Nuclear power is great. Unfortunately the environmental groups that lobbied for renewable energy, also lobbied against nuclear power. So much less available nuclear power for Sweden in the winter, than there should have been.
The false dichotomy is very damaging. It’s not nuclear or renewables. We need both, and as much of either as we possibly can. Neither nuclear or renewables would be enough to get rid of enough fossil fuels on their own.
But it doesn't make much sense to combine them. Wind and Solar, as well as nuclear have similar cost characteristics. The cost of an additional unit of energy produced is very low, almost all of the cost is in building them & keeping them running. It almost never makes (financial) sense to throttle them. Thus nuclear being a so-called baseload. It doesn't make much sense to use it in any other way (for example, like a peaker-plant).
Both are best served with a complement that has low(er) capital cost but higher cost per unit of energy produced like storage or gas plants (maybe with P2G) for periods of high demand or when generation falls flat (mostly for renewables, but as we're seeing in france some nuclear reactors are having trouble as well in high-temp environments).
They have complementary production profiles, with nuclear providing near/constant levels for time scales from days to years. This mechanically reduces the amount of energy storage needed (storage at the required scale is still very much not solved).
They have complementary risk profiles. Wind and PV rely on weather and are likely to fail us when the weather gets really bad, i.e. when we’re already in crisis mode. Nuclear failure modes are very different and combining them makes the grid much more resilient overall.
There is no realistic scenario in the short to mid term future where we can have 100% wind and solar without either a massive overproduction capacity, or overly-large storage capabilities. The rise in wind+PV is accompanied by a rise in gas and charcoal use.
Nuclear also has the advantage of taking way less land for the same energy output. Yes, this is important if we want at the same time to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels used in agriculture, which will reduce yields and thus require more land for the same amount of food produced, and keep our forests as carbon sinks (expand them, actually).
> Wind and Solar, as well as nuclear have similar cost characteristics.
Cost is only part of the story. If we follow the path of the smallest costs, we’ll just burn oil until we hit a wall.
It does make sense to combine them. Manufacturing renewable energy sources requires lots of cheap energy, and can be done in remote places, and currently uses fossil fuels. Use nuclear instead as the base of the energy pyramid (like food pyramid).
