How does that follow?
How does using nuclear for some of our energy needs bias the rest of our energy sources towards fossil fuels? As opposed to renewables or even more nuclear?
Fixing climate change is both having enough energy to displace all fossil fuel we consume and being quick enough with the transition lessen the end state carbon content in the atmosphere.
Building nuclear doesn't prevent or slow the rest from transitioning to renewable. If anything, it can get us off of fossil fuels faster because it handles the base load.
I would suggest reading the study I linked so you can see the difference in methodology when credible researches in the field tackle similar question.
The credible studies are focused on simulating the energy system and market with real world constraints. Which unsurprisingly works out to be way cheaper when not involving nuclear in the picture.
If California simply continues their current storage rollout they will have 10 hours of storage at peak demand and 20 hours of storage at average demand when the warranties for what they build today run out in 20 years.
This would coincide with any new nuclear power plant project starting today beginning commercial operations.
If Vogtle, Flamanville 3 and friends had delivered on their promises in the 2000s nuclear power might have been part of the solution. They did not do it, and thus nuclear power never became part of the solution.
https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-batteries-apr-2024/
> h2 production is a pipedream for foreseeable future
When we get to the final percent in the 2030s we can utilize akin to todays peaker plants financed on capacity markets [1] but zero carbon.
Peaker plants today already run too little to be economical on their own, essentially what in our current grids constitute seasonal storage and emergency reserves.
Simply update the terms for the capacity markets to require the fuel to be zero-carbon. It can be synfuels, biofuels or hydrogen. Whatever comes out the cheapest.
As we electrify transportation we can shift over the massive ethanol blending in gasoline in the US to be our seasonal buffer. [2]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_market#Capacity_ma...
It needs to come down by 85% in cost to be equal to the renewable system.
Every dollar invested in nuclear today prolongs our reliance on fossil fuels. We get enormously more value of the money simply by building renewables.
> The study finds that investments in flexibility in the electricity supply are needed in both systems due to the constant production pattern of nuclear and the variability of renewable energy sources. However, the scenario with high nuclear implementation is 1.2 billion EUR more expensive annually compared to a scenario only based on renewables, with all systems completely balancing supply and demand across all energy sectors in every hour. For nuclear power to be cost competitive with renewables an investment cost of 1.55 MEUR/MW must be achieved, which is substantially below any cost projection for nuclear power.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192...