[throwaway894345]

Small Modular Reactor designs aspire to solve for this, but they're new and we need to actually get some experience building and operating them before we can really understand the economics and risks. We should be doing this stuff now so we can scale up quickly in the future.

[colechristensen]

You're not wrong, but any realistic outcome of going in this direction would take decades until it was at meaningful scale. We're more in a "we need to do things now" kind of situation, we should still put some resources towards things we won't have for decades, but that can't be the primary focus.

[throwaway894345]

Renewables don’t have a solution now either (no base load, remember?), nor do they even have anything concrete on the horizon, so they certainly ought not be the primary focus. So if not nuclear nor renewables, then what?

[colechristensen]

Renewables make up ~20% of US production.

In the summer months peak usage is near peak solar generation, and usage is as much as 60% higher than minimum daily usage. With the rise of electric cars, a whole lot of usage will be able to be scheduled for times of excess.

There is a lot of current room for renewables to displace carbon. There will probably always be some fossil fuel capacity for peaking plants and battery systems are already being deployed in places.

The point at which we have too many renewables and a gap in generation is a long time off, and possibly with battery systems and demand shifting will never happen. It seems like the time to solve that problem will be measured in decades, there's no need to say renewables aren't a solution now when they can solve a huge portion of the problem starting immediately.