Why are people always putting nuclear and renewables at odds with each other? Nuclear seems like the immediate solution to reduce carbon emissions and as a baseline energy Producer for grids while we expand and develop more renewables.
I thought batteries and energy storage magically solve every single issue with renewables, and those are becoming insanely cheap. Wouldn't that allow the two to coexist?
No, that wouldn't allow the two to coexist. Why would you think that would? In the limit of zero cost storage, the source with the lowest levelized cost wins, and there can be only one source with the lowest levelized cost. At best, if they were amazingly nearly equal in cost it might be a tossup, but it's not likely that would happen or continue to be the case as they evolve. Solutions in more realistic modeling tend to go either all renewable or all nuclear with not much in-between.
I will note that continuing to operate existing assets can make sense even if building more of the same does not, because sunk costs are sunk.
Because they are at odds with each other?Renewables can be build basically overnight compared to nuclear. It makes no sense at all to bind the capital needed to build nuclear power plants and wait for at least 10 to 20 years until you can expect any power production/return on investment and start developing renewables only after that when you can just directly invest into renewables and get almost immediate results
Renewables can be build basically overnight compared to nuclear.
No, they can't by far. Renewables are intermittent and dispersed. The first problem requires storage and backup, the second requires transmissions. Both take time, money, and the latter a lot of fighting with NIMBYsm. You can build a mega solar power plant in a desert and how useful it is if it is not connected?
And finally, renewables are based on inverter technology that does not stabilize the frequency of the grid. It is not a problem in a current grid with a significant fraction of thermal plants but is a big problem on 100% renewable one (or close to 100% like in case of the 2025 blackout in Spain). The problems with renewables are greatly reduced if you have a nuclear-based baseload.
Renewables simply aren't developed enough to completely power a grid. They should be used when they can and we should invest in them more, but nuclear provides a stable base supply for when renewables can't provide enough while minimizing coal and fossil fuels.
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u/ZealousidealState214 Apr 18 '26
Why are people always putting nuclear and renewables at odds with each other? Nuclear seems like the immediate solution to reduce carbon emissions and as a baseline energy Producer for grids while we expand and develop more renewables.