This is what I tell them pro-nuclearists, who mostly, in my circles, tend to be engineers or tech-savy minds with a better-is-better mindset:

Nuclear is the mainframe. Let's just concede, for the sake of argument: the hands-down better, more reliable tech.

Renewables is the distributed. Worse but worse-is-better [1]. Setup and investment is incremental. Take down and/or upgrading is also simpler. There's huge traction in the battery and renewable tech ecossystem. The lower entry barrier makes it a competitive, highly decentralized market where costs are going down fast. There are "killer apps" and a constant flow of innovation happening everywhere else too, outside of power generation: from cars, to airplanes to homes. And it's all that swarm, and not a single "because it's better", that makes the renewable+battery duo the winner.

Maybe nuclear could have been that distributed, pop energy too, but the fact today, for various well-known reasons (regulation, monopoly, distrust...) it isn't. And, by the looks of it, it probably won't be in the future. Nuclear failed to capture the traction in the West for decades already. Just like the IBM mainframe it's not going away, and it's a perfectly good solution for some people (banks for the mainframe, China for nuclear in this metaphore). But most of us are heading into a "cloud" of multi-tiered renewable tech solutions and nothing can stop it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better

I generally agree with you, though I don't understand why we can't just do both. People seem to have a very "one or the other" mindset.

Also, it's fine to be pro-nuclear (I am too), but it's not fine to be anti-renewables (or anti-nuclear).

Because strategy A beats both B and A+B. It's either VHS or Betamax, not both. And this again has to do with worse-is-better. A+B could be wise in certain scenarios, but it's unrealistic as it requires double effort in all fronts, generates market uncertainty due to doubious messaging and no immediate gains in time or costs.

Solar has the huge problem of not being available when it's needed. Early in the morning and late in the evening. Until that is solved with some form of storage it can't solve the problem of greenhouse emissions.

> Early in the morning and late in the evening

That is solvable problem. Much worse issue is that in mid lattitudes (e.g. central Europe) it is not available (or just marginal) most of winter.

Ah yes, the "it's useless unless it's perfect" argument.

Nuclear has the huge problem of not being available for another decade (because that's how long it takes to build plants). Until that is solved with some form of pocket reactor it can't solve the problem of greenhouse emissions.

> Nuclear has the huge problem of not being available for another decade (because that's how long it takes to build plants).

At the very least we can stop shutting down the plants we currently have.

There is a finite amount of infrastructure that can be built at any one time: instead of shutting down nukes and building renewables to take their place, we should be shutting down fossil fuel plants and having renewable take over them.

Once all the fossil fuel plants are gone we can talk about nuclear at that point.

Running old 70's plants until they crumble and fail with "the mother of all messes" does not seem like an economic or sensible option.

You're not wrong, but good luck trying to get Gen III(+) and IV plants approved.

Hey, no argument from me there.

Yeah, no single technology can solve the problem yet. I don't think the build time is really the main problem with nuclear. If you could replace most of the coal and gas generators in a little over a decade the impact would be immense. Far sooner than I'd expect to see solar have a similar impact. But nuclear only works in wealthy nations.

The main problem with nuclear is the dangers of letting them get into a state of disrepair. In a politically unstable county it could be a real danger if they cannot secure the fuel or waste. A dirty bomb could be an environmental disaster.

Here in NZ many install solar and back feed the grid. They get paid to do so. But this doesn't help reduce emissions. During peak load the coal plants still fire up. We have significant hydro generation but require fossil fuels to deal with peak load. If home owners invested in batteries alone I suspect we could do a better job reducing our emissions.

> Far sooner than I'd expect to see solar have a similar impact.

Sure, and there's no reason we can't have both, that's my point.

> A dirty bomb could be an environmental disaster.

I live in an area with ~20 coal plants in a 15-minute radius and, let me tell you, a dirty bomb would probably have been cleaner.

Ok I’m curious. What sort of industrial area needs 20 coal power plants in a 15 minute ?drive?

Major aluminium production and mining , chinese crypto hub ?

No, nothing like that. There are just large coal reserves and this area powers much of Greece's electricity.

Has there ever been a dirty bomb anywhere? Is it a realistic concern? I don’t think it is; my opinion is it was drummed up by the US government and media in the post-2001 frenzy.