I’m not sure if that’s an unpopular opinion so much as a completely incorrect one.
The simple truth is that nuclear is fucking expensive and takes a long time to build.
Renewables and storage are much cheaper and take way less time to start producing energy.
Given this, why would you be in favor of nuclear? Please don’t try and tell me about base load (not needed), SMRs (even more expensive) or fusion (not going to happen in our lifetimes)
Given this, why would you be in favor of nuclear? Please don’t try and tell me about base load (not needed), SMRs (even more expensive) or fusion (not going to happen in our lifetimes)
Peak-load scaling. The major advantage that fossil fuel generators have is that you can spin them up faster to react to higher demand. You can’t do that with solar or wind, but you can with nuclear.
If we had grid-scale storage solutions, dealing with peak load would be easier but it’s still more cost effective to build pumped hydro storage than large battery arrays. Most electric grids have to produce electricity on-demand which means they have to be highly responsive.
We don’t have good grid-scale storage yet. We need demand-responsive energy production. Fission is better than burning coal.
I’m not sure if that’s an unpopular opinion so much as a completely incorrect one.
The simple truth is that nuclear is fucking expensive and takes a long time to build.
Renewables and storage are much cheaper and take way less time to start producing energy.
Given this, why would you be in favor of nuclear? Please don’t try and tell me about base load (not needed), SMRs (even more expensive) or fusion (not going to happen in our lifetimes)
Peak-load scaling. The major advantage that fossil fuel generators have is that you can spin them up faster to react to higher demand. You can’t do that with solar or wind, but you can with nuclear.
If we had grid-scale storage solutions, dealing with peak load would be easier but it’s still more cost effective to build pumped hydro storage than large battery arrays. Most electric grids have to produce electricity on-demand which means they have to be highly responsive.
We don’t have good grid-scale storage yet. We need demand-responsive energy production. Fission is better than burning coal.