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by Reason077 2337 days ago
> "Nuclear fission plants take at the very least 10 years (!!) to go online from the day construction begins."

Yes, but that's what the small modular reactors being proposed by Rolls-Royce, and others, intend to solve. If successful, they would greatly reduce the construction time, risk, and cost of nuclear projects.
1 comments
neuronic 2337 days ago
It's a great project for the technology alone but isn't the projected time frame too late? Where will we be 10 years from now with renewables?

Also, if Rolls-Royce projects 2029 it doesn't mean it's done by 2029 and most certainly not wide scale deployed/operable. So what kind of renewable infrastructure and tech will be deployed 15-20 years from now?

That's what you have to compare it with.

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Reason077 2335 days ago
> "It's a great project for the technology alone but isn't the projected time frame too late? Where will we be 10 years from now with renewables?"

It's not a question of nuclear or renewables - we absolutely need renewables, and right now renewables are much cheaper, and can be delivered faster, than nuclear.

But there are regions of the world that may struggle to decarbonise completely without nuclear in the mix. Especially if you consider additional demands in the future from electrification of transport, building heat, etc.

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renaudg 2337 days ago
> Where will we be 10 years from now with renewables?

If the electricity storage problem doesn't get solved (which is a pretty small "if", since it requires a very uncertain breakthrough in physics) : nowhere.

In 10 years the climate emergency will be even more salient, but one of coal/gas/nuclear/hydro will still be required in the mix.

Countries that can't have hydro for geography reasons, and have shut down nuclear early for political reasons will be a liability to the rest of the world.

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Accujack 2337 days ago
Most likely in that time frame we'll be trying to get by on a mix of renewables and non carbon neutral generation from coal or similar, and we'll also have implemented limits on carbon generation that will effectively be crippling various industries and increasing the cost of various necessities worldwide.

We won't have a choice... it'll be down to either everyone accepting reduced quality of life or nuclear... at which point nuclear starts to look very good.

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