[ttfkam]

Everyone wants the lights and heat to stay on. If that isn't coming from nuclear, it has to come from somewhere, and for the first several decades, it couldn't come from solar and wind.

Coal was the inevitable base load power source given a lack of alternatives. If you focus on limiting nuclear with far greater zeal than coal, this is the result.

See: perfect is the enemy of good.

[EricE]

It still can't come from solar or wind. Even if we waved a magic wand and had infinite and free energy storage, scaling solar and wind for sustained base load support is still a pipe dream. We are struggling to recycle the minuscule waste stream for solar and wind right now. Heck for wind turbine blades we aren't even really doing anything meaningful - meanwhile they are stacking up.

Without nuclear we are not getting off of fossil fuels - period.