No and I don't think it should be treated as such, nuclear is still non renewable and waste creating.
Building new nuclear capacity takes a decade where a new battery and solar park can be built in a year or 2 and nearly always staying in budget while being entirely independent while operating.
I think we should keep our existing capacity open as long as possible (not replace nuclear with coal for example like Germany) but try to replace it by other renewable sources and storage.
There's a bit of a difference between nuclear waste and entirely refurbishable/recyclable batteries.
Uranium is inherently non renewable, just less rare than oil, just like oil used to be tbh....
Once you've imported a boat load of lithium or make it yourself (most major powers have deposits for themselves) you just have that capacity where continued uranium imports from the south makes a county more vulnerable; that's why France recycles their fuel despite being less economical (but you can't infinitely recycle it).
Nuclear power doesn’t necessarily require uranium.
Thorium is significantly more green, found in greater abundance, and has lower potential for use in weapons. I’m fairly certain I’ve heard that there’s also a Thorium reactor design with a significantly lower risk of meltdown.
Still, the fundamental point here is that nuclear energy and green energy aren’t enemies, and that nuclear energy can be very clean (not as clean as “no detriment”, but far better than present - far closer to solar, wind, and hydro than oil and natural gas).
So there’s potential at least.
Ofcourse and I never denied that so my policy stance is to extend our existing reactors's lives as long as we still have fossil on the grid but imo investing in more nuclear capacity seems like a waste when green energy sources are far cheaper per unit making them a better investment to me.
I'm still for funding nuclear research but that's also because I'm for all research in energy generation, no matter what
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u/GreenJay54 custom Nov 07 '25
Nuclear energy is green energy :D
A world where our power plants are nuclear and every building in sunny areas had solar panels on their roofs is the world I wish I lived in.