this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
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The concept of baseline power is no longer needed. Scientists wrote about that for years now. Battery storage and smart grids are growing faster and cheaper than nuclear ever could.
Can storage technology reach 100% coverage by 2050? Because that's the target for net-0 afaik.
If not, we should invest in something else to help us reach that goal, and Nuclear seems the most promising medium-term solution.
If there was enough funding or political backing anything could get done by 2050. That's a huge amount of time. Any time someone mentions a climate goalpost like that they are pulling the cloth over your eyes
Greenfield nuclear is (probably) not economically relevant.
Refurbishing existing NPPs has a LCOE on-par with renewables and gives breathing room for variability issues that will otherwise be absorbed by fossil fuels until that eventual transition to storage/smart grid.
Any discussion of nuclear's costs/profitability that does not distinguish between greenfield and existing/refurbished is agendaposting since most of the costs of a NPP are upfront.