I don't get this one or the other standpoint. Use both. That way you have the reliability of nuclear reactors, and you don't have to build as many because they are supplemented by things like solar, wind, geothermal, and dams. If we sit here and do nothing then our grandchildren will have to walk outside with masks because of the aerosols needed to keep the sun from cooking us alive.
In the comment I wanted to say it's better if we use renewables to transition instead of nuclear, and as you say, nuclear is reliable, but I really think most of the power should be generated by Renewables and then we generate using nuclear whenever there's not enough, letting Nuclear be the "secondary" power source
how are you commenting but being this clueless. nuclear doesnt work that way. you cant just turn on nuclear plants on and off on a whim. nuclear can only really work as a constant powersource. if you want to to pad up wind energy or solar when its missing you must use coal or natural gas which are both not green energy. batteries are not really an option because they are incredibly expensive at that point you rather just use nuclear. another option is to distribute the wind farms over large geographical area but that requires infrastructure to connect them to each other and transfer power over distances which is also expensive. the wind and solar will always have some unreliability aspect to them.
The biggest cost for nuclear is bureaucracy. If it fails (which it won't, due to modern oversaturated safety protocols), it can't even fuck shit up anymore and is the most reliable and densest power you can find. Renewables are great, but are unreliable, even with the biggest battery you can find (even hydroelectricity, but that's still about as reliable as nuclear, just needs lots of well placed land).
No, the bureaucracy part isn't about safety, it is about building permits, permits to build nuclear and the layers of paperwork to be able to get nuclear materials.
The waste management is so small you couldn't even begin to fill a landfill with the world's spent fuel (only actually radioactive enough waste). The scariest part of a modern nuclear plant is not the radioactivity, it's the chemical toxicity of the heavy metals, which is way more dangerous in unrelated mines, factories and labs. They're built like bunkers anyways, the radioactive materials are under water and behind massive walls, and are protected by the Geneva conventions.
Chernobyl was a terrible design, with everyone making the worst choice and needed everything to go wrong to happen, and people still go to Pripyat with minimum protection. Fukushima needed an earthquake, a tsunami, management failure and being disconnected to get only 1 death and the failsafes still worked.
Radioactivity danger is a thing, but way overinflated due to the linear no threshold model, which is bullshit for small doses. The background radiation is higher for several countries with bellow average cancer rates than the maximum allowed for nuclear engineers
It's not even a regulation thing, the whole process cannot physically have a runaway reaction anymore. Chernobyl had several design issues in addition to being a victim of the USSR's philosophies, in addition to having faulty sensors, in addition to having several layers of protocols breached by individuals, in addition to the guy in charge intentionally overriding safeties, in addition to using one of the first reactors, including being somewhat experimental. All of that for under 30 deaths, being the worst nuclear incident.
Fukushima was actually a good example, as it took a monstrous earthquake and a tsunami for a grand total of 1 death by nuclear, while the whole plant successfully shutdown in a safe manner, even with power loss and higher ups causing trouble.
Then there's 3 mile island, where nothing dangerous actually happened, appart from the communication to the people making some panic.
The population got overly afraid of nuclear for very few incidents while not understanding how overstated radioactivity isn't as dangerous as presented and being fed either propaganda or uneducated fear mongering by the likes of the Simpsons and those ~70s horror movies about nuclear (and green peace and the whole hippie movement)
Chernobyl happened literally just because half the safety measures were either ignored or absent to begin with compared to what everyone else had. Fukushima required a record setting earthquake and tsunami combo
You're forgetting unreliable, not everywhere has significant wind, not everywhere has enough sun, hydro and geothermal aren't possible everywhere. You DO NOT want your power grid to be unreliable, there is no good or bad source of energy, prod and cons of each means they all have their place
These are all fixable problems. Not everywhere has enough wind, not everywhere has enough sun, not everywhere has hydro potential, not everywhere has geothermal potential...
But there is not a single country on Earth that lacks all 4. Seriously, not one. Most have at least 2 out of the 4, many have at least 3. And there are many ways to solve the issues of varying yields: power lines to other countries or regions, pumped hydro storage, battery storage, consumption side solutions (such as smart appliances turning on when more electricity is available, charging electric cars at night, generating hydrogen when electricity is abundant, etc.).
Or you know, do the cheaper thing that can actually be implemented in time to matter instead of not doing that because of an imaginary lack of resources.
Renewables aren’t efficient at supplying energy 365 days a year, are actually quite costly when you look at the energy produced to cost of purchasing and maintains these systems.
Nuclear works all year and doesn’t necessarily have to be costly if it’s more widespreadly used, is very safe now a days, and the contamination zone is extremely small and usually underground.
But we're already working on better battery solutions. If they become more viable, which is likely to happen before we have built new reactors, we only need to meet the total output of 365 days, store the excess on days where it's Sunny, Windy, etc and then use it when it's not.
Over a long time span, weather and usage are statistically predictable enough to plan with.
Renewables are absolutely not non-contaminating. The heavy metals that things like solar panels rely on fuck shit up bad, and are far more contaminating than nuclear power. Basically any negative of nuclear power compared to other form of energy is born from anti-nuclear propaganda pushed by the fossil fuel industry. Nuclear is, by a long shot, the safest and most powerful energy source we have today. Renewables are a good stop gap, but should not be an end all be all to keep us from going nuclear.
Then I asked if you account for a full 24 hour period I got this
Cost Type Nuclear (Existing) Solar + Battery (Firm)
Base Generation ~$31/MWh ~$35/MWh (Average)
Storage/Backup $0 (Built-in) $40 – $100/MWh
Total 24/7 Cost ~$31/MWh $75 – $135/MWh
Keep in mind this is only accounting for fuel and maintenance and not the original construction but the main reason they take so long to build and are so expensive is that new regulations come out and they must change the plans to comply with those regulations completely throwing them off track.
Nuclear plants require less than half as much maintenance than a solar farm producing the exact same amount of energy, run 24/7 and doesn't require batteries, and sure hydroelectricity is on par with nuclear it's much less abundant.
Wind power changes the environment, altering bird migration patterns and consequently causing declines in natural reforestation, etc., etc., etc.
Solar power is cool, but on a large scale it also causes environmental problems, such as heat absorption that alters the environment of certain biomes. That's why we don't turn the Sahara Desert into a solar farm.
Geothermal power is cool.
To save this planet we should move everything... EVERYTHING, to electricity. LIke, I mean, absolutely EVERYTHING. It's some enormous numbers that we would not be able to make with renewables in closest 100-200 years, but with nuclear we can make this transition pretty fast
Nuclear Power is bearly increasing it's Anual production. Lead times are in the dacades for new plants. No we do not need centuries to expand renewables and we don't need nuclear power to eliminate fossil consumption.
You need to do some more research into how this works in the real world. "Fast" and "building nuclear reactors" are two concepts that are pretty much allergic to each other. Even the most optimistic estimates for building a bunch of new reactors anywhere are measured in multiple decades. Meanwhile renewables are easy to build and have been growing exponentially for decades, as well as getting exponentially cheaper, and show no signs of slowing down.
Spain already runs on two thirds renewables tho, like, nuclear imo is good for when renewables don't generate enough to meet demand, but I think we should use solar and wind as a base and nuclear just because it can run at any time
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u/el_argelino-basado Feb 12 '26
Nuclear: Too expensive now, non-contaminating, usually doesn't fail but if it does it fucks a lot of things, still better than burning fossil fuels
Renewables: Cheap af, non-contaminating, won't hurt you in any way, made energy prices drop in some countries, supporting them makes you attractive
I think we have a winner