| > We have about a football field's worth of spent fuel sitting in casks and pools. That's not per reactor; that's in total in the US since we started running nuclear power stations Yes I know. Counterintuitively, this makes it politically worse, as people can imagine a football field much more easily than approximately the mass of Mt. Everest in CO2 every 5 years. People :P > Far more compact than batteries, Yes but irrelevant; assuming 20% efficient cells at 10% capacity factor, you can store 36 hours of output in a (~10cm~ edit: 1mm)[0] thick layer of battery under each cell (not that one should put the cells there, this is just for a sense of scale). > wouldn't compete with other large scale transitions that need batteries like electric cars True in some senses, false in others; they're both competing for the same investment money. > and would work even during either a week-long blizzard, tornado, or hurricane. Kinda, depending on the details. There are weather conditions that interfere with safe running of nuclear plants, and in the other direction if you have a large power grid (so all of North America except Texas), the blizzards and hurricanes don't affect the whole zone anyway. > Batteries offset the power needs from dusk to dawn, but most solar farms do not build capacity for extended (multi-day to week) outages. For now, sure; but that's a choice to go for low-hanging fruit first rather than an obligation. > A single tornado let alone a hurricane could wipe out gigawatts of solar or wind capacity. That sounds like a problem with planning permission or construction if the plants can't cope with wherever they happen to be installed. > Diversification in energy sources is a good thing. […] I strongly disagree that everyone needs the same solution. Absolutely agree. Even the fact that the average combined price of PV+LiIon being comparable to nuclear hides the variation in both (and those are just two options). > the US must take an aggressive role in reducing its own fossil fuel emissions within its borders, since those are the only emissions we can directly control. Diplomacy and economic incentives can only go so far across international borders, but building an maintaining ties overseas is obviously of great importance for that reason. None of this "America First" crap. Yes indeed. Thing is, I'm not American, so my perspective here is "appealing to American politicians only works if you can tell them what's in it for them", and a big part of that is jobs for people in their state, and that is something I can't map on to any particular power source… but I'll leave that to others, politics is so not my thing. [0] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=20+watts+*+36+hours+%2F... |
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> That sounds like a problem with planning permission or construction if the plants can't cope with wherever they happen to be installed.
It appears you do not live somewhere with extreme weather. How do you plan to protect hundreds or thousands of square meters during events? Is there some kind of new glass? Panels made of unobtainium?
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/06/27/baseball-sized-hail-...
As the Earth heats up, weather events like this will become more common, not less. It's not just a matter of the world's thermostat going up or down, truly destructive natural events already happen in these areas and are poised to become worse.
> There are weather conditions that interfere with safe running of nuclear plants
Yes, BUT those weather conditions will not substantially damage the plant itself, and soon after the extreme weather event is over, it can start delivering power again in short order (provided the power lines were buried and not on poles, but that's indeed a planning issue).
If 80% of the panels in a solar farm have been rendered inoperable due to hail, even after the event is over, you're looking at a long-term outage with the erosion of public goodwill that goes along with that it in regions of the country that are already skeptical of the government's ability to get stuff done.
No, thank you. I want something that can provide base load no matter what.