 80% the efficiency they were designed for after 30 years (suggesting they last far longer than estimated), it seems solar is becoming an ever stronger long-term solution. It’s also becoming cheaper each year beyond even the most optimistic scenarios.
But even something like gas is a more preferable alternative to nuclear. It’s very cheap and still viable when needing to spin up or down quickly. It also requires less educated personnel than nuclear and most countries have at least a few built already. Sure there’s more emissions, but for those 30 days of the year you really need them that’s still well over 95-98% of emissions cut when compared to the current fossil fuel mix.
Unfortunately it is, because money is finite. And investers choose whatever is most viable, which increasingly is not nuclear.
I’m hopeful for fusion, but as always that’s at least a decade away from commercial viability.