[mlyle]

> In the meantime, we build out the renewable generating capacity.

We're already dipping into times of negative electric power cost in places with high renewable penetration... and a whole lot of the rest of the day where storage is needed, and a whole lot of usages that are not electric yet which will increase demand.

Yes, more renewable build out is necessary and helpful. But it won't get us low enough in carbon intensity soon enough alone.

[ncmncm]

Diverting money from renewable build-out for contraptions that will not deliver any energy at all year after year would, then, be strictly worse.

[mlyle]

I'm not proposing diverting money from renewable build-out. But surely we can also build a few conventional plants for nuclear base load for all the additional heating, industrial, etc, demand we'll have as things electrify... and try a prototype design or two to gain information.

It's not like there's one purely fungible pool of resources to build all things and solve all human problems.

Diversity in approaches is way better than your all-eggs-in-one-basket strategy.

[ncmncm]

But money really is fungible. Each dollar tied up in building nukes is exactly a dollar unavailable for building out renewables. Furthermore, during each year waiting for the nuke to come online (if indeed it ever does, and is not cancelled after years of delays and cost overruns) all the dollars spent on coal are also unavailable to build out renewables.

Since each dollar spent on renewables produces several times the watt-hours produced by a dollar's worth of the nuke, diverting that dollar to the nuke has brought climate catastrophe that much nearer.

[mlyle]

> But money really is fungible.

Money is fungible, but the individual supply curves of different things you buy with the money aren't flat.

> and is not cancelled after years of delays and cost overruns

This is a super-disingenuous argument, especially since I'm guessing you're part of a faction behind the scene inducing many of these delays, cancellations, and cost overruns through objection to nuclear's safety and utility.

> Since each dollar spent on renewables produces several times the watt-hours produced by a dollar's worth of the nuke, diverting that dollar to the nuke has brought climate catastrophe that much nearer.

Alternatively, every year assuming that renewables will eventually be able to provide enough industrial and base load through storage, if in error, commits us more and more to climate catastrophe. You handwave away objections. Storing enough is going to be really really hard and may not happen in time.

Our extant example of a very-low-carbon grid has a big mix of nuclear in it. We may not want to commit to building the exact same thing, but I don't think we should totally ignore the example that has produced this outcome.

[ncmncm]

Delays and cost overruns are part of the graft economy inextricably connected with the nuke construction business.

Once one of these multi-$billion projects gets started, nobody involved wants them ever finished, because that is when the gravy train stops. So long as people are willing to pony up for overruns, they are happy to provide them.

That is why modular nukes never got legs: there is insufficient scope for graft.

The Finns finally had to finish their thing when it looked like the money would dry up either way. It will be interesting to see whether the French drag out theirs.