Re:Georgia nuclear plant begins splitting atoms for first time
by causi on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @03:12PM
(#35060533)
avoid proliferation risks
Proliferation risks seem like something we pretend to care about much more than we actually do. India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea all developed nuclear weapons with little more than complaining from the US.
I looked at the numbers for this Georgia plant extension. It cost something like $22B and took over 15 years to build. If such a new plant was started today it would not go online until 2037. Meanwhile you can generate as much total power (accounting for only daytime exposure) with $11B in solar panels, and if you spend the other $11B on battery and grid tied EV storage, you can both make the public happy by giving them discounted stuff while also meeting all of your overnight and weather related storage needs. And best of all that decision can be made tomorrow and you can see customers starting to feed energy back to the grid next month, not in 15 years when climate change is significantly worse.
I’m not inherently opposed to nuclear, but it’s hard to see the benefits of a single centralized plant versus a distributed system that can begin build out and operation immediately.