You’ve set up a false dichotomy. It isn’t either nuclear or coal. It’s other renewables like solar and wind and they are eating nuclear’s lunch because they are just better in every way. The answer is neither nuclear or coal.

> You’ve set up a false dichotomy. It isn’t either nuclear or coal.

It isn’t a false dichotomy, it is simply the truth:

> https://haas.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/WP304.pdf

Germany is phasing out nuclear with the result that their regulator has to ban coal plants from being shut down and start building new gas plants.

I agree that wind and solar are the better power sources, but Nuclear is good at baseload in a way that renewables can't reproduce quite so easily. We also need to build sufficient storage eventually, probably when renewables have >60% or so marketshare for electricity.

But what if it is a dichotomy? Right now, the “answer” seems like it’s going to be coal and oil and natural gas and screw the planet, so I think we need every tool we can get.

I don't think it's an either-or scenario. There are other options and other factors at play. The assumption of global peace for thousands of years in a world dotted with world-ending bomb material is a big gamble.

The current politics of energy production and consumption, the state-by-state compartmentalization and lack of wider cooperation hampers cleaner options (spoiled-views NIMBYism and regional politics).

Wind, solar, and hydro coupled with transcontinental UHV power transmission could solve it with much simpler technologies.

> Wind, solar, and hydro coupled with transcontinental UHV power transmission could solve it with much simpler technologies.

Belarus just built a single nuclear power plant that reduces their natural gas consumption in the energy sector by 25% and saves 7 million tons of CO2 annually:

> https://twitter.com/RosatomGlobal/status/1323580827377258507

Just imagine how many wind and solar farms you would need to achieve that.

And, remember, neither wind mor solar provide baseload.

That nuclear power plant cost roughly $10 billion and took thirty years from planning to commissioning. Wind turbines cost around $1.5M per MWp and have a capacity factor of about 0.3 or so, so those same ten billion could have bought roughly an equal amount of wind power which could've most likely been built a bit faster than 30 years time. Of course you need to add some storage for baseload capacity which will increase cost a bit, but then again you don't need to save money for decommissioning a radioactive hunk of steel and concrete when the plant reaches EOL, you don't have risks of nuclear proliferation, and no radioactive waste, and you don't lose 2GW of generation at once for ten days when a couple of turbines need some repairs, like when that power plant's transformers exploded.

Southern Belarus seems to be pretty well suited for solar power too, which might even be a little bit cheaper than wind turbines.

Nuclear is not terrible for saving CO2, but the benefits are not as dramatic as you make them seem.

Baseload is the demand side of the equation. Sure, no single wind or solar farm can meet localized baseloads over a 24 hour period, like a single nuclear or hydro station can. However, given distributed solar and wind turbines at sites across 1000s of kilometres, working in conjunction with high voltage 700+ kV transmission, it is possible. Hence my assertion that the problem is social/political, and not a technical/physical limitation.

It is a priority problem at the core.

We need large scale green energy build out projects like we did for fossil fuels.

That is more of a grind rather than a big bang quick reward.

Think of it like leveling up to make ones character super robust as opposed to a few high power weapons.

Risks go way down, agency improves and future people thank us rather than regret us.