If you’re about to angrily downvote me (or you already did), or write an angry reply, please read the rest of my comment before you do. This is not my individual opinion, this is the scientific consensus on the issue.

When it comes to generating electricity, nuclear is hugely more expensive than renewables. Every 1000Wh of nuclear power could be 2000-3000 Wh solar or wind.

If you’re about to lecture about “it’s not possible to have all power from renewable sources”, save your keystrokes - the majority of studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and industry – is feasible and economically viable. Again, this isn’t my opinion, you can look it up and find a dozen sources to back up what I am writing here.

This is all with current, modern day technology, not with some far-off dream of thorium fusion breeding or whatever other potential future tech someone will probably comment about without reading this paragraph.

Again, compared to nuclear, renewables are:

Cheaper
Lower emissions
Faster to provision
Less environmentally damaging
Not reliant on continuous consumption of fuel
Decentralised
Much, much safer
Much easier to maintain
More reliable
Much more responsive to changes in energy demands

Nuclear power has promise as a future technology. It is 100% worth researching for future breakthroughs. But at present it is a massive waste of money, resources, effort and political capital.

Nuclear energy should be funded only to conduct new research into potential future improvements and to construct experimental power stations. Any money that would be spent on nuclear power should be spent on renewables instead.

[–] justinh_tx@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Citation Needed

[–] Blake 35 points 1 year ago (12 children)

You can have this copy/paste from like 5 minutes of googling. You can also run your own study yourself by just googling "average kwh price nuclear" and "average kwh price wind" and see how it looks. You can also google "average co2 eq emissions total lifetime nuclear" and likewise for wind/solar PV. This is extremely simple stuff, guys. I am basically saying, "lentils are cheaper than steak" and you're asking for citations.

2022 Electricity ATB Technologies and Data Overview, annual technology baseline:

https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-nuclear-energy-good-for-the-climate/a-59853315

Wow look isn't it crazy how nuclear is the most expensive one?

Mycle Schneider, author of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report: "Nuclear power plants are about four times as expensive as wind or solar, and take five times as long to build. When you factor it all in, you're looking at 15-to-20 years of lead time for a new nuclear plant."

Differences in carbon emissions reduction between countries pursuing renewable electricity versus nuclear power, published in nature energy: "We find that larger-scale national nuclear attachments do not tend to associate with significantly lower carbon emissions while renewables do. "

[–] Iceblade02@lemdit.com 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

and this is a short intro to why a (60%/40%) split between renewables and nuclear may be the most accessible fossil free solution, and why the value of adding more variable renewables to a grid falls sharply the closer you get to 100%.

Also, the last article you posted is paywalled.

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