> California is side stepping the whole mess with nuclear by building out solar and batteries.
I like all non-CO2 producing energy sources: nuclear, solar, wind, etc.
For any given energy source, only a subset of territories can use it: solar needs sun (hello Alaska and Wyoming), nuclear needs strong governmental, engineering and public oversight, wind, like sun, is also not universally available.
Specifically California can do all of them, which puts it in a unique position to be choosy. I believe that by going with sun+batteries, California will pave the way for less rich but sunny territories for energy independence / less CO2 pollution.
It's okay in my mind to leave betting on nuclear to the states which don't have that much sun. I am looking forward to the TerraPower plant in Wyoming being built and hopefully more to come after it.
Solar works really well in the Alaskan summer. Winters you have to figure something else out. Alaska has lots of hydro, which is really common in that region.
So 5GWh of storage capacity would be about 0.6% of average daily usage. We're going to need a lot more than that to make renewables viable for base load. How much will that cost, how long will it take to build, and where will we mine the raw materials?
I like all non-CO2 producing energy sources: nuclear, solar, wind, etc.
For any given energy source, only a subset of territories can use it: solar needs sun (hello Alaska and Wyoming), nuclear needs strong governmental, engineering and public oversight, wind, like sun, is also not universally available.
Specifically California can do all of them, which puts it in a unique position to be choosy. I believe that by going with sun+batteries, California will pave the way for less rich but sunny territories for energy independence / less CO2 pollution.
It's okay in my mind to leave betting on nuclear to the states which don't have that much sun. I am looking forward to the TerraPower plant in Wyoming being built and hopefully more to come after it.