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Too late in what sense? The problems time out and solve themselves?
Renewables got cheaper to the point where it's not competitive Counter-argument: Wind and sun are unreliable Counter-counter-argument: Why not build 10x the amount of wind and solar if it's so cheap, and automatically break the circuit when not needed?
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The problem is nuclear has been the affordable solution for decades and hasn't been built, due to politics.
Affordable by looking at any other measure than the balance sheet, maybe. Nuclear plants that are on time and on budget are exceptions, not the rule.
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Renewables got cheaper to the point where it's not competitive Counter-argument: Wind and sun are unreliable Counter-counter-argument: Why not build 10x the amount of wind and solar if it's so cheap, and automatically break the circuit when not needed?
You can build even 100x the amount of solar, but the sun will set anyway.
Nobody builds ONLY solar or ONLY wind or ONLY hydro. Why should you?
Please stop repeating this...it's ridiculous.
We can't build reactors fast enough. And electricity is only a part of what generates emissions. It's no where close to a solution. Looking up the world's energy numbers, how much of total energy production and emissions are from electricity, how long it takes to build a nuclear power plant, how many nuclear power plants are built per year etc. will show you this.
The NRC literally has a mandate to drive cost up. It's a pathological exercise in regulation.
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> d be fine with more nuclear power plants, but if wind/solar plus batteries are cheaper Cost is not just a single factor. Energy density is very important too. Solar farms take huge amounts of space to produce very little energy compared to a nuclear plant.
Also, solar apparently pollutes a heck of a lot more than nuclear. It’s still > 100x better than fossil fuels, and I’m still putting some on my roof, but the figures in the article are surprising.
We can't build reactors fast enough. And electricity is only a part of what generates emissions. It's no where close to a solution. Looking up the world's energy numbers, how much of total energy production and emissions are from electricity, how long it takes to build a nuclear power plant, how many nuclear power plants are built per year etc. will show you this.
^ This. Also, It's the Wall Street Journal, so consider the source, its own by Rupert Murdoch, whose media companies, until very recently were climate change deniers, so from a rather crude sort of climate denialism, they will likely move to supporting technical "climate fixes" spruiked by the fossil fuel industries. This is a more subtle way of sabotaging real climate action.
E.g. France famously decarbonised it's electric grid in a couple of decades after 1970s due to the energy crisis using nuclear power. How did this help fossil fuel companies? On the other hand, Germany has continued to be more reliant on coal and natural gas for electricity generation after deciding to abandon nuclear power post-Fukushima and pursue energiewende. Or remember BP, an oil and gas company, and it's whole Beyond Petroleum thing trying to make people believe it was into renewables?
If we are going to hypothesize conspiracies, then just looking purely at outcomes over recent decades, it would make more sense that the fossil fuel industry supports RE and RE targets, rather than CO2 targets or nuclear power, because the former works out far more favorably than the latter for their industry.
Not true, it's too late for nuclear power. Additionally it is quite expensive compared to renewables and makes the burden on future generations even bigger. Anyway, don't shut down any working plant early... We need everything we have atm
We should be using the best energy for the job, which in many cases/places is nuclear.
Nuclear is a clean and reliable source of energy that doesn't need grid-level energy storage in order to be a comprehensive solution. Solar and wind need storage. Not everywhere is windy and not everywhere is sunny.
If you look at the total cost including storage and decomissioning, solar and wind are not nearly as cheap as you think they are.
California is prematurely closing its perfectly good nuclear reactor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant#Clos...
What I don't understand from these groups is why they don't go after nuclear _after_ coal, natural gas, and oil are gone from the grid. There are arguments against nuclear, but they aren't that great when there are still fossil fuel plants operating. Also, a pet peeve of mine is when people say "replacing nuclear with zero-carbon sources" (as per the wiki article). That doesn't exist. There's energy sources that have…
https://www.ans.org/news/article-1392/robert-anderson-antinu...
Electricity use is stable or even dropping although 2020 may be an outlier. Electric cars will change this though.
At a personal level I use significantly less electricity now compared to 15 years ago. HVAC replacement, insulation upgrades, computer and consumer electronics power reductions, lowered my summer electric bill by 40%
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-03-01/americ...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity-co...
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^ This. Also, It's the Wall Street Journal, so consider the source, its own by Rupert Murdoch, whose media companies, until very recently were climate change deniers, so from a rather crude sort of climate denialism, they will likely move to supporting technical "climate fixes" spruiked by the fossil fuel industries. This is a more subtle way of sabotaging real climate action.
Why do you say that? Not agreeing or disagreeing, just curious what the fossil fuel industry might have to gain from pushing adoption of nuclear power.
Each day more than 2 million people pick up a copy of The Wall Street Journal or read it online, more than any other newspaper in the country, except USA Today, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
“More than three-fourths of them have a college degree, and their average household income is $234,909.
The Wallstreet Journal will never push an idea unless there's money to be made by its investors or affiliates, in the short term. and in the short term, I mean over 10 or 15 years.
A forest has more value, in the short term, cut down than is does if left alone. Petrochemicals have more value, in the short term, if they are being pumped, refined, and processed (and then that carbon is captured) than it were just left alone to begin with.
The absolute truth about dealing with the current climate crisis is that doing it right will not be profitable, in the short term, it will be an enormous undertaking across many fronts, and scientific disciplines, political agreements across nations states, etc.