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this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
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Best time to build a nuclear reactor was 20 years ago.
Second best time is now.
Isn't nuclear one, if not the most, expensive form of energy production once you factor in stuff like maintenance and disposal?
Not trying to do the whole hot take thing here, I genuinely don't get why investing in nuclear is still pursued versus investing in renewable sources when mobility and land isn't an issue.
EDIT:
kind of provides at least a partial answer: Time. Though this quote gave me graphite control rod vibes:
There's a lot to unpack in nuclear being the most expensive form of energy production, like:
While nuclear absolutely must be held to extremely rigorous safety standards, I seem to remember that the fossil industry leveraged the nuclear panic in the 80s to lobby all manner of bullshit red tape on top of good regulations, and that has dramatically increased time and financial cost to building new reactors.
Does that also factor in all externalities, like radiological waste from coal fire plants, and the damage from carbon emissions contributing to climate change? Or are we only counting the externalities of nuclear?
Are we also including new generations of reactors, which are supposedly safer, produce less waste, and less able to be used for nuclear weapons production? Or are we just looking at the reactor designs from 70 years ago that represent all of what's in operation in the US today? Can you imagine trying to argue for solar or wind with designs from 70 years ago? It'd be a pretty hard sell.