[lz400]

I don't think so. Fission is being killed by its lack of competitiveness and how long reactors take to build in a world where renewables are getting better so quickly people think twice about locking themselves up in a multi billion nuclear power plant project that takes 10 years to build.

[atemerev]

Fission was killed by cheap oil and fracking revolution. Thankfully, these things don't last forever.

[lz400]

Very cheap oil is very recent and it's an artificial situation created by pumping by OPEC countries. Fracking was only worth it because of how expensive oil was before, now it's not worth it anymore while oil stays this cheap. I think current fission nuclear tech is competitive with fossil fuels in the "fracking era". It's not competitive with current oil but that wouldn't kill it, just at most put it on hold until inevitably oil goes up again. Not to mention environmental issues, which massively favor nuclear over fossil fuels.

IMHO it is competitive renewables that is a death sentence for current reactor tech. Nuclear needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with more efficient and realistic designs.

[atemerev]

There are no competitive renewables. Photovoltaics can't survive at scale without massive government subsidies or screwing the environment like in China (choose one), wind power doesn't scale, and don't even get me started about biodiesel.

[lz400]

PV are pretty much competitive now without subsidies in current studies and getting better all the time. The "renewables are not competitive" is a thing of the past.

[atemerev]

Like I said -- only if you disregard the environmental impact and account for reusing the scraps from microelectronics industry (which is a good thing, sure -- but can't be expanded much). Crystalline silicon production is messy.

[maxerickson]

Isn't PV a primary market for silicon? Sure looks like it:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polysilicon_prices_h...

(the price drop is mostly a result of pretty big increases in production)

[lz400]

Environmental impact of PV is negligible compared with the alternatives, especially fossil fuels.

[petre]

PV and wind power cannot provide base load power.

[lz400]

Some studies beg to differ. Also improvements in batteries will make this problem much less important. And even then, they don't have to cover 100% of the energy generation, if they cover a significant % with the rest provided by more traditional sources, it might be enough.

http://redgreenandblue.org/2017/07/18/myth-baseload-power-no...

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/12/02/3081889.ht...