Note: I do not know if this argument against nuclear energy is valid. I'm submitting it in the hope that HN comments will help evaluate it.
Personally, I think this article raises great points. If we could rewrite history and have built a thriving nuclear power industry 20 years ago, we'd probably be in much better shape now, at least with respect to climate change
But that's not what happened. Given the current state of the industry we can't afford to spend decades trying to right the technical and regulatory wrongs of the past now that renewables are becoming truly viable.
France did that. It is not perfect but I would call it a success. France CO2 emissions are low [1], electricity is affordable, and suffered no major accident. France is even able to recycle nuclear fuel, and is generally among the world leaders of everything nuclear.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?s...
When you ignore the glaring problems with renewables? Sure... but why pay attention to rare earth minerals needed, massive problems creating massive amounts of PV panels, recycling issues, etc
We can't afford to let the burgeoning "savior" of our world continue on it's destructive path because the Religion of Renewables won't admit to the fact that it's Priests are doing bad things with children...
To many aspects and conversations turn into religious debates. PC? SJWs? Climate Change? Anti-Nuclear/Pro-Renewable? (or vice versa on all of them) all turn into religious debates with people who refuse to look at both sides of very complex issues.
You gotta love the whataboutism of the nuclear folks ranting about recycling issues of current renewable energy tech when nuclear leaves behind toxic material that has to be kept in a safe place for a long time surviving changes in government, potential revolutions, terrorist attacks, incompetence, greed, etc.
It will depend on location, but across the EU there are massive subsidies. Furthermore, recycling costs aren't included and are just starting to come to light with the decomissioning of the first generation of solar and wind generation platforms. Their limited useful life,bserious recycling costs and related pollution, and all of those on the energy storage required to actually make them useful for bade load are rarely a part of the discourse.
> I just don't understand why we're still talking about this when nuclear storage costs, even when included, are laughably optimistic
How so? Most of the problems around long term storage are political. The temporary swimming pools are still good enough for decades or even centuries to come, while projects on underground permanent storage are advancing ( most notably Finland iirc).
However, it's extremely difficult to determine how much of this expense is necessary vs. due to over-regulation or lack of innovation. It's easy to say that some regulations on nuclear power are probably unnecessary (cf. widespread nuclear paranoia); it's much harder to say which. It's easy to say that new kinds of reactors might be cheaper; it's harder to say what kind or how much cheaper.
ReBCO-stabilized fusion on the horizon throws another wrench in the prediction machine, as well. Who knows what that's worth? It was invented yesterday!
What's basically needed to bring the cost of nuclear down is scale, investing more in production. This is why new approaches to mass producing small scale reactors is so interesting. It should allow nuclear to get competitive with renewables, and having a diverse energy base is definitely a good thing.
Also, fusion holds the most hope for massively decreasing the cost of energy. It's a game changer, and it's close. It's possible that fusion allows things like mass carbon capture, powering reforestation efforts, and more.
The sheer capital intensity of nuclear is what hampers innovation, not safety regulations.