Nuclear energy is clean

First they are practical - unlike all renewables nuclear energy plant provides stable influx of energy to the electric grid, regardless of the weather condition. As long as we don't have good and, again, practical energy storage, renewables usability will be always limited. And so far we don't see any true innovation in the long term, large scale batteries tech - ritual monthly "at last, new battery tech invented in X" article in popular magazines is not enough since those "new" batteries either has to work in 10 Kelvin temperature or would need to have size of the Moon. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity is, unfortunately, not practical as it requires very specific terrain and water sources. It is great we can build them here and there, but that's not the solution for the problem.

Secondly, nuclear energy plants does not produce CO2 and this is what we want to get rid off, as I understand.

Nuclear wastes are different story, unfortunately for the past 50 years there was almost no innovation in nuclear plants sector as well since everyone who would like to work on this was treated by the Academia like Holocaust deniers and anti-vaccination activists. Nuclear wastes are radiating, which means there is energy there, let's try to find the way how to use is, maybe it is easier than the search for the battery Holy Grail.

Also ammonia can do that much better than hydrogen.

There are also several types of flow batteries which can store energy for any time desired, without losses. Compared to hydrocarbons or ammonia they have a low energy density (which is not prohibitive for stationary applications), but they have a higher energy efficiency for a charge and discharge cycle, similar to the other kinds of batteries.

Hydrogen is the worst solution for long-term energy storage, compared to the many other alternatives, which are also already proven in practice, unlike hydrogen. Hydrogen is good only for rockets, when its low mass is more important than its high volume and all its other disadvantages.

There does exist an exception to this. Russia built a floating nuclear power plant. There is a lot of controversy around it.

However the main claim that economy is the center of the argument is true. Fossil fuels are exceptional cheap as a battery solution to be combined with solar and wind, especially wind which don't have 365 days of charge cycles. Natural gas in Europe play the central role of filling in when wind/solar production goes down, with oil and coal coming in next. Since fossil fuels aren't burned all the time, a much higher cost per kw/h is tolerated, even when the spot price reaches upwards to 10x higher than the average cost. This winter they are expecting prices to exceed that by twice or more, and the average this year is already looking to be twice of last year.

The economics right now is a bit funky. Nuclear has most of their cost attached to the constructions, so with energy prices being almost doubled compared to last year, nuclear is looking quite economical. If inflation continues as it has been then a nuclear plant built 30 years will start to look really cheap compared to a wind + gas turbine. The biggest winners in term of profit however are the gas power plant owners, seeing record profits as a result of being able to charge record prices.

Thats what its like today. That's probably why the nuclear PR articles almost never try to compare costs or speed of construction with demand shaping + solar + wind + storage. It does not stack up well.

That was "practical" in the 80s. Today it's a problem. You need to have a flexible grid to profit from the cheapest energy available. Having some expensive energy source clog up the grid so you have to turn off solar or wind is a bad thing.

> As long as we don't have good and, again, practical energy storage, renewables usability will be always limited

That baseload myth is dead these days. Batteries are merely one way to store energy but they’re not the only way. They’re not even the leading way.

A combination of efficiency, demand response, transmission, optimal mix of wind and solar, along with some storage will be more than enough to get us beyond 100% of current service demand.

And all of this is already working in parts of the world. For example in the EU where all that green and brown energy from Germany is saving Nuclear-Frances ass at the moment and has been every summer and winter for at least the last decade.

> nce everyone who would like to work on this was treated by the Academia like Holocaust deniers and anti-vaccination activists.

Billions disappear in nuclear research and has been since it's been invented. Billions which could have been invested into renewables which unlike nuclear produces real and fast progress so please...don't spread fake news.