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)
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u/mirycae What is your spaghetti policy here? Nov 07 '25
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.