>I think nuclear is cool tech but am doubtful it will play a big role in most countries since renewables are so much cheaper (1/3rd the price, so you can overbuild substantially) for getting to 90% emissions free generation.
Renewables (wind/solar) could be free and they wouldn't be able to support a modern economy - that's the problem. It's why wind/solar, today, do not even power a small city, much less a nation.
> Renewables (wind/solar) could be free and they wouldn't be able to support a modern economy - that's the problem. It's why wind/solar, today, do not even power a small city, much less a nation.
No energy source will support an entire modern economy, but like nuclear they can supply the majority of electricity for one.
>but like nuclear they can supply the majority of electricity for one.
OK ... If you want to claim that the future is wind + natural gas/coal - go ahead, but that's not what the public is being told. The public is told that wind/solar can replace fossil fuels, and they can't.
Here's the reality:
If you have nuclear, you don't need wind/solar - at all. In fact, you will not be able to use wind/solar, because nuclear can't be easily spun up and down to deal with the wind/solar intermittency. In your France example, wind/solar is pointless.
If you have hydro, and you have enough of it, you don't need wind/solar. If you don't have enough hydro, you need natural gas though you can optionally throw in wind/solar. Once you hit your geographic hydro capacity, the only way to increase is to build out your natural gas/coal infrastructure (regardless if you throw in wind/solar in there)
If you don't have nuclear, and you don't have hydroelectric, then wind/solar will not be able to replace fossil fuels. You will be forced to build out coal or natural gas infrastructure (or burn wooden pallets), as your Danish example shows.
- Portugal, which is blessed by geography that gives it access to hydro, but because they don't have enough, and they built out their wind infrastructure, need significant natural gas capability: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?coun...
I agree that wind/solar and nuclear are alternatives rather than complements. This is why I think little nuclear will end up being built outside countries like France which are all in on it.
As the cost of generating electricity from gas is mostly the cost of the gas its perfectly reasonable to have those gas plants built and operated 10% of the time so long as the total system cost is much lower than building nuclear.
There's an arguable case that for 100% carbon-free electricity (rather than 90% carbon free) the economics of nuclear are potentially viable, at least for places like northern Europe where you can't just build a huge amount of solar and 24 hours of battery storage.
But it seems far more important to decarbonise the grid as fast as we can and that means building lots of cheap renewables. Nuclear is simply too expensive and too slow to build. Which is a shame because it is cool tech!
Closing existing nuclear plants like Germany has done is an absolute disgrace. We should keep existing plants open for as long as possible.
And of course, if anyone can figure out how to build nuclear cheaply then build a bunch more. Then maybe they will replace the renewables currently being built as they end of their service lives.
Renewables (wind/solar) could be free and they wouldn't be able to support a modern economy - that's the problem. It's why wind/solar, today, do not even power a small city, much less a nation.