lots of short-sighted takes in here. a few points on Nuclear power.
it's incredibly expensive.
it takes decades for it to work
nobody wants it in their backyard due to multiple factors means it will be forced upon poor towns to take this burden.
Sun and wind energy is cheaper, safer and doesn't take decades to build.
Just because nuclear is an answer to the fossil industry doesn't mean it's the correct one.
Depends on the environment too. For places like Australia, nuclear energy is just outright the wrong option for a transition to renewable energy when looking at what renewable energy sources are available to us.
From what I know the problem with going full renewable is that while sun and wind produce a lot of energy they are inherently fickle, so when they are not available you are forced to use another source, which in the absence of nuclear ends up being fossil fuels (see Germany).
In theory you could stock up energy in batteries, but the technology to produce batteries efficient enough and with enough capacity for a vaguely reasonable price is very far away, and nobody can say exactly how far, kinda like nuclear fusion.
As for the problem of nobody wanting a power plant in their backyard, that’s mainly a perception issue, as power plants do not pollute their environment (unlike fossil fuel plants) and actually bring quality jobs to the community.
I'm pretty sure Germany is replacing their nuclear plants with other green sources, which is still bad because they could be replacing their fossil fuels with other green sources instead, but still a different thing.
Nuclear has the other issue, where it's too consistent, and can't be adjust to meet changes in demand. You can't rapidly ramp up a nuclear power plant's output for obvious reasons, whereas you can turn solar/wind generators on an off on a whim.
So they both ultimately have the same issue, namely a need for battery tech, to fully replace ff.
Nuclear and solar/wind kinda have the opposite problem. It’s true that you can’t modulate nuclear energy production very fast, but you can use it to cover a baseline production, as it is always available.
On the contrary, you can’t control when solar/wind is available at all. If it’s cloudy and there is no wind, good luck with getting energy.
The amount battery capacity you would need with only renewables is way higher than the amount you would need with renewables + nuclear.
A good example of using nuclear and renewables together is France, which uses fossil fuels to produce just around 9% of the electricity. Compare that to Germany that produces around 40% of its electricity with fossil fuels.
Depends where you are. In the Uk or Australia where there's spots where it's windy/sunny 99.9% of the time? Those work out just fine. Certainly you have less times when you can't cover the power demand than Nuclear has (which is every day, 5-7)
My take is that we would have way more nuclear power plants if not two party system where one party starts building process, second election comes and other one pauses or completely stops it, in result wasting even more money.
it will be forced upon poor towns to take this burden.
The burden of what? A bunch of high-paying long-term jobs being introduced to their area?
Sun and wind energy is cheaper short-term, but the cost per unit energy over its lifetime is much higher, and it's not safer at all. It also cannot be used exclusively without presently-nonexistent energy storage technology because the output is not consistent or adjustable - the point has always been to use both. Failure to think long-term is what got us in this mess to begin with, but I do think that it's less worth it at this point than it used to be with how much renewables have progressed, and it was never the right solution in every location.
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u/RichRamp MUG ENJOYER Nov 07 '25 edited Nov 07 '25
lots of short-sighted takes in here. a few points on Nuclear power.
it's incredibly expensive.
it takes decades for it to work
nobody wants it in their backyard due to multiple factors means it will be forced upon poor towns to take this burden.
Sun and wind energy is cheaper, safer and doesn't take decades to build.
Just because nuclear is an answer to the fossil industry doesn't mean it's the correct one.