[slibhb]

This is such a silly argument. Battery and solar technologies are progressing regardless of people building nuclear. It's simply not the case that we can stop investing in nuclear and use that money to accelerate battery/solar.

The best energy strategies are all-of-the-above.

[Arodex]

This isn't a silly argument, this is a problem of allocation of resources.

We could have had mass solar deployment since the 70s. We chose not to, and allocate the money elsewhere. Nuclear will take away billions in public money, put it into the hands of nuclear industries, to get electricity at twice the going rate, maybe, in twenty years. A white elephant and a waste of effort.

[slibhb]

We don't live in a command economy. Nuclear and solar both great and our only stance should be encouraging both.

[vablings]

That's exactly the point of SMRs. Do away with the huge capital allocation of public funds to overspend and overrun on infrastructure projects.

[hollerith]

Can you explain how that would have worked with the much less efficient and much more expensive solar panels available in the 70s?

[Arodex]

All the R&D and industrial capacity building we have done since the 70s could have been accelerated if we had invested in it as much as we invested in nuclear, or oil, or gas, or coal. With public money.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/5-hidden-ways-the-g...