[stinkbeetle]

I've been hearing "nuclear should have been done 15-20 years ago" for 30 years at this point. Coal was dead 20 years ago killed by solar and wind too, turns out that we'll be lucky if we have passed peak coal today! And peak carbon is still a fever dream.

No, it's time for the anti-nuclear crowd to sit things out from now on. They've been continuously wrong for the past 50 years, the world should never have listened to any of them.

[Starman_Jones]

Nuclear is too expensive in ways that are effectively fixed costs. Solar is the cheapest form of power available on the market. I agree that we should have pushed nuclear 50, 40, 30, and 20 years ago, but now you’re asking the American people to pay more because something was the right call in the 90’s.

[stinkbeetle]

Yes yes that was exactly the same thing said 20, 30, and probably 40 and 50 years ago too. Was wrong then too.

[Starman_Jones]

No, it wasn’t. In 2008, I went to a lecture by a professor researching better PV cells, and it was, “here’s the benchmarks solar needs to beat to be cost competitive with nuclear, let alone oil or natural gas. As you can see, we’re nowhere close, but here’s what concepts we think can get us there.”

Meanwhile, nuclear’s appeal is that it can scale incredibly well. It’s not cost competitive with oil or gas, and certainly not with solar, but it can put out a ton of energy. With the sudden need for more and more data centers, there’s now a market for that. But solar is cheaper, safer, and is ready to go now.

[stinkbeetle]

Yes it was. I didn't say everybody said that, but the anti-nuclear / pro-carbon luddites sure did.