> There is no free lunch here
Indeed, however the risk induced at run-time and by its waste seems higher with nuclear than with renewables.
>> Other think that we may have to chose a "100% renewables" option.
>This relies on two things happening (one of, or a combination). 1) The grid is massively overbuilt, 2) battery storage massively improves.
A third quest is local production (solar roof panels and the like).
A 4th quest is energy and matter savings (less production => less nefarious emissions).
Also let's not neglect that "renewables" is a mix (solar, wind, hydro...).
As for the 1) (grid) we also have many subpathes, continental-level interconnections and smartgrid being the most prominent, all useful for all "sources" (even nuclear) and all already actively explored.
> The argument for nuclear is, again, based on what we have right now
What we have now is ageing nuclear powerplants (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#Franc... , this is also true in the US ) needing huge maintenance-and-security-related retrofits, and running projects of plant-building which fail or run massively over-schedule and over-budget (see Flamanville and Olkiluoto). Fukushima bumped up the NIMBY effect. Massive and expensive R&D done for 10's of years delivered no quantum leap (breeders, for example, albeit benefiting for huge R&D budgets, are in the mud since the 1950's... but some nuclear advocates consider them today as a promising path!).
Financing a nuclear powerplant becomes more and more difficult because it is very capital intensive and only realistic along with the aforementioned mass-production challenge, and the fact that the cost of renewable energy production falls sharply.
In other words one nuclear powerplant costs way too much, we lost the capacity to build it on budget and schedule, there are less and less sites willing to host a plant... and we need to build many (10x the existing capacity, for an all-nuke gridpower, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation#Methods... , given that it is vastly insufficient when it comes to our climate-related goal ) in a short timeframe.
Moreover, after 70 years of nuclear plant activity, we don't have waste long-term repositories, hence we will offer dubtious gifts to our children, and their children, and so on...
Is it really a realistic path or a dead-end?
Are we willing to bet on this or (XOR) on deploying on the 3 major leads summarized above? Each egg in the nuclear basket isn't used for the main 4 quests, and therefore isn't IMHO wisely used.
In France the nuclear sector maintains approximately 220000 jobs, and this is a huge factor for politicians (in order to be elected you better avoid to condemn those jobs).
> In the public discourse we only discuss electricity and transportation
Sadly this is true and I'm also concerned. We do "still need new technologies", however "I'm just not willing to put all my eggs in one basket" nor do we "want to bet too much on things going just perfect", and giving the urgency (we indeed need to quickly reach a "negative emissions" status) I'm convinced that the quest 4 cannot be avoided: we need to reduce the amount of energy and stuff we "use". This is the only sure method readily available. Most politicians and citizen hate it because this is a dark promise.
The potential for CC&S is limited in Europe. About this and some "100% renewables" approaches: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wene.128
There are even more ambitious plans, some not from crackpots: https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(19)30225-...
I'm not sure why this is relevant. France has constantly been one of the best in Europe and Germany has been one of the worst (revisiting my link[0]). I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here. That everyone can improve? Of course. That Germany cares more than France? Well probably. It is a much larger problem then them for France. France left their hose and all their faucets on over night. Germany busted a water main and their house is sinking. Makes sense that they are more concerned. Or maybe you're suggesting that German had a larger reduction in emissions? Congrats, they are almost at the peak of France's output. Either way, I don't get what you are suggesting here.
More importantly, why are you still thinking I'm anti-renewables? Have I not been clear on this matter? I'm also not convinced you're reading what I write anyways because we've addressed several of your concerns already and you're pushing claims on me that I don't hold and have already reiterated that I do not hold. I might as well quote the Jabberwocky.
[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...
I don't think you are anti-renewables, please quote any sentence of mine letting you believe it. I don't think that nuclear is part of a solution, that's my point here, and my arguments are in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24381421
Yes, but this is possible because Germany's emissions are amongst the highest in the EU to begin with.
Although Germany is making progress and can be commended for it's investment in renewables, more than 30% of it's electricity is still produced from coal (hard coal and worse, lignite), which results in one of the highest grid carbon intensities amongst it's European peers.
