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by adventured
2455 days ago
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It makes enormous sense to have some diversity in the electrical generation system, along with the essentially guaranteed & dependable output of nuclear. It's an excellent backbone. The US could very easily get to 30% renewables (17-18% now), 30% nuclear (19%-20% now), 40% natural gas (35%-36% now), from where the figures are at today. That ends coal. Then push forward on reducing the natural gas share thereafter. 30%-40% nuclear and 60%-70% renewables long-term, would perhaps be ideal. We could trivially float ~$200 billion to build new nuclear plants and rapidly wipe out all the remaining coal power along with a modest increase in renewables and natural gas, rather than following the gradual coal decline route. 60 nuclear plants are giving us 19-20% of our power base now. It'd cost ~$200-$250 billion to take that up to 30%, assuming $7 billion each. Even if the cost were $10b each ($300b total), it'd be fine. The nuclear plants buy us many decades to keep pushing renewables higher. It's an irrelevant dollar price to pay, shouldered over decades (low yield debt), for the benefits. And it keeps our generation diversity intact. |
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