this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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Battery tech isn't at the point where solar can support us during the night and on overcast days. Nuclear is still the most efficient, reliable, and safe form of power production, and modern reactors not built near areas of great geologic activity are very unlikely to cause any kind of nuclear accident.
Geothermal is great steady state load option that is also renewable, with no nuclear downsides. New systems use oil/gas drilling tech to dig large closed loops anywhere that output power in the 10MW range.
This is sick as fuck, I hope this actually ends up being viable because this blows other solutions out of the water. Genuinely did not know about this and I'm willing to bet most others don't either.
The point is that it's simply impossible to build enough nuclear reactors in time to have a meaningful impact on climate change. Even if somebody read crazy enough to put up the money for it. Which nobody is, so the whole discussion is pointless anyway.
It's less about building new and more about not shutting down old. But building new nuclear would also be a great deal better for the environment than building more coal- and natural gas-burning power plants, even if deployment is over a longer timespan. Solar panels only last a few decades, by the time the nuclear plants are done being commissioned the first waves of solar panels being installed today will already be too old. We don't need enough built to singlehandedly cover our energy needs, we just need enough to price out fossil fuels for good. Nuclear is supplemental to renewable.
And about putting up the funding, the whole point is to sway public opinion so public funds get used how the public wants them to be used. Nobody is relying on private investors to make the change carbon-free electricity while coal is still the cheapest option for reliable power.
Batteries are already cheaper than nuclear.
There are other ways to store energy than batteries.
No, the definition of a battery is a device that stores energy. Not all batteries are electrochemical cells, but any way you store energy is a battery.