Building new nuclear is one thing (there are valid economic and environmental arguments against this), but Germany's decision to close existing nuclear plants, some with many years of life remaining, was a political and emotional one rather than rational and scientific.
Keeping existing nuclear plants operating would have allowed more time to develop and expand renewables, enabling coal plants to be closed earlier and reducing CO2 emissions faster.
Seems debatable because it seems that, in Germany, most/many (?) citizens are not willing to see nuclear plants running nearby.
It may not be rational. I think it is. There are counter-arguments, and counter-counter-arguments, and so on... up to the point of the debate confining to ethics/metaphysics: do we have the right to create long-lived dangerous waste? Or even the simple "do those who accept have the right to expose those who don't, given that nobody can behave in order to escape the effects of a disaster?" All this leads to much more generic debates (politically dangerous), moreover no politician wants to remain in history as the one who maintained some nuclear plant which, afterwards, caused a disaster.
> Keeping existing nuclear plants operating would have
... induced risks. Even field experts warn us about it.
In France: https://www.liberation.fr/futurs/2016/03/03/il-faut-imaginer...
In the US: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/i-oversaw-the-us-nucl...
I can change that to CO2eq/capita/kWhr and it is still true ([1] above shows that).
> Nuclear plants and their waste are dangerous,
I'm not trying to dismiss that. But you also shouldn't dismiss the impacts of other resources. There is no free lunch here. For example, heavy metal contaminants are stable and stay toxic forever. We likely have to deal with these contaminants similarly to nuclear (put them in giant sealed holes in the ground that won't ever have access to the groundwater).
> Some, in France, think that we should go full nuclear, and they fight for it.
I am happy to explicitly call them dumb (as opposed to my previous implicitness). They are clearly uninformed on the matter.
> Other think that we may have to chose a "100% renewables" option.
This relies on two things happening (one of, or a combination). 1) The grid is massively overbuilt, 2) battery storage massively improves. These things are possible. The argument for nuclear is, again, based on what we have right now and saying that we shouldn't bet too much on future technologies. It is too risky of a bet. This isn't a big problem for France because you are starting at a very good emission rate, but in other countries it is important because every day we continue to argue we use more coal and oil. Unlike France, we are a much larger nation that is much less population dense and that massively eats into our efficiency of our grid. As for France, I hope you can get to 100% renewable. Like I said in the previous comment, we will be cheering you on. France is what many of us envy. Where we wish we could have started from. Following that path 50 years ago the situation today would be much different. I hope we can get to 100% renewable. I do. I'm just not willing to put all my eggs in one basket.
> That is to say in order to only 'decarbonate' the energy sector (there are other sectors to decarbonate!) thanks to nuclear power the US should deploy ~11 times more nuclear power capacity than it already has
I'm really frustrated at how many times I've said "nuclear __+__ renewables" and you ignore the "+" and assume a "-". I'm sure there are those out there that believe it. I have implicitly and explicitly called them dumb. But if you believe that I am one of those people I would ask you to read my comments again or stop responding if you will not discuss in good faith. I have been extremely clear on the issue. The issue was the thesis of my previous comment.
> Electricity production accounts for 27% of CO2 emissions,
Even though this isn't where you were going with it, this is a topic I'm __majorly__ concerned about. In the public discourse we only discuss electricity and transportation. As per your source, that accounts for a little under 60% of the total problem. Worse, the US is only 15% of the problem (I remember a presidential candidate this year getting booed for saying that we need to do more because of this). 25% of this is land use and agriculture. Another 25% is electricity and heat. And 21% is industry. We can do a lot in many of these sectors, but we still need new technologies. Gates wrote a good article about the subject matter[0] (actually if you dig there are a few). I actually also heavily advocate for CC and sequestration, again because I don't want to bet too much on things going just perfect. And in fact we need negative emissions, not 0. If you listen to many of the climate scientists, you will hear this from them when they feel like they can speak freely. This is why they often talk gloom and doom, because what they can say without pissing a ton of people off is far from where we need to be.
> in order to reduce emissions we have to consume wayyyyy less energy and stuff.
The genie is out of the bottle. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. So maybe CC&S. Costly, but it can work.
[0] https://www.gatesnotes.com/energy/my-plan-for-fighting-clima...