Solar and wind are just too cheap to build, they are going to take over no matter what anyone does. And in areas with fossil fuels still in heavy usage, short-term putting all the money into building solar makes complete sense - every new solar panel means that much less fossil fuel burned. We still have lots and lots of low-hanging fruit.
With renewables will come battery storage to handle the unpredictability, on the short term, battery projects are going to be super profitable so there will be lots of them. But those profitable battery projects will only handle the easy problems - grid stabilization and a typical overnight cycle. It will leave the grid vulnerable to that freak 2-week long cold snap every 6 years (that may be more common as the climate goes insane and unpredictable)
I’m a big fan of nuclear, but at the current cost difference to solar and wind, it doesn’t have a chance. The role I see for nuclear is to reduce the amount of battery storage needed. If the cost to build nuclear with newer, smaller, more cookie-cutter reactors can come down to replace the cost of batteries long term (as they have to be cycled out after a decade or two) then it will slot in really nicely.
Because it a a white elephant that allows governments to take longer to pivot to renewables allowing fossil fuel to continue for much longer than needed. It’s playing out in Australia. Australia is never going nuclear. But it allows governments to waste time debating and considering. Even when every forecasting body that isn’t tied to the nuclear lobby laughs them out of the room.
it’s to protect capitalism.
the swedish neoliberal government has defunded existing renewables like wind power and set into law that the government is not allowed to buy back the nuclear plants they are now funding with tax money for private enterprises. with the argument that renewable energy like solar, wind and water will break the economy because it runs in the negative with uncontrollable overproduction but nuclear power is a supply and demand resource based on fuel which will let the private owners maintain artificial scarcity to keep prices stable.
Nuclear power should be adopted more
