Or build more wind and solar. Already Des Moines gets 80% of its power from wind, and the state is building more all the time. CA is doing some solar steps, but it is taking a lot longer (on a much larger population, so I'm not sure how their progress compares). Most states are not doing much. Europe is also making some steps, but they could do more.
The key to all this is starting ASAP and building constantly. Iowa has been building wind turbines at a rate of about 2/day (a bit over 500 per year) for many years now.
> And they have problems with excessive heat in the summer, because they cannot be properly cooled when water temperatures rise.
Incorrect, the can still be cooled but rivers must be kept below 28 degrees [1]. Because apparently the fish in this one stretch of river are more important than global climate change. Perhaps the takeaway is that we should reconsider the acceptable impact on local environment given the impact on global environment. Similar deal with America lithium mines held up behind environmental review.
Low river flow means more of the water goes into the heat exchanger, and leads to higher temperatures. It's still ultimately due to of heating the river, it's not that there's insufficient water to actually cool the reactor, just that there's insufficient water to cool the reactor while keeping river temperatures below 28 degrees. Say there's usually 100 cubic meters per second of flow, and the heat exchanger requires 10 cubic meters per second. If flow reduces to 30 cubic meters per second that's going to raise the temperature of the river but the plant can still be cooled if the people in charge decided reducing emissions is more important than heating a stretch of river.
Whatever environmental issues caused by heating a river is tiny comparison to global warming. If say I'm handwaving environmental issues, yet you neglect to specify what I'm overlooking. If you have reasons to think that heating a river is more important than averting climate catastrophe, I'm all ears.
And lastly, plenty of nuclear power plants are cooled by ocean water, or by wastewater [1].
You realise there's more to GHG than just electricity generation, right?
I mean it's a big, low hanging fruit because renewables are so cheap now, but even after getting that done we have transport and agriculture and land use chemical feedstocks and old leaking mines and wells and on and on. Plenty to do.
That's why we're also electrifying transportation, should push for heat pumps in buildings, etc, but yeah, there's a lot to do. Not dealing with electricity doesn't help the rest, though.
Though if you take care of car based transport (replace with EVs and/or electric trains), and electric you have done the vast majority. The rest of just a long trail of small things that don't really add up to much together.
massive construction of NPPs, with the last big share of works taking place in the 90s. the large majority of them are still in use today. average NPP age in France is ~30 years.
this is what allows France to produce electricity at ~50-100 grams of CO2 eq. per kWh, a performance that is only rivaled by countries with also nuclear- and/or hydro-heavy grids. for comparison, Germany sits between ~200-600 gCO2eq./kWh (last year's average). Germany's grid is renewable-heavy, but also intermittent, relying on the use of GHG-intensive backups (coal, gas). [1]
The key to all this is starting ASAP and building constantly. Iowa has been building wind turbines at a rate of about 2/day (a bit over 500 per year) for many years now.