Is nuclear energy the answer? probably not

6 comments

1. It is part of the solution. It may not be the whole answer, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important.

2. Wind and solar are great because they’re cheap to get up and running, but they’re not stable and consistent enough to form the backbone of a power grid. What power source other than nuclear is both close to carbon neutral and provides high stable yields?

   I literally don’t see how anything else could replace the core of our power grids. Hydro is regionally specific, wind and solar have a tendency to drop out when conditions aren’t right and are comparatively hard to maintain because it’s so many separate generators instead of a few big ones.

   What’s the alternative to nuclear here?

3. If you wanna be pro nuclear you should do on pink hydrogen since it can be produced more cheaply than green hydrogen.

   We need a huge hydrogen economy for fertilizer and transportation.

   This is the nuclear niche. Not power, cause it’s way too expensive and renewables beat it on every metric.

   Intermittency is solved with transmission and batteries. Still cheaper than nuclear.

4. The author doesn’t seem to differentiate between fission and fusion, isn’t fusion really the best long term solution? Granted it isn’t developed yet but it looks viable and the best option if we can operationalize it.

5. Why does a public utility have to be “economically viable”?

6. It is interesting that those jurisdictions that have gone fully in on solar/wind have the most expensive and unreliable grids, while also needing to maintain methane (gas) backup leading to a relatively high carbon footprint. In contrast, nuclear jurisdictions like France or Ontario have relatively stable prices and very low carbon footprint.

   Just an interesting observation. It seems to me like many people are more worried about nuclear waste than carbon waste.