Investing in nuclear makes sense if we invent a time machine to start building the power stations about 20 years ago.
Since we don’t have time machines, what we need is to increase renewable energy production and storage capacity, in the fastest time frame possible.
Why not both? People have been complaining nuclear takes too long to build for several times longer than nuclear takes to build.
Because we don’t have infinite resources, so we need to make choices.
Well the great thing about it is that they both take different resources!
Also nuclear is just way more expensive than renewables, so we could build way more renewables than nuclear
Yeah but why not cut down the production time with the use of AI /s
Even if EU moves back to nuclear, where is the uranium gonna come from? Do we have enough within borders to have the independence? It seems to make more sense to import a shitload of PV from china. If we needed to make it locally, we could, just would need to be subsidized. Distributed power grid where everyone has their own mini grid for their home would also make it difficult to be trolled by the russian war machine that seemingly loves to fuck with civilian infrastructure.
The main issue with solar and wind is energy storage. If you have backup power through nuclear, then you can reduce storage quantities significantly.
At that point, the question is whether you want to start building infrastructure to procure fissile material or to build enormous batteries. Either one needs a ton of resources not readily available in the EU, in both cases you don’t need a lot of supply once the initial build is complete.
That could all change when Na battery chemistry becomes readily available, or is fusion power comes online.
The argument about the amount of time it takes to build (a) vs (b) is sort of moot, because the power generated is going to be used, no matter how much time it takes. It’s not like we are going to use less electricity in an electrified future, no?
The problem with EU and nuclear is of scale, nimby and bureaucracy. If we unify and simplify the certification process, and we build lot of reactors at the same time like France did in the 70s and 80s, then cost will go down significantly, on the same level as Korea, China and Japan.
Nuclear fuel can be recycled, we need to build an EU nuclear industry with that in mind. Uranium is cheap and potentially infinite if we get it from the ocean. Ukraine has uranium deposits. Canada is also a reliable partner.
