[otikik]

I don't think we need to go over the externality cost presented by Coal, Gas or Petrol.

I'll assume that you are a proponent of Solar/Wind/Hydro. Which also have externalities, including human death, but let's ignore that.

But I am onboard with all of those. My problem is that I think solar, wind and hydro are not enough. We don't have a way to store energy in massive ways, so in order to account for cloudy days, non-windy days and nights, we need something else.

I see uranium filing that niche. If not uranium, what else? All the options I see mentioned are along the lines of "let's continue burning stuff, then, and keep adding solar/wind/hydro".

But that is what we are doing now already. And the temperature and CO2 concentration graphs keep going up. So, what is the alternative?

[Kon5ole]

>>We don't have a way to store energy in massive ways, so in order to account for cloudy days, non-windy days and nights, we need something else.

So we can build either energy storage or nuclear plants. Storage must surely be the better choice!

It seems quite obvious to me that it will be cheaper, faster, simpler and more reliable, not least because it will be distributed and we can engage many more people to the task of building storage than we can to the task of building nuclear plants.

Heat storage, pressure storage, gravity storage, hydrogen, methane, batteries, all so easy to make (compared to nuclear plants) that you can have thousands of "small town scale" projects going at the same time.

With few notable mega-projects, solar has still grown in capacity equivalent to several nuclear reactors per year the past few years. I think a similar thing will happen with energy storage.

It's kind of happening already (several storage projects are underway and some are online) but the results are good and it's early days.

[specialist]

Renewables and storage today. Nuclear tomorrow (hopefully).

We need all of it. ASAP.

It's "yes and", not "either-or".

[reshlo]

> It seems quite obvious to me that it will be cheaper

The New Zealand government estimates that a gravity storage scheme with a capacity of 5TWh would cost 14 billion NZ dollars to construct.

https://www.mbie.govt.nz/building-and-energy/energy-and-natu...

[specialist]

Advanced geothermal. Fervo Energy solved that problem. Now the challenge is scaling up.

I enthusiastically support any and all nuclear options. Especially traveling wave and SMRs.

Unfortunately, nuclear won't arrive in time to keep us under 2C. Fortunately, we'll still need it to help with going net-negative.

[hakfoo]

What is it about nuclear that keeps it from coming online quickly?

Is it solely regulatory red tape? Do we not have off-the-shelf designs (i. e. from when the French built scores of plants), or are they dependent on a catalog of no-longer-available parts?

I was hoping for modular reactors that were neighbourhood-scale-- the size of a a small shipping container, and able to be delivered rather than site built. Maybe RTG instead of steam-turbine for mechanical simplicity.

[butlike]

I imagine it's regulatory for fission plants. Fusion is still a ways off, in terms of us having net-positive energy, but is the "true" nuclear energy solution as far as I'm concerned.

The difference is a fusion's byproduct is helium, and if the core "melts down," it implodes rather than explodes. Fission creates waste who's half life is 4.5bil years (which is demonstratedly toxic to humans, hence where I imagine the apprehension for bringing reactors online is coming from)

[specialist]

I wish I knew. I'm sure I'm not alone.

My current belief is that it just comes down to lack of investment.

Compare the current outlooks of biofuels, "next generation" nuclear, and now green H2.

The IRA is building a H2 economy, from scratch. Soon, the govt will pay anyone anywhere a stupid amount of money to make "green" H2 (details are still being hashed out). It's stupid to not get in on the action. So that govt investment begat a torrent of private investment. And now we're off to the races.

Just like how the Obama administration bootstrapped PV solar and lithium ion batteries, in 20 years we'll look back at the passing of the IRA as the genesis of our H2 economy.

In their times, both biofuels and nuclear were supposed to be the next big thing.

But instead of forging industrial policy and committing to moonshot level investments, our neoliberals predecessors had faith these nascent industries would magically emerge from the "free market".