It is sad that this has become a topic of the culture wars. Nothing good comes out of this, certainly not a rational weighing of the pros and cons of nuclear power.
I’m particularly interested in how they plan to finance reactors in a grid dominated by solar. I wouldn’t be surprised if they legally allow the building of new reactors but then fail to find investors. But perhaps they plan on using them as some sort of strategic assets and will just run them at a loss?
> certainly not a rational weighing of the pros and cons of nuclear power.
Nuclear has no real cons other than time/cost of deployment, and it should be a no brainer for a place like Europe without significant energy resources. Once the power plant is built, it provides 50+ years of nearly free energy. It's that or buying gas from Russia.
Conspiracy hat time: I think this is the main reason it's being pushed so hard. The US and Russia feel threatened by the rise of renewables and will do anything to get countries dependent on them again.
This isn't right, in fact one of the main reasons for building nuclear power plants is independence from politically unstable places like Russia and the Mideast.
There are some better mines in different areas of course, but it is available across most of the planet. Processing it is way harder than finding a source of it, but that is also a solved problem, you just gotta put in the capital to build it.
But it also secures your energy needs independent from anybody else and still scales. Solar lasts a long time, but not nearly as many countries have the minerals for building more panels and batteries as they do uranium refinement.
What? Solar panels last virtually forever. The oft-quoted 25 years is for a 30% efficiency loss, they actually last way longer.
Any country that can figure out uranium processing can figure out solar panel production, and they are made entirely from common materials with advanced processing steps. I'm not sure about batteries though.
adrianN · · focus · HN ↗
I’m particularly interested in how they plan to finance reactors in a grid dominated by solar. I wouldn’t be surprised if they legally allow the building of new reactors but then fail to find investors. But perhaps they plan on using them as some sort of strategic assets and will just run them at a loss?
drnick1 · · focus · HN ↗
Nuclear has no real cons other than time/cost of deployment, and it should be a no brainer for a place like Europe without significant energy resources. Once the power plant is built, it provides 50+ years of nearly free energy. It's that or buying gas from Russia.
fl0id · · focus · HN ↗
someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
drnick1 · · focus · HN ↗
someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
AngryData · · focus · HN ↗
ViewTrick1002 · · focus · HN ↗
AngryData · · focus · HN ↗
someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
Any country that can figure out uranium processing can figure out solar panel production, and they are made entirely from common materials with advanced processing steps. I'm not sure about batteries though.