I’m pro nuclear as well but we absolutely can maintain this level of energy consumption on renewables alone.
The question is cost and risk - I’m for diversification of our grid which includes nuclear.
But it is getting to the point where renewables with backups will be cheaper than coal. That’s absolutely something you can run the entire grid off of. You can balance storage requirements with excess production capacity that gets shuttered over the summer etc etc
OK, then we just deploy a whole lot of storage capacity as fast as we can to support solar and wind. Nuclear only makes sense if it’s cheaper than that, and it’s not.
Not quite sure which way you’re pointing. Nuclear is ridiculously expensive up front. It has to run for a long time at 100% to make any kind of economic sense.
I’m pro nuclear as well but we absolutely can maintain this level of energy consumption on renewables alone.
The question is cost and risk - I’m for diversification of our grid which includes nuclear.
But it is getting to the point where renewables with backups will be cheaper than coal. That’s absolutely something you can run the entire grid off of. You can balance storage requirements with excess production capacity that gets shuttered over the summer etc etc
The backup is nuclear.
I don’t really care what it costs. We’re trying to save the habitability of the planet. Damn the cost.
OK, then we just deploy a whole lot of storage capacity as fast as we can to support solar and wind. Nuclear only makes sense if it’s cheaper than that, and it’s not.
Cheaper long term, yes. Higher upfront cost.
Not quite sure which way you’re pointing. Nuclear is ridiculously expensive up front. It has to run for a long time at 100% to make any kind of economic sense.
I’m not concerned about economic sense. I’m worried about keeping the planet habitable.
And we have another path for that. We really don’t need nuclear at this point.