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Re:Solar and batteries to make up 81% of new 2024 U.S. elect... by megaman821 on Friday February 16, 2024 @08:45AM (#39396886)
People want a one-size-fits-all solution, nuclear makes the most sense for the high northern latitudes. Depending on the geography; wind, geothermal and hydro are viable too. Now if you are talking about Egypt, building nuclear over solar/batteries makes absolutely no sense.
Re:Solar and batteries to make up 81% of new 2024 U.S. elect... by weberer on Friday February 16, 2024 @11:22AM (#39399083)
Yeah, I just don't like how people here are providing a false dichotomy of "renewables vs nuclear" instead of "renewables+nuclear vs fossil fuels". We should put solar panels on every rooftop so we're not throwing away that free* energy, while having nuclear plants as baseload power to smooth out the duck curve. Polar regions need to slide the scale more toward nuclear, while the equatorial regions can go mostly solar.

*free as in beer

Re:Solar and batteries to make up 81% of new 2024 U.S. elect... by asadotzler on Saturday February 17, 2024 @01:09AM (#39406882)
The main reason for me that your scenario isn't ideal is that if we can pull it off, renewables remove significant risk compared to nuclear. When football field of batteries goes up in smoke, some battery money is lost. When a Fukushima happens, an economy can be lost, and a nontrivial number of lives. Thousands or tens of thousands of lives, hundreds of billions or trillions in damages, nah, I'd like to opt out and instead do the extra work to make renewable and safer sources happen. That's how I vote. If you live above the arctic circle you'll likely vote differently and hopefully your next meltdown doesn't reach my shores.