[maximente]

there's no time to ramp up on solar unfortunately. solar requires a massive amount of area and should ideally also be built for purposes of reuse, as they do expire and need to be replaced.

there's not enough solar and batteries that exist today to capture the needed electricity. and we need energy today - not "sort of in the future" - or else there are likely to be mass deaths starting in 2050 or so when clean water is due to become an issue, assuming status quo until then (which is highly unlikely as well)

[bryanlarsen]

Surely a ramp up of solar would be a lot faster than a ramp up of nuclear? We might not have the battery capacity now but we could build a lot of factories in five years if the demand was there.

OTOH I doubt we have the specialists available to build more than a few nuclear plants simultaneously, and each plant appears to be a 30 year process...

[AlphaGeekZulu]

"solar requires a massive amount of area"

This areas could be used, maybe(?):

http://projects.wsj.com/waste-lands/

(Has anyone ever calculated the size of radioactive contaminated areas in the US and how much power that areas could produce in solar?)

[pmoriarty]

"solar requires a massive amount of area"

The US, for instance, has massive amounts of undeveloped land. The majority of the population live in cities, which only make up a tiny fraction of the land mass (as you can see if you've ever flown across the US).

[bifrost]

Its undeveloped for a reason, its wildlife habitat. Nuclear needs no such wide footprint.