Most nuclear renewable energy competitors are cheaper than nuclear.
Sure, nuclear provides baseload energy in a way its cheaper competitors cannot, but as long as you have more than 20-30% fossil fuel the baseload is not really a concern anywhere.
It seems foolish to divert money intended to reduce polluting sources of energy into the more expensive nuclear alternative, until the share of coal and natural gas is low enough that more stable sources of energy are neeeded.
It's a question of path dependency. A least-cost grid with 80% less GHG emissions than current will likely be, depending on the location, lots of wind and solar, improved transmission, a little bit of batteries and demand response, and then NG backup.
For a deep decarbonized grid (95%+ less emissions), the least-cost will OTOH likely involve a rather high fraction of nuclear, plus a somewhat smaller fraction of the aforementioned wind, solar, transmission, demand response, batteries on top.
Dealing with climate change requires a deep decarbonized grid. So while most grids can take a lot more wind and solar than currently, if we overbuild those sources we can get locked into higher emissions long-term.
All non-nuclear renewable energy competitors require us to derive ~40-60% of our energy generation from burning natural gas, that generates GHGs. This natural gas comes from either fracking, or Russia.
Climate change is an exsistential threat to our way of life.
> Sure, nuclear provides baseload energy in a way its cheaper competitors cannot, but as long as you have more than 20-30% fossil fuel the baseload is not really a concern anywhere.
Yes, it is a concern. We need to hit net zero emissions in the next five years, or net negative emissions, with massive carbon sequestration, in the next 15. How exactly are we going to do that between shipping, air travel, AND fossil-fuel baseload power?
Sure, nuclear provides baseload energy in a way its cheaper competitors cannot, but as long as you have more than 20-30% fossil fuel the baseload is not really a concern anywhere.
It seems foolish to divert money intended to reduce polluting sources of energy into the more expensive nuclear alternative, until the share of coal and natural gas is low enough that more stable sources of energy are neeeded.