[starfallg]

You can with storage systems albeit with lots of constraints. Having nuclear is important to guarantee baseload, but we can't rely on that solely either. With current gen nuclear tech, well also run out of fuel within a few generations.

[xroche]

> You can with storage systems

There is no such thing as storage systems at wide scale unfortunately

> well also run out of fuel within a few generations

Absolutely. But hopefully fusion will be around then.

[ben_w]

> There is no such thing as storage systems at wide scale unfortunately

I can’t find actual current annual production, only estimates for now and actual values for a few years ago, but we produced somewhere between 0.5 (what we did recently) and 1.3 TWh (what some people a few years ago thought we’d be at now) of batteries in the last year.

Given the likely usage patterns, this is already on a relevant scale to all 50 or so nuclear reactors currently under construction, and the expectation is that battery production will approximate rapid positive exponential growth at least to the end of the decade.

[oceanofsolaris]

AFAIK the running out of fuel would be a non-issue with breeder reactors, which are disliked for the proliferation risk they are. Well, trade-offs.

Also: currently, nuclear fuel cost is a small part of running a reactor. If nuclear fuel follows a similar cost/available quantity curve as other geologic resources, we should be able to find more once we start looking in earnest.