Nuclear promotion desperately ignores that there will be plenty of energy generated most of the time by far more economic solar, wind, hydro and storage. There will be no point to staff and run nuclear's thermal plants most of the time, its simply not a solution for occasional supply deficits.
Proponents say that the fracked gas that's inherently tied to intermittent sources is ok because it's a bridge and that the bridge is definitively better than low-carbon 24/7 nuclear. I think that statement is highly debatable.
Given how astronomical the challenge is (replace 84% of the world's energy with low-carbon alternatives, then scale up by 2-5x to allow energy impoverished areas to choose how they want to live their lives, then scale up more to start pulling carbon out of the atmosphere), we shouldn't put renewables against nuclear power.
We should be looking for low-carbon partnerships. Let's find ways to pair nuclear better with intermittent renewables so we don't have to build massive infrastructure of fracked gas.
[1] https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2019/03/01/californias-san-b...
Even a handful of articles about planning applications being declined is not evidence of your prophecy of significant price increases for solar and wind bound to show up, or just "big challenges" as you put it as indistinctly as it is unlikely.
Renewables are competing against nuclear power for finance and resources and nuclear is competing against renewables. Nuclear is never economically dispatchable, it does not compete for demand only while renewables are low, and renewables do not want to split supply with nuclear. They are competitors. So taking about astronomicals shouldn't fool anyone otherwise, but at this time its all the idea of cheap clean safe nuclear future has to run on.
Nuclear plants need sited away from population centers and on top of significant water sources and in regions where their local heat output will not excarbate problems of heat waves. They also require permanent protection in periods of national unrest since the costs of accident and sabotage can be astronomical
Solar panels and windpower will continue to get cheaper to buy and install, batteries too. Oceanic wind, solar and syn-gas rigs are a far more desirable and attainable long term development goal than a further generation of hundreds or thousands of water boiling top security nuclear plants for the fuel and power needs of the developing world.
That doesn't stand to evidence. The Browns Ferry fire in 1975 was the real tipping point for regulations. After 1979, the regulations and QA requirements were very serious. The improved quality cost the plants more up front but they benefited dramatically from the extra quality by increasing capacity factors from 60% all the way to 90%, becoming cash cows in the early 2000s before fracked gas pulled the rug out on electricity prices.
By your same argument, I can just as easily dismiss your prophecy that inherently intermittent energy sources will scale to world scale with no serious environmental, regulatory, or economic challenges.
I might also point you to Energy Return On Investment studies with high penetrations of energy storage. Have you looked into that? I recommend it. You might also want to look into economic analysis from NREL on intermittent energy sources at high degrees of penetration.
We need at least 10x more wind and solar. I also think it's appropriate to engage the only 24/7 low-footprint low-carbon tool we know of: nuclear fission. No point in tying our hands because some people feel that they don't like nuclear. Nuclear data is in. It's super low carbon. It's very expandable. And it's very low-impact.
EROI is the biggest argument against what you're saying. [1]
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X1...!
Its not some people not liking nuclear that is its problem, its few people are willing to pay for nuclear. Nuclears land, water, staffing and security costs are not low impact and not cheap which is why its not winning investments now, despite the powerful politics which likes to spend big money on near permanent assignments, and plenty of PR, nobody can justify it.
EROI of renewables is fine and continuing to improve. Nuclear's calculations always assume the plants will stay competitive and be run for 40+ years at full capacity (hello renewable competition again). Renewables assume the equipment will not be extended after 20 or cheaply upgraded, but they don't need to fiddle benchmarks they are already far quicker and cheaper to build and run. Fwiw good luck with something showing up.
> EROI of renewables is fine and continuing to improve.
That it gets worse as a function of the amount of energy storage fraction is simple to understand. I'd be shocked to read about other studies that suggest EROI with increasing energy storage is actually improving. Can you provide such a reference to your statement?
This peer-reviewed journal article linked above has the following abstract:
Abstract: A novel methodology is developed to dynamically assess the energy and material investments required over time to achieve the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources in the electricity sector. The obtained results indicate that a fast transition achieving a 100% renewable electric system globally by 2060 consistent with the Green Growth narrative could decrease the EROI of the energy system from current ~12:1 to ~3:1 by the mid-century, stabilizing thereafter at ~5:1. These EROI levels are well below the thresholds identified in the literature required to sustain industrial complex societies. Moreover, this transition could drive a substantial re-materialization of the economy, exacerbating risk availability in the future for some minerals. Hence, the results obtained put into question the consistence and viability of the Green Growth narrative. Keywords: Energy return on energy investment; Transition to renewable energies; Energy trap; Green growth; Integrated assessment modelling
Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Carlos de Castro, Luis Javier Miguel González, Dynamic Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROI) and material requirements in scenarios of global transition to renewable energies, Energy Strategy Reviews, Volume 26, 2019, 100399, ISSN 2211-467X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2019.100399.(http://www.scienc...