But think of the short term gains!
Europe really should be expanding it’s offshore wind resources faster.
But the demand for gas is only going to go one way.
We need more nuclear reactors
Far too expensive, far too inflexible, far too long to build.
They have no upsides on any metric.
They have no upsides
Except the lack of greenhouse gas emissions, once up and running.
If we actually started developing them on any sort of scale most of those negatives you mention will be negated.
Flexibility, as in the inability to quickly ramp down, can be solved with storage or with generating hydrogen.Please tell me which US companies you trust to not cut corners on construction and safety for profit
Sorry, I was replying to a comment about offshore wind in the EU.
Supposedly you’d set up some proper regulations, implement checks and balances but given the current US business and political climate; good question.
Solar, wind and batteries has no greenhouse gas emissions at a fraction of price and fraction of the time to built. Australia did an analysis of this recently and said their is no reason to built any nuclear at all.
Nuclear is pushed by the oil and companies because it will slow transition away from oil and gas. Same as hydrogen, way worse than batteries and also made by fossil fuels at the moment. But by pushing for that it slows the transition away from things that actually work. Namely, solar wind and batteries.
Flexibility at a huge huge cost and great inefficiency. Like I said no upsides over alternatives.
Going 100% renewable is going to require an immense amount of storage, nevermind their instability. Any base load we can replace with nuclear is going to lessen that burden.
EV’s are heavy and require a ton of rare Lithium.
Using over capacity to generate hydrogen seems to me like a way to solve that. Hydrogen which in turn can be used to power cars, trucks, ships.
I don’t see how nuclear would slow the transition away from oil and gas.
You need storage to cover when demand does not match supply. Nuclear doesn’t reduce the difference between supply and demand. It has no flexibility so makes no meaningful difference to storage.
Lithium isn’t that rare. Sodium batteries are being manufactured today.
Hydrogen manufacturing is super inefficient.
Its a question of cost and time. You could run a country on nuclear but its far cheaper and quicker to do it with renewables. But pushing for something that isn’t really a viable solution nuclear and hydrogen. It delays uptake of the real solution which is wind, solar and batteries.
Nuclear doesn’t reduce the difference between supply and demand.
How does it not?
There’s a certain “base load” to any power grid which could easily be done by “inflexible” nuclear powerplants.Sodium doesn’t address the problem with EV weight.
Inefficiency is fine if you have an abundance of energy.
Running a country exclusively on renewables comes with its own costs in storage and emergency solutions.
I’m not saying “go exclusively nuclear” either. Supplementing it with renewables should be done.
Of course, this will kill thousands, but talk about killing a killer and you’re breaking a rule.
