[kulahan]

Because solar and wind are extremely inefficient and dangerous when compared with nuclear. Nuclear and enhanced geothermal are both closing in on their dream forms (fusion and supercritical fluids), and are already sufficient as they are.

It’s not necessarily “over” them, it’s that it will get tons of attention because that level of power generation would take wayyyyy too long to build out and take wayyyy too much space before even getting into the fact that neither solution can work anywhere at any time.

Nuclear got a bad rap, but it is way too essential to ignore in this problem we’re facing. When the focus shifts, you can tell people are getting serious. Simple as that.

Edit: I did not realize this had somehow become a conservative viewpoint? I am a leftist.

[OKRainbowKid]

Can you elaborate why you think nuclear is more efficient and safer than solar and wind? As far as I'm aware, the opposite is true: Nuclear energy is far more expensive than e.g. solar, for which costs continue to go down. While I understand that nuclear reactors are safe (if handled correctly), history has proven that freak accidents can and do happen. Also, waste storage mustn't be ignored either. How are solar and wind more dangerous?

[physicles]

Gave you an upvote not because I necessarily agree, but to counter the downvotes.

I agree that it’s clear we need more nuclear, but could you explain why solar and wind are dangerous compared to nuclear? Did you mean that all the attention on solar and wind, which can’t be scaled fast enough and must be paired with grid storage, has screwed us when it comes to addressing climate change?

Also, calling solar and wind inefficient isn’t precise enough. By what metric are you judging them to be inefficient?

[kulahan]

Appreciated.

When I say more dangerous, it’s just a pretty simple calculation - per watt of energy, how many people have been injured/killed when producing energy via a given source. Coal is incredibly dangerous, as is gas by this metric. Nuclear is far and above the safest when calculating in this specific way.

Solar and wind are inefficient, by my definition, because they require large portions of land and cannot run with highly predictable outputs at all times. As a result, you need other solutions to complete the story - larger farms, more farms, large batteries, grids that easily transfer energy long distances, etc.

Nuclear is able to sidestep all of those problems, especially with the relatively recent advent of small modular reactors (SMRs